The interactionist approach (sociocultural theory) combines ideas from sociology and biology to explain how

language is developed. According to this theory, children learn language out of a desire to communicate with the
world around them. Language emerges from, and is dependent upon, social interaction. The Interactionist
approach claims that if our language ability develops out of a desire to communicate, then language is dependent
upon whom we want to communicate with. This means the environment you grow up in will heavily affect how
well and how quickly you learn to talk. For example, infants being raised by only their mother are more likely to
learn the word “mama”, and less likely to develop “dada”. Among the first words we learn are ways to demand
attention or food. If you’ve ever tried to learn a new language, you may recognize this theory’s influence. Language
classes often teach commonly used vocabulary and phrases first, and then focus on building conversations rather
than simple rote memorization. Even when we expand our vocabularies in our native language, we remember the
words we use the most.

From birth, children are surrounded by others who talk to them or with them. This communication plays a part in
how the baby learns to speak his or her native language. Some argue that “nature” is entirely responsible for how
a baby learns a language, while others argue that “nurture” is responsible for how a baby picks up his or her
mother tongue. The idea behind interactionist theory is that the way a baby learns a language is both biological
and social.

Everyone loves to coo at babies, and this “baby talk” is exposing the child to language, whether we realize it or not.
Interactionists believe that children are born with brains that predispose them to the ability to pick up languages
as well as with a desire to communicate. Some Interactionists even argue that babies and children cue their
parents and other adults into giving them the linguistic exposure they need to learn a language. The Interactionist
Theory posits that children can only learn language from someone who wants to communicate with them.

Perhaps two of the biggest names in the Interactionist Theory of language acquisition are Lev Vygotsky and Jerome
Bruner.

Vygotsky and Bruner

Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, created a model of human development now called the sociocultural model. He
believed that all cultural development in children is visible in two stages. First, the child observes the interaction
between other people and then the behavior develops inside the child. This means that the child first observes the
adults around him communicating amongst themselves and then later develops the ability himself to
communicate. Vygotsky also theorized that a child learns best when interacting with those around him to solve a
problem. At first, the adult interacting with the child is responsible for leading the child, and eventually, the child
becomes more capable of problem solving on his own. This is true with language, as the adult first talks at the child
and eventually the child learns to respond in turn. The child moves from gurgling to baby talk to more complete
and correct sentences.

Bruner, best known for his discovery learning theory, believes that learners, whether they are adults or children,
learn best when they discover knowledge for themselves. He believes that students retain knowledge best when it
is something they have discovered on their own. Bruner argues that an adult and an infant have conversations
despite the child being unable to speak. The interaction between the two, such as games and non-verbal
communication, build the structure of language long before the child is able to communicate verbally. Social
interactionist theory is an explanation of language development emphasizing the role of social interaction between
the developing child and linguistically knowledgeable adults. It is based largely on the socio-cultural theories of
Soviet psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky created a model of human development now called the sociocultural
model. He

believed that all cultural development in children is visible in two stages:

· First, the child observes the interaction between other people and then the
behavior develops inside the child. This means that the child first observes the

adults around him communicating amongst themselves and then later develops the

ability himself to communicate.

· Vygotsky also theorized that a child learns best when interacting with those around

him to solve a problem. At first, the adult interacting with the child is responsible for

leading the child, and eventually, the child becomes more capable of problem

solving on his own. This is true with language, as the adult first talks at the child and eventually the child learns to
respond in turn. The child moves from gurgling to baby talk to more complete and correct sentences.

The Development of Productive Knowledge of Vocabulary

64

cognitive development as a relatively solitary act. Biological timetables and stages ofdevelopment were basic;
social interaction was claimed only to trigger development atthe right moment in time. On the other hand,
Vygotsky (1978, cited in Brown, 2000)maintained that social interaction was fundamental in cognitive
development andrejected the notion of predetermined stages. Hickmann (1986) concluded that in thecognitive
perspective of Piaget, social interaction is given a secondary role, whereas in

Vygotsky’s perspective, so

cial interaction is primary for development. Therefore,Vygotsky and Piaget differ in how they relate social
interaction to language acquisition.For Piaget, language has propositional and context-independent properties and
it is atool for abstract reasoning. Context and social functions of language have been given asecondary role in
acquisition. In the perspective of Piaget, different stages in the childdevelopment are hierarchically related to each
other, so that moral reasoningpresupposes role-taking skills which presupposes, in turn, logico-mathematical

reasoning. In Vygotsky’s perspective, context

-dependent and social interaction isprimary in language acquisition. He claims that meaning is socially constructed
andemerges out of the learner interactions with his/her environment (Vygotsky 1978, citedin Kaufman 2004).

INTERACTIONIST APPROACH

Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991, p. 266) argue that the interactionist views are more

powerful than other theories “because they invoke both innate and environment

al

factors to explain language learning”. They are the first to view language not only as a

matter of syntactic structures but also as a matter of discourse. Vygotsky, a psychologistresponsible for the
foundation of the social interactionist theory states that meaningfulinteraction with others is the basis of new
knowledge acquisition (Vygotsky, 1987).According to Brown (2000), Vygotsky proposed the zone of proximal
development(ZPD), where learners construct the new language through socially mediatedinteraction. Learning
must take into account the socio-cultural features and daily lifeexperiences of a person. In a social interactionist
view, knowledge develops firstthrough social interaction and then becomes an internalized part of the
cognitivestructure of the learner.To date, the role of social interaction in L2 acquisition has received very
differentinterpretations in research, ranging from what can be considered a strong to a weakconception of this
role. According to Mondada and Doehlier (2004) the weak version ofthe interactionist approach acknowledges
that interaction is beneficial (or evennecessary; e.g., Gass & Varonis, 1985) for learning by providing occasions for
learners tobe exposed to comprehensible, negotiated, or modified input (e.g., Long, 1983, 1996).This framework
basically assumes that social interaction plays an auxiliary role,providing momentary frames within which learning
processes are supposed to takeplace. Contrary to this position, the strong version of the interactionist approach

recognizes interaction as a fundamentally constitutive dimension of learners’ everyday

lives. That is, interaction is the most basic site of experience, and hence functions as the

Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2014, 1(1)

65

most basic site of organized activity where learning can take place. In this view, socialinteraction provides not just
an interactional frame within which developmentalprocesses can take place; as a social practice, it involves the
learner as a co-constructorof joint activities, where linguistic and other competencies are put to work within
aconstant process of adjustment vis-à-vis other social agents and in the emergingcontext. This position is typically
adopted by conversationalist or socioculturalapproaches to L2 acquisition (Mondada & Doehlier, 2004, p. 502).The
Social Interactionist theory does not neglect the previous theories, but gives anadditional social perspective of
language acquisition. According to Gass (1997) theinteractionist approach has paid particular attention to the
nature of the interactions L2learners typically engage in. It has focused on investigating, for example, the role
ofnegotiation for meaning in the context of NS-NNS (Native Speaker - Non-NativeSpeaker) conversations.

Long’s (1985)

idea that comprehensible input is necessary forsecond language acquisition forms a basic tenet of the
interactionist position. However,interactionists view the communicative give and take of natural conversations
betweennative and non-native speakers as the crucial element of the language acquisitionprocess. Their focus is
on the ways in which native speakers modify their speech to tryto make themselves understood by English-
learning conversational partners.Interactionists are also interested in how non-native speakers use their
(budding)knowledge of the new language to get their ideas across and to achieve theircommunicative goals. This
trial-and-error process of give-and-take in communication aspeople try to understand and be understood is
referred to as the

negotiation ofmeaning. As Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1994) maintain, in the interactionist approach, therole of
feedback given to learners when they make mistakes has also been the object ofattention.Lyster and Ranta
(1997)found that the most common feedback given tolearners when they produce incorrect forms are recasts, i.e.
a repetition of the learner'sutterance minus the error; however, they also found that recasts were the kind
ofnegative feedback learners were most likely to ignore.According to Swain (1985) in addition to the importance
placed on social interaction,some researchers have looked more closely at output, or the speech produced
byEnglish language learners, as an important variable in the overall language acquisition

process. Language learner’s output can serve to elicit modification of input from

conversational partners to make it more comprehensible.

The most obvious manifestation of the interactionist approach is Long’s interaction

hypothesis which is discussed in detail below.

INTERACTION HYPOTHESIS
The interaction hypothesis developed on the basis of the social constructivist andinteractionist theories of
language learning was introduced by Long in 1996. The wordinteraction, in this context, refers to the interaction
between the language learner and

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66

their teacher, other native speakers and nonnative speakers. Reynolds (2009) states

that Long’s interaction hypothesis compared to Krashen’s notion of input is an

interactionist theory by contending that input in general is made comprehensiblethrough modified interaction,
essentially, the negotiation of meaning that occursbetween the language learner and their teacher or other native
speaker or theinterlocutors to arrive at the appropriate level of language input. Krashen (1987) saidthat there are
three ways to obtain comprehensible input: context, simplified input andinteraction. He hypothesized that
language data which could be understood but with a

slight effort, and which were slightly more advanced than the learner’s level of

understanding (i+1), fostered learning. Although the importance of this concept ofcomprehensible input was
considered paramount by many researchers, and became adominant theme in Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
theories, interactionist criticspointed to some of its insufficiencies. They doubted that mere exposure to input,
even ifcomprehensible, could promote language learning. Long (1980, cited in Ellis 1999)agreed with Krashen that
comprehensible input is necessary for acquisition, but he

asserted the importance of “modified input”. In Long’s view, the comprehensible input,

pa

ramount in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, is the result of “modified interaction”. Long

(1985) maintains that it is becoming clearer that in order for learners to successfullyconstruct their own learner-
language, conversation and interaction in social contextsmust play a central role in the acquisition process.
Reynolds (2009) adds that, clearly,

this mechanism is reminiscent of Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development.

Moreover, the emphasis on learner language and interaction reflects socialconstructivist learning theory in
general. According to Lightbown and Spada (1999, p.

43) the interaction hypothesis posits a three‐step process: (a) Interactional

modification makes input comprehensible; (b) Comprehensible input promotesacquisition; (c) Therefore,
interactional modification promotes acquisition.

Lightbown and Spada (1999) continue to elaborate three types of modified interactionthat facilitate the creation of
comprehensible input: 1) comprehension checks

wherethe native speaker (NS) makes sure

that the non‐native speaker (NNS) understood, 2)

where the NNS ask the NS to clarify, and 3) self-repetition orparaphrase

the native speaker or the non-native speaker repeat their sentenceseither partially or in their totality. In addition
to this classification, Long (1983)considers some other conversational modifications including:

THE ROLE OF INTERATION IN LEARNING

In language learning social interaction with peers is seen as an essential part oflanguage and improves the
cognitive development of those involved in this activity. Inthe area of language teaching, it is obvious that all the
communicative approaches havepaid a special attention to the role of interaction in classroom. The most
widespreadcommunicative approach namely task-based language teaching has been developed onthe basis of this
crucial concept. It is believed that through interaction, learners canenhance both their cognitive abilities as well as
their productive skills in language.Within the domain of social interactionist approach different researchers
haveemphasized the role of interaction in language learning. Hatch (1978, p. 404) maintains

that “one learns how to do conversation, one learns how to interact verbally, and out of

this interaction syntactic structures are developEd”. Interaction helps learners to enhance their language
proficiency as Vygotsky (1987, cited in Ormrod, 2003, p. 38) states “the range of tasks that children cannot yet
perform independently but canperform with the help and guidance of others”. According to Gass (1997, p. 104)
“conversation is not just a medium of practice; it is also the means by which learningtakes place”. Furthermore,
interactionists contend that face -to-face interactions plays asignificant role in language learning because it
provides learners with opportunities toorally produce language, engage in negotiation and to receive negative
feedback (Ellis,2003).Ellis (1994) defines interaction as when the participants of equal status that sharesimilar
need, make an effort to understand each other. If role relationship isasymmetrical, meaning negotiation is
inhibited. He says that some other factors thatinfluence interaction, except status, are: the nature of the task,
characteristics ofparticipants and participant structure. Today, with the focus on “process” in the path of language
acquisition, it is believed that language is emerged through interaction andnegotiation for meaning.

Definition

The theory that language is acquired from an interaction of a human’s innate biological capabilities to acquire
language with exposure to language in the environment in which the child is developing.

Description

The interaction theory of language development is a compromise between the nativist theory and the behaviorist
theory of language development. The interaction theory recognizes that both environmental and biological factors
are important in language development [2]. Within this theory of compromise are theorists who are closer to one
end of the extreme than the other. However, all interactionists believe that language acquisition occurs as a result
of the natural interaction between children and their environment, more specifically, their parents or caregivers.

For example, interactionists believe that language is a byproduct of children’s social interactions with the
important people in their lives. Vygotsky [4] believed that children developed thought and language...