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Chapter OneIntroduction

To facilitate a better understanding of this research, this chapter is to present abrief introduction to the background of the ecology of language and language learning.Then it points out the objectives and methodologies of an ecological and semioticstudy of early language learning with a conclusion of the significance of the presentinvestigation.At last, it demonstrates the organization of the thesis.

1.1 Background of the Research
The ecology of language was originally defined by Haugen as “the study ofinteraction between any given language and its environments” (Haugen, 2001: 57).Haugen understands ecolinguistics as an approach to linguistics. Today the rationale ofecology of language has extended to a broad array of linguistic disciplines such as theecology of language learning, which is the focus of the proposed study.During the past decades, eco-linguistic study has been developing both home andabroad. Although language learning has only recently paid attention to languageecology, it has also attracted various scholars of different schools and has witnessed afruitful publication of many papers and some books. Generally we can divide theecology of language learning into two schools: the ecology of second languagelearning (see the works of Kramsch, Steffensen and so on) and the ecology of firstlanguage learning that is the research topic of the present study.So far, researchers have approached the ecology of first language learning fromseveral different perspectives as follows: an evolutionary adaptation perspective, forinstance, Lacerda and Sundberg (2006) studied the evolutionary aspects of languageregarded as a communication system and presented an ecologically inspireddevelopmental perspective on early language learning; a sociocultural perspective, forinstance, Gibson (1979), Moll (1990) and van Lier (2004, 2010), etc. have attachedgreat importance to sociocultural theory in language learning and discussed therelationship between learning and development. A sociosemiotic perspective, forinstance, van Lier (2004, 2010) stated that interactive perceptual action was essential inlanguage learning and such perception is in nature multisensory and thereforemultimodal. In all, the present scholars discussed the relationship among languagelearning, socialization and semiotics. Although the existing study has realized thatlanguage learning is an interactive multimodal experience, most of the workconcentrated on how physical and social environments shapes and nurtures languagewhile neglects the fact that once language is acquired, it will also change theenvironments in turn. During the process of language learning, learners come toacquire the awareness of self as well. They use language as tools to express their needsand demands from the environment and hence change the environment consciously.Also, a fruitful program of conceptual and empirical work remains ahead.
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1.2 Objectives of the Research
Therefore, the proposed research studies how dynamic interactive participation innatural and social environment has cognitive and social influence on language learningand how learners in turn employ language to change the environments. The studydemonstrates that language learning is a dynamic multisensory and multimodalexperience, the early language learning in particular as children tend to be moreengaged in a learning process that involves texts