DOI 10.

1515/applirev-2012-0009

Applied Linguistics Review 2012; 3(2): 195210

Diane Larsen-Freeman

On the roles of repetition in language teaching and learning1

Abstract: Repetition is common in language use. Similarly, having students r epeat is a common practice in language teaching. After surveying some of the better known contributions of repetition to language learning, I propose an i nnovative role for repetition from the perspective of complexity theory. I argue that we should not think of repetition as exact replication, but rather we should think of it as iteration that generates variation. Thus, what results from iteration is a mutable state. Iteration is one way that we create options in how to make meaning, position ourselves in the world as we want, understand the differences which we encounter in others, and adapt to a changing context. Keywords: repetition, iteration, complexity theory, variation, adaptation

Diane Larsen-Freeman: University of Michigan, USA. E-mail: dianelf@umich.edu

Introduction
Repeat after me is a familiar language teacher command. Despite the fact that behaviorism has been largely discredited as a language learning theory, this r efrain endures. As DeKeyser (2007) notes, repetition continues to be an important element of teachers praxis all over the world. This leaves me to wonder what repetition has to contribute to a post-behaviorist approach to teaching, one in which language is no longer construed as purely verbal behavior resulting from a repetition of some stimulus. Certainly, as a language learner I can vouch for a desire to hear my teacher say something again and again so that I can somehow capture what I am hearing and hold onto it for a little while. The obvious answer, therefore, is that repeating something that a teacher has said is an aid to working memory. In this article, I
1This article is based on a plenary address delivered at the British Association of Applied Linguistics Conference, Bristol, 13 September 2011. I wish to thank Marjolijn Verspoor and Kees de Bot for helping me make more complete my original inchoate thoughts on the importance of variation and to Amy Ohta for her comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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will explore memory enhancement and other roles for repetition in language teaching and learning. Some of them have long been known, such as the role of repetition in rote learning. Other functions of repetition have been more recently addressed from a more cognitive perspective in the second language learning (SLL) and second language teaching (SLT) literature. Language teaching methodologists have also weighed in on the value of repetition in different ways. Finally, drawing on complexity theory, I will suggest that repetition has another role to play, an unexpected one perhaps, not in ensuring replication, but rather in generating variation.

A selective survey of the literature

It would be foolhardy of me to attempt a comprehensive review of the vast literature on repetition. There are books that do this well.2 I will therefore only selectively recount a little of the work for the purpose of distinguishing the type of repetition I wish to discuss in this article. Perhaps the first association with repetition in readers minds involves its use as a literary device. Becker (1984), for instance, has shown how repeated sounds and words in poetry convey a message or create an image for readers and l isteners. Of course, it is not only in literature where repetition has a contribution to make. In everyday oral discourse, it is known to facilitate the development of a relationship among interlocutors and to contribute coherence to conversations (Tannen 1987). Repetition has also been seen to play an important role as a pragmatic resource for first language learners. Whereas researchers for years accepted the prevailing view that repetition did not contribute to language acquisition, toward the end of the 1970s, Keenan (1977) showed how important repetition was in satisfying L1 acquirers communicative needs. Weir (1962) and Kuczaj (1983) documented repeated patterns in childrens language play, both social and private, as they acquire their L1. This finding was corroborated for second language learners as well. For instance, Peck (1977) demonstrated how repetition in young L2 learners language play facilitated the childrens interaction with native speakers (see also Palotti 2000). Apparently, the repetition that takes place between and among children at play helps children to achieve intersubjectivity and may contribute to their later academic success (Rydland and Aukrust 2005).

2See, for example, the two volumes edited by Johnstone (1994) and the one by Bazzanella (1996).

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Of course, children acquiring a second language do not repeat everything they hear. Silva and Santos (2006), in their study of a young learner of Portuguese, show that the amount and type of repetition differs from one setting to another. Then, too, in research on Japanese preschoolers in an English immersion program, Kanagy and Igarashi (1997) find that children are selective in what they choose to repeat, repeating when it helps them satisfy pragmatic needs and desire for social interaction. Repetition can aid comprehension as well. Calleri (1996) and Duff (2000) have suggested that repetition provides learners with more opportunities to process input. When it comes to adult learners, researchers point out that repetition enablesspeakers to produce language, while they are formulating what to say next. Repetition is also used in interactional modifications, in negotiating for meaning as in the use of clarification requests, for instance (Long 1983). It also provides cohesion with earlier discourse, and makes the discourse easier to process (Norrick 1987). Its use helps learners get and keep the floor (Rydland and Aukrust 2005). Specific to the language classroom, repetition arises in learners repeating after others, in learner self-repetition, and in the form of the teachers recasts or correction elicitation (Lyster 1998). Then, too, enhancing the language to which students are exposed by input flooding (Sharwood Smith 1993) salting a text with repeated instances of a particular structure has been proposed as an effective technique for promoting noticing on the part of the students. However, the topic of frequency of occurrence in language use, which I have long seen to be relevant to language learning (Larsen-Freeman 1976), while no doubt related, will not be discussed further here. Finally, I find the need to distinguish repetition (the act of saying over again) from imitation (the act of copying) (see Kappes (2010) for a discussion of the difference). Kuczaj (1983: 225) makes a somewhat different distinction b etween imitation, which occurs when a child repeats at least part of anothers preceding utterance and repetition, which happens when children repeat at least part of their own preceding utterance. I am not writing of imitation as copying, as important as some hypothesize it to be in child language acquisition, when used selectively (Lightbown and Spada 2006), or its place in theory, e.g., sociocultural theory (Vygotsky 1962). I should, however, acknowledge the important point made in Lantolf and Yaez (2003) that imitation, a term they prefer to repetition, is not mimicking; instead, what they are calling imitation, can be transformative. I would be remiss also if I did not note the importance in socio cultural theory ascribed to private speech for the purposes of mental rehearsal (de Guerrero 2005). Indeed, repetition was the most common type of private speech found in Ohtas longitudinal Japanese learner data (2001).

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What I am interested in exploring in this article is the role of intentional repetition in promoting learning by selfrepetition initiated by a language learner and other-repetition by the learner of the teacher. In a classification of repetition types, I would call what I am writing about exact, public, intentional, immediate, self- and other-oriented repetition, and repetition which mostly takes place in the classroom. While behaviorism may have been discredited, repetition still persists. Its persistence suggests that it has value. I am not so much addressing Does it work? but rather why it does. Perhaps my point of view is not widely shared, but I reckon if repetition has survived much academic scorn, it must have some merit. Moreover, I have confidence in the wisdom of practice of learners and teachers.

The role of repetition in SLL and SLT

Rote learning
One place where self-repetition is well-attested is in rote learning. The idea, of course, is that one will be able to recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. Gairns and Redman (1986: 93) point out that rote learning is a memorization technique that has a long history in language learning, involving the r epetition of target language items either silently or aloud and one which may involve writing down the items (more than once). In a Ph.D. thesis completed at the University of Sunderland in 2004, Xiuping Li studied the effects of rote learning in second language learning in China. WhileLi points out that rote learning is out of fashion in many circles, Chinese EFL learners generally view rote learning favorably. In fact, the distinction b etween memorization and learning is often less clear-cut for Chinese than for other students. Repetition has value for Chinese students because it is b elievedthat repetition is consistent with traditional Chinese culture and values. Li cites Biggs (1999: 2), who quotes the Chinese saying: Repetition is the route to understanding. In other words, it is with multiple exposures that understanding takes place. Cook (1994) adds the affective dimension. He argues that rote learning, knowing by heart, gives students security because they then have chunks of language to hold onto. These in turn give the students something to work on, which may gradually yield up both their grammar and their meaning (Cook 1994: 138).

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Enhancing working memory

As I mentioned earlier, it has long been shown that repetition is important in working memory (WM), if for no other reason than it becomes a vehicle for transferring new information to long-term memory. The role of working memory in second language learning is, of course, a much-researched area, one that I cannot do justice to.3 It is also the case that WM is not a unitary construct, and that its role depends on a number of factors, including the linguistic domain (Juffs and Harrington 2011). Here, therefore, I merely note that it is thought that p honological working memory (PWM) plays a crucial role in learning of new words. It does so by storing unfamiliar sound patterns while long-term representations are being built. Because WM is of limited capacity, any representation is rapidly forgotten, unless in can be rehearsed subvocally in what Baddeley (2007) calls the phonological loop. Thus a direct link between PWM and the long-term learning of v ocabulary is postulated (Baddeley 1986; Andrade and Baddeley 2011). Other researchers have implicated PWM in the acquisition of syntax. According to this view, PWM is responsible for storing sequential information (Ellis 1998), and because Ellis believes that language learning is partly the acquisition of linguistic sequences or chunks, he submits that PWM is essential in facilitating this process. With repetition, words that were previously regarded as independent come to be processed as a single unit or chunk. In turn, repetition that contributes to the chunking of information can increase memory capacity.

Automaticity/faster access
It is claimed that repetition is also helpful in developing automaticity (McLaughlin 1987). According to information-processing theory, because humans have a limited capacity to manage controlled processes, such as using a second language, SLL requires automatization of component sub-skills. Repeating lowerlevel skills contributes to their automaticity. One example is found in repeated reading (Gorsuch and Taguchi 2010: 31). The teacher asks students to repeatedly read specified passages from graded readers in order to develop automaticity in lower-level comprehension processes, such as sight recognition of words, thus freeing cognitive resources for comprehension of the texts. The supposition isthat repetition leads to automatization and integration of linguistic patterns orchunks. Second language processing skills become more efficient via automatization.
3See Zhisheng Wens Working Memory and Second Language Learning, forthcoming, and Juffs and Harrington (2011) for reviews.

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In addition, a claim for faster access to the chunks in working memory has been made. This claim is related to another theory, connectionism, which provides a computational framework where each repetition increases the strength of the connections between the relevant feature units and the category unit. The resulting strengthening of weights in connnectionist networks translates as readier access in working memory, analogous, it is thought, to the strengthening of weights in neural networks. (Ellis 1998).

Freeing processing space

Although perhaps repetition in a less strict sense, compared with what I have discussed so far, there is also the kind of repetition in the classroom that results from repeated activities, such as repeated task designs (Bygate 2001). A number of studies indicate that the repeated performance of the same task has beneficial effects on language learning. For instance, in a study by Arevart and Nation (1991), participants were asked to tell the same story to different partners in succession for 4 minutes, then 3 minutes, and then 2 minutes. The performance of participants improved not only in terms of fluency, but also in accuracy. Various types of grammatical errors were eliminated, and sentence structure improved with each repetition. The explanation is that as the story becomes more and more familiar, processing space is freed for speakers to attend to other matters. In addition, researchers have found that when learners are asked to perform the same task twice, their performance shows clear improvement in terms of complexity of the output. While the learners tend to focus on meaning construction during their first performance, they can free processing space during the second performance, allowing them to focus more on the forms they are using (van den Branden 2007: 170).

Repetition in language teaching methods

In 1969, Vivian Cook wrote (Cook 1969: 213) It is true that most second language teaching that takes place today makes extensive use of repetition of one type or other. Certainly, students repeating after the teacher was a prominent feature of language teaching approaches at the time, such as the audiolingual method (ALM). Later in the development of audiolingualism, principles from behavioral psychology (Skinner 1957) were incorporated. It was thought that the way to a cquire the sentence patterns of the target language was through conditioning helping learners to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforce-

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ment so that the learners could overcome the habits of their native language and form the new habits of the target language speakers. The major procedures to a ccomplish this were repetition and other drills. So there was a firm commitment to repetition in audiolingualism, one that has been much criticized for its neglect of meaning and for not tapping learners cognitive abilities. However, other methodologists have also staked out explicit claims about the role of repetition. Charles Curran (1976), in his Community Language Learning method, has reversed the roles normally assumed in teacher- student exchanges involving repetition. In Currans human computer technique, learners choose some word or phrase they wish help on. They then do their best to produce it, and the teacher follows the learners attempt by repeating it correctly. It is through the teachers consistent manner of repeating the word or phrase clearly that the student self-corrects as he or she tries to accommodate to the teachers model. The student is in control of the computer such that the teacher follows the students lead, and keeps on recasting what the student says until the student is satisfied and stops (Larsen-Freeman and Anderson 2011). Writing about his approach at approximately the same time as Currans, but diametrically opposed to this use of repetition, is Caleb Gattegno. In Gattegnos Silent Way (1976), repetition is discouraged. Gattegno believes that it is very i mportant for students to produce the language meaningfully for themselves, and he is staunchly opposed to any repetition. What was behind his opposition was his belief that students needed to develop their own inner criteria for correctness, which they presumably could not do if they were limited to imitating others. In order to have students engage in meaningful practice without repetition, Gattegno devised teaching materials consisting of colored Cuisenaire rods and charts such as the sound-color chart and the fidels, which stimulate students to produce target language words without repeating a teachers model (Larsen-Freeman and Anderson 2011).

Generating variation: Complexity theory

One role of repetition that I have not seen discussed in the SLL/SLT/Language Teaching Methods literature, and one to which I devote the remainder of this a rticle, is that of generating variation. From a complexity theory perspective, one that I have been drawn to for many years (Larsen-Freeman 1997), language is a dynamic system, one in which complexity is emergent. Language grows and o rganizes itself from the bottom up in an organic way, through use. It is in theprocess of making meaning and negotiating identity that speakers create, reproduce,

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and alter language patterns. Complexity theorists would attribute the c reation, reproduction, and alteration of patterns not so much to repetition as they do to recursion, and, especially, to iteration. Let me explain. Repetition suggests striving for identical performance. It is no wonder, then, that repetition was widely practiced in audiolingualism, where congruous verbal behavior was assumed to result from the formation of verbal habits. Doll (1993: 178) distinguishes such repetition from recursion: Repetition is designed to i mprove set performance ... Its frame is closed. Recursion aims at developing competence ... Its frame is open. Recursion is a transformative process. It i nvolves a form of repetition, but it does so as applied to some procedure. Anna Parker (2006: 240) put it this way: recursion involves embedding the action within another instance of itself.4 The term recursion has, of course, been used most often with linguistic rules to refer to the property of rules in which one of the steps in applying the rule is a procedure that has been defined earlier. In other words, one of the steps of a given procedure repeats a prior procedure. Much more could be said about both repetition (behavior) and recursion (the property of a system or procedure), but it is actually a third term, iteration, which merits closer attention in complexity t heory. It might be said that iteration subsumes repetition and recursion by making e xplicit the claim that the act of repeating results in a change to a procedure or system. In other words, what results from iteration is a mutable state. In a complex system, what results from one iteration is used as the starting point for the next iteration. Thus, the starting point or initial condition is always different. When applied to language, an understanding of complex systems suggests that the present level of complexity is critically dependent on what preceded it. At the moment at which language is used, humans soft assemble (meaningful) language patterns to meet their specific present goals (Smith and Thelen 1993). Through repeated soft assemblies, complex systems iterate. By so doing, complex systems are built up autopoietically, constructed within individuals as idiolects and through interchanges between individuals within speech communities as dialects. It has long been recognized that there can be no exact repetition, which is why I put exact in quotation marks earlier. Certainly this is true for meaning. As Derrida (1976) pointed out years ago when discussing iteration, each time a word or phrase is repeated, its meaning is altered. The audience reinterprets the meaning of the word or phrase; thus, it participates in making meaning of the utter4While I think Anna Parkers definition of recursion is helpful, I do not agree with her that iteration simply involves repeating an action or an object an arbitrary number of times (Parker 2006: 240).

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ance (Tannen 1987: 576). Furthermore, even when the same sequence of words is used, the words take on a different meaning in light of what has been said or done before (Cook 2000: 29). This is what complexity theorists mean when they say that the initial condition is always different. It is not only an alteration in meaning that is made, however. Johnstone (1987) notes that the difference could be linguistic, such as in the reduction that comes with chunking, or it could be a contextual difference, such as when the same thing is said in different situations. For instance, Eisner and Macqueen (2006) have shown how context influences the pronunciation of phonemes. Of course, phoneticians have long known that the same word is pronounced differently by the same person with every use (Milroy and Milroy 1999).5 What is the importance of this? What would be the evolutionary advantage to someone of not repeating the same sound or word the same way twice? Well, first of all, not repeating the same word the same way creates options in our language resources that give us choices for how we want to make meaning, how we want to position ourselves, and how we want to express our identity or identities. In other words, iteration introduces heterogeneity. It opens up spaces. Iteration does not preserve the fidelity of the original, but only approximates it. In so doing, it i ncludes in itself alterity (Deleuze 2004).
... a language is not a single homogeneous construct to be acquired; rather, a complex systems view ... foregrounds the centrality of variation among different speakers and their developing awareness of the choice they have in how they use patterns within a social context.(Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008: 116)

Awareness of difference also allows us to interpret the speech of others. Eisner and McQueen (2006) note that when we listen to others speaking, we need to adjust our interpretation of their differences in articulation. Interestingly, they claim that the variability in the speech signal that is introduced by speaker idiosyncrasies continues to be problematic for automatic speech recognizers, but is usually handled with remarkable ease by the human perceptual system (2006: 1950). This is so because perceptual representations of phonemes are flexible and adapt rapidly to accommodate idiosyncratic articulation in the speech of a particular speaker. In addition to creating options for speakers, and for allowing them to interpret the speech cues of others, variation gives speakers the resources to adapt
5Even at a neurological level, change occurs with stimulus repetition. Recent fMRI investigations of the neural correlates of stimulus repetition have generally found that the total amount of activation associated with a repeated stimulus is smaller than that for a nonrepeated stimulus (Morris, Still, and Caldwell-Harris 2009).

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their speech to that of others either through convergence or to distance themselves through divergence. For instance, Pardo (2006) has shown that phonetic convergence takes place in between-talker repetitions of the same lexical items produced by partners in a conversational task Returning to the classroom, then, it seems that the value in an activity that calls for repetition lies in the recognition that giving learners an opportunity to do something a little bit different each time they engage in a (repeated) particular activity is good training not only for creating and perceiving alterity, but also for being able to make the adaptations learners need when faced with a different context or task (Larsen-Freeman, forthcoming). This is what Macqueens research has shown. Applying a complexity theory perspective to analyzing students writing in a second language, Macqueen (2009) highlights the process of adaptive imitation. In the gradual process of d eveloping the means of participation in an English-speaking speech c ommunity, the participants adapted lexiogrammatical patterns in their writing to suit their changing goals. Indeed, I have come to believe that what we should be teaching is not only language, but also the process of adaptation: Teaching students to take what they know and to mold it to a new context for a present purpose. A subset of complex systems is referred to as complex adaptive systems (Ellis and Larsen-Freeman 2009). What this means is that such systems are capable of adapting, improving their condition in relationship to their environment. As applied to language, Larsen-Freeman and Cameron have put it this way:
Embodied learners soft assemble their language resources interacting with a changing e nvironment. As they do so, their language resources change. Learning is not the taking in of linguistic forms by learners, but the constant adaptation and enactment of language- using patterns in the service of meaning-making in response to the affordances that emerge in a dynamic communicative situation.(Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008: 158)

In other words, what is learned through iteration are not simply meaningful patterns, but the process of shaping them appropriately to fit the present context. Asvan Lier (2000: 246) states ... learning is construed as the development of increasing effective ways of dealing with the world and its meanings. It is important to note that although students need to adapt their language resources in order to meet their communicative needs, they should not be constrained by that which has been realized. It is well known that language is constantly evolving in a speech community as new forms are created in order to make new meaning. In other words, through the normal use of language, humans e xploit the meaning potential of the system in innovative ways.

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Now, readers may be thinking I am making too much of the slight (perhaps undetectable) differences between saying a word once and then again. However, complexity theorists also believe that what happens at one level of scale in a n ested cone of scales is played out at other levels as well. Indeed, these barely perceptible differences which generate heterogeneity at a local immediate level propagate change in a speech community, thus contributing to diachronic language evolution. In his book on English as a lingua franca, Robin Walker (2009) explains that individual variation that leads to communal variation is an entirely natural phenomenon, and a basic fact of language life. This is so much the case that it is easy to forget that without variation there would be no such thing as the Englishes that exist today. Indeed, without variation languages would be unable to serve speakers needs: Heterogeneity is ... necessary to satisfy the linguistic demands of everyday life (Labov 1982: 17). In this way, language variation is constructed both within the individual and within the speech community. As Caspi (2010) argued persuasively, micro-level changes in word representations in individual minds lead to macro-level changes in the abstract, shared entity of language. Gleick captured this bridging dynamic of complex systems when he wrote The act of playing the game has a way of changing the rules (Gleick 1987: 24). Thus, when we entertain a view of language as a complex adaptive system, we recognize that every use of language changes the language resources of the learner/user, and the changed resources are then potentially available for the user and members of the speech community (LarsenFreeman and Cameron 2008). I should perhaps interject a notion of caution here. Although variation is necessary for language change, not all variation leads to change. This is why I wrote potentially available for the user and members of the speech community. Furthermore, not all individuals display equal amounts of variation in language use. In a study discussed by Sonderegger (2012) of the speech of 12 speakers, three variables voice-onset time, vowel formants, and t/d deletion were tracked over the course of three months. From recordings that were made, totalling 8 hours of speech from the 12 speakers, what was found was that different speakers show different dynamics for one or more of these variables: Some do not change over time, others change in the short term, but not in the long-term, and still others show short-term fluctuations that lead to long-term change.
The most common pattern is for a speakers use of a variable to fluctuate between recording sessions on different days, in part due to shifts in the topic of conversation. We also tentatively find effects of social interaction on observed dynamics, and individual differences in plasticity across all variables. Our findings suggest that short-term shifts in individuals speech are common, but only accumulate into longer-term change for some speakers. (Sonderegger 2012)

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It may seem to readers that I have strayed far from my focus on a students repeating after a teacher in the classroom. But recall I asked what a student could be learning from repetition. I now have a provisional answer to add to the others that I have surveyed: The student is generating variation and is learning to accommodate to the variable performance of others. In addition, the learner is learning to adapt his or her language resources to new situations and in pursuit of new goals. It also may seem that I am making too much of the distinction between iteration and repetition. Indeed, it would be odd to hear a teacher say Iterate after me, now! And while I would not expect this to occur, nor particularly encourage it, I do think that the distinction has something important to contribute to our understanding of how learning transpires: Learning takes place not by repeating forms of a closed, static system, but by meaningfully playing the game while r evisiting the same territory again and again.6 Of course, I can hypothesize about the value of repetition all I want. Consulting learners is what keeps one humble or at least more so than what would o rdinarily transpire. I have previously cited the learner Elsa in this regard (L arsenFreeman 2003). While it is popular to criticize repetition drills in the classroom, Elsa explains how she makes them work for her.
Learning the skill aspects of language has never been boring to me. I suppose one could argue that I was so motivated to learn Portuguese that the meaningfulness was in my personal goal, and so the repetitive drills didnt bother me. In fact, I rather liked them. It may also be that one cant learn everything one needs in a language class meaningfully. I do r emember making the drills more interesting by changing the names of the people in the drills to names of people I knew. When it did get tedious, Id play around with the meaning. Another reason I liked the ALM aspect of the practice was that it was so controlled I was able to focus on one thing at a time and master it (form and pronunciation) before I had to use it.

What ultimately matters, then, is what learners do with the repetition, not what we think it does.

Conclusion
In this article, I began by reviewing the putative contributions of repetition to language teaching and learning. Culling them from the second language learning and teaching literature, I compiled a list that included learning by rote, enhancing memory, automatizing/faster access, and freeing up processing space. I also
6This is perhaps reminiscent of Wittgensteins (1953/2001) language games, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven.

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noted that certain language teaching methodologists encourage repetition; o thers admonish teachers to avoid it. From a complexity theory perspective, I a rgued that there is an innovative role for repetition if we do not think in terms of exact copying, but rather in terms of iteration. Iteration introduces heterogeneity it generates variability. Thus, variability arises from inexact replication. Iteration is always approximative and this holds for any user of the language not only for those individuals we call learners. After all, the divide between learner and user is not so clear-cut from this perspective. It is through iteration that we create options that give us choice in how we make meaning, position ourselves in the world as we would want, understand the differences which we encounter in others, and adapt to a changing context. This is what occurs in language change and evolution, as well. Without variability, there can be no new forms from which to select. New forms, in turn, support flexible and adaptive behaviour. Such a view promotes teaching that engages students in practice that is meaningfully iterative. Although teachers may say Repeat after me, such practice is less about eliciting exact repetition and more about iteration. I have also proposed that students need to learn to adjust their perception of others and to adapt their language resources to changing task or activity demands. Such practice is not about rehearsal, but rather about learning to adapt to new situations. Finally, iteration that generates variation, which provides for choice, allows for adjustment, and contributes to adaptation, is a critical component not only of learning in the classroom, but also of mobilizing learning beyond it. After all, second language development is not a matter of conformity to uniformity (L arsenFreeman 2003), and language is not fixed, but is rather a dynamic system (L arsenFreeman 1997). Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991: 144) put it so well: Knowing how to negotiate our way through a world that is not fixed and pregiven, but that is continually shaped by the types of actions in which we engage is a challenge of being human.

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Diane Larsen-Freeman is a Professor of Education, Professor of Linguistics, and Research Scientist (English Language Institute) at the University of Michigan, USA. She is also a Faculty Associate of the Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan.

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