"Kissine offers a new theory of speech acts which is philosophically sophisticated and builds on work in cognitive science, formal semantics, and linguistic typology. This highly readable, brilliant essay is a major contribution to the field."
This book explores the social construction of age in the context of EFL in
Mexico. It is the first book to address the age factor in SLA from a social
perspective. Based on research carried out at a public university in Mexico, it
investigates how adults of different ages experience learning a new language
and how they enact their age identities as language learners. By approaching
the topic from a social constructionist perspective and in light of recent work in
sociolinguistics and cultural studies, it broadens the current second language
acquisition focus on age as a fixed biological or chronological variable to
encompass its social dimensions. What emerges is a more complex and
nuanced understanding of age as it intersects with language learning in a way
that links it fundamentally to other social phenomena, such as gender, ethnicity
and social class.