Peter De Costa, Ph.D,Professor of Applied Linguistics, Monterey Institute of International Studies

Dr. De Costa will open the Symposium by exploring the restructuring of time-space relations as a result of globalization and the emergence of technology. These relations have created dynamic, unstable, and unpredictable associations between language practices, space, and time—associations which can be better understood through the application of fine-grained scales. In light of a need to better understand how languages are learned in a contemporary world and a broader scale-differentiated shift in our understanding of spatiotemporal contexts, his talk draws on developments in sociolinguistics, complexity theory, and cognitive linguistics. He will explicate how these varied perspectives on scales can mutually inspire new pedagogical possibilities for foreign language teachers.