Interactional Linguistics

The Interactional Instinct (Oxford University Press, 2009) argued that the ubiquitous acquisition of language by all normal children was the result of a biologically-based drive for infants and children to attach, bond, and affiliate with conspecifics in an attempt to become like them.

This book explores the lives of five Mexican immigrant-origin youths in the United States, documenting their language and literacy journeys over an eight-year period from adolescence to young adulthood. In these qualitative case studies, the author uses a “longitudinal interactional histories approach” (LIHA) to explore literacy events in which the young people participated over time, telling the stories behind texts they created in order to better understand opportunities for bilingual and biliterate development available inside and outside of formal schooling.