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Oleo de José Tola
From: Carla
Date: 2/3/99
Time: 9:54:14 PM
Remote Name: 205.188.197.49
The theoretical orientation that is currently favored in SLA research is, without a doubt, the cognitive. According to these cognitive views, acquisition is an individual phenomenon concentrating on the individual's "brain" or "mind". These views ignore the social contextual dimensions of language. The authors of the article continue mentioning a couple of theories that are cognitive-oriented.
They mention CORDER'S theory that views language as a "phenomenon of the individual" focusing on how we acquire language. This theory lack in explaining what language is for, which is communication.
They also mention CHOMSKY'S theory which focuses on our innate "mental structure", or "language acquisition devise" within the brain. Once again, this theory is cognitive-oriented, it deals with the internal mechanisms of the learner.
The authors do mention one theory that has a "touch" of sociocultural views and that is HYMES' theory that states that language is acquired and learned through social interaction.
One reason found why SLA is so involved in the cognitive approach is because SLA has so much to do with the way we process information (language) mentally. This is why all research tends to focus on the cognitive approach.
The authors of this article are in no way trying to disprove or find errors in these theories, they are just pointing out the "predominancein the field, leading to imbalance in SLA studies."
Do you agree?