Social indexicality and L2 speech development

Abstract

The propensity to see language as a construction that provides social cues has great implications for both societal structure and human psychological processes, including first and second language development and attrition. In this regard, social indexicality, for instance, has been shown to play a crucial role in L2 speech development. Even though some branches of linguistics embrace social indexicality in their machinery and predictions (e.g., sociolinguistics, sociophonetics), the addition of social variables in the area of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and in Psycholinguistics might be seen as recent and limited. Considering that psycholinguistics should start including social indexicality when addressing language learning, this theoretical research article aims at exploring and drawing attention to the relationship between psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics with regard to L2 speech development. In order to do so, it provides an outline of the research agenda of L2 speech development as situated in psycholinguistics. It then discusses the role of social indexicality in bilingual development. Finally, the article advocates the Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) as a fruitful paradigm to anchor such an interface, since it includes both cognitive and social aspects in its core.