James P. Lantolf  教授简介

The Greer Professor in Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics in the Department of Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University. He is Director of the Center for Language Acquisition, and Director of CALPER (Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research) Penn State’s Title VI Language Resource Center. He was president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (2005), served as co-editor of Applied Linguistics(1993-1998), and is founding editor of Language and Sociocultural Theory, Equinox Press. He is recipient of the AAAL Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award (2016). His research focuses on sociocultural theory and second language development in classroom settings. He is co-author of Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development (2006), Oxford University Press. His 2014 co-authored book, Sociocultural theory and the pedagogical imperative: Vygotskian praxis and the L2 research/practice divide (Routledge) was awarded the Mildenberger Prize of the Modern Language Association of America for its contribution to the teaching of language and culture. He edited Sociocultural theory and second language learning (2000), Oxford University Press, and co-edited Vygotskian approaches to second language research (1994), Ablex Press, and Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages (2008), Equinox Press, and is currently working on the co-edited Routledge Handbook on Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. He has been visiting professor at several international universities and currently holds honorary professorships at the University of Hong Kong and Xi’an JiaoTong University in China. In 2016 he was named Yangtze River Professor in Applied Linguistics at JiaoTong University.

讲座简介： 

While systematic observation of behavior of language learners in the everyday world, including classrooms, has provided important information on psycholinguistic processes that underlie language development, many SLA researchers argue that controlled experimentation under (quasi-)laboratory conditions is necessary to uncover the full range and depth of these processes. A key aspect of experimental research is its commitment to quantitative analysis, on the assumption that quantification is the hallmark of scientific investigation. Vygotsky (1978), on the other hand, argued that transferring research methods developed for one science into another science is problematic, particularly with regard to transitioning from the natural to the human sciences, including psychology. He proposed, instead, a new methodological approach to psychological research anchored in materialist dialectics. Vygotsky proposed a new type of experimentation--experimental-developmental method--which, among other things, eschews quantification in favor of qualitative experimentation (Toolman, 2015) and which recognizes the dialectical unity and mutual influence of theory and practice in psychological and psycholinguistic research. The presentation will explain with examples from laboratory and classroom studies how Vygotsky’s dialectical orientation to research is realized in the investigation of L2 development and will consider the types of evidence for development that emerges from this perspective.