1.1 The importance of developing sociocultural competence If we were to meet an adult native speaker who had grown up in a place where there were no other people, but sufficient language input, through, for example, tapes, for that person to be in linguistic terms a fluent speaker, then it seems reasonable to say that this person would in all likelihood be regarded as socially dysfunctional. Our unfortunate would not know how to deal with the most simple situations, and unless he or she were protected and educated, a sorry end may well be just around the corner. While such a case is fantastical, the non-native speaker (NNS) who arrives in an alien culture which is markedly different from their own and who lacks sociocultural knowledge is in a position with certain parallels to that of a socially inadequate individual (Furnham 1993). While knowledge could be transferred from the native culture, there is no way of guessing correctly what the possible cultural differences or similarities are. Native speakers (NSs) would be unaware of the visitor’s lack of sociocultural knowledge (Blum-Kulka 1997), and both NNSs and NSs may even be unaware that cultures can vary as much as they do (Hinkel 2001). NSs are also likely to be find behaviour that runs counter to their society’s beliefs or norms unacceptable, and to react accordingly. After perusing Celce-Murcia et al’s (1995) list of sociocultural factors (see appendix 1), it is not difficult to see how inappropriacy in any of the listed areas could lead to problems. The acceptable length of a silence varies across cultures, and one possible reason for some students’ perceived reticence in ESL contexts could be caused by the fact that in certain cultures, people are comfortable with longer response times than is the case in English. Gestures vary across cultures, and are used to express abstract ideas (McCafferty and Ahmed 2000); potential for confusion is therefore plentiful and plain. In a liberal Western country such as England, men coming from a more patriarchal society could easily find themselves being rebuked or criticised, and might feel at a loss as to why. When and to whom the words ‘Thank you’ are required to be said in England is a notoriously confusing area, and a source of much resentment among the inhabitants of towns where there is a constant influx of language learners. While the above examples show the significance of sociocultural factors in communication, the key question is how this knowledge relates to and is formulated in language, and in particular a second language. Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000) argue that traditional models of second language acquisition account for the way we acquire lexical, phonological and grammatical units of knowledge, but that in order to understand language use in context, and therefore the pervasiveness of culture in communication, a model which accounts for learning as participation is necessary. In this model, the learner develops skills which enable him or her to engage with contextual and cultural factors of communication. Although the two models are not mutually exclusive but in fact complementary, the latter is far more appropriate for understanding language as socialisation, as an ongoing process of engagement