THE COMPLEXITY OF LANGUAGE LEARNING

This paper takes a complexity theory approach to looking at language learning, an approach that investigates how language learners adapt to and interact with people and their environment. Based on interviews with four graduate students, it shows how complexity theory can help us understand both the situatedness of language learning and also commonalities across contexts by examining language learning through the lenses of emergence, distribution, and embodiment. These lenses underscore the perspective that language learning emerges from unique interactions, is distributed across social networks, and is embodied in individuals. Consequently, this paper concludes that it is not sufficient to study cognitive processes, activities, and situated learning alone; in addition, research must consider how learners ’ interactions and adaptations are embodied, distributed, and emergent in ecologies of complex systems. Key Words: language learning, complexity theory, English as a second language, writin