Both Vygotsky, a psychologist, and Halliday, a social linguist, argue for the central role of language in human development. Language is the principal mode of meaning making; it mediates both the communication through which thinking with others is made possible and also the inner speech through which individual thinking is brought under conscious…

Responds to a previous article on native-language (L1) use in the collaborative interaction of native English-speaking adult learners of Spanish as a second language, which found that the L1 serves a critical function in students' attempts to mutually define task elements, provide each other with scaffolding help, and externalize inner speech.…

In response to a study of functions of first-language usage in the second-language classroom, it is suggested the findings extend the scope of sociocultural theory by complementing studies in which language is seen to mediate the learning of concepts, in this case the second language, and gives insight into issues currently under vigorous…