The social and the individual in applied linguistics research

Although Applied Linguistics research now emphasizes the social over the individual, qualitative research approaches often foreground the individual. Identity, agency and autonomy have also emerged as important, but contested, constructs in sociocultural approaches to research This book addresses the current status of the ‘Applied Linguistic individual’ through contributions, from Asia, Australasia, Europe, and North and South America, that discuss the role of the individual in research from perspectives including Sociocultural Theory, Situated Learning, Imagined Communities, Complexity Theory, and Autonomy Theory. The first part of the book examines theoretical tensions between the social and the individual in their approaches, while the second part explores how they are resolved in data-based research. This chapter sets out to explore some of the theoretical and empirical challenges of working within ‘the dialectic between the individual and the social; between the human agency of these learners and the social practices of their communities’. Copyright © 2013 Equinox Pub.