Gonzlez 1

21/06/2015
Daniel Gonzlez Zambrano
Teacher Miguel Faras
Applied Linguistics
October 2nd
Sociolinguistics Spider Map

This spider map shows what we studied so far within our applied linguistics
class. To begin with, the concepts marked with a red dot are the ones that we
can call main concepts, the ones that were matter of study during our different
presentations. Our fist statement is the face that Applied Linguistics studies
Language within the brain as well as within a given society. From a
psycholinguistic point of view, language is acquired during our critical period,
which ends when the brains lateralization stops at the beginning of puberty.
Cognition is the mental process of anything, thus, by means of cognition we can
learn a language. A very important aspect within cognition is bilingualism: the
way in which we relate different aspects on our first language when we try to
learn a second one. When teaching, we have different methods, such as the
ones mentioned on the left of L2 Teaching. When learning we need a balance
among the four elements of L2 Learning (the ones below SLL).
In society, its important to know that teachers are to teach in a critical way,
and that we teach English because of its world position. The education we need
is called Literacy, and it can be global or local. Teachers need to have literacy
so that they can use as many modalities as they can so that bilingual learners
can acquire such literacy in language. There are problems concerning lexis and
culture when we speak about literacy, and thats why we need a global literacy
as well as the local one. Such problems have to do with bilingualism as well as

Gonzlez 2
21/06/2015
how different can a L2 Reader be: he may not be a direct receptor of the
content of a text in such language since he doesnt belong to that culture.
However, speaking about reading, the three roles of the reader, the text and the
author are always interrelated, and both reader and author possess an intention
and a socio-cultural background. Reading is also a process very related to
language and the brain, since its an internal process with different stages as
mentioned in the map, depending on their proficiency as readers. Something
different happens with L2 Readers, because some could not even reach the last
level.