5. My network is growing and strengthening--now what?

Getting back to your social network, recall that what you are doing is becoming part of a speech community. You need to keep in mind both the community part, and the speech part. In Thomson (1993b), I point out that getting to know the people whose language you are learning, including learning their deep seated feelings of what constitutes right and wrong behaviour, is actually a central part of learning the language.

Subsections

5.1 Bootstrapping your way to good behaviour

5.2 Systematic language learning in your new speech community

5.3 But it sounds so hard.