Essay Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research – Management Assignment Help

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On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research

This article argues for a reconceptualization of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research that would enlarge the ontological and empirical parameters of the field. We claim that methodologies, theories, and foci within SLA reflect an imbalance between cognitive and mentalistic orientations, and social and contextual orientations to language, the former ori- entation being unquestionably in the ascendancy. This has resulted in a skewed perspective on discourse and communication, which conceives of the foreign language speaker as a defi- cient communicator struggling to overcome an underdeveloped L2 competence, striving to reach the “target” competence of an idealized native speaker (NS). We contend that SLA re- search requires a significantly enhanced awareness of the contextual and interactional di- mensions of language use, an increased “emic” (i.e., participant-relevant) sensitivity towards fundamental concepts, and the broadening of the traditional SLA data base. With such changes in place, the field of SLA has the capacity to become a theoretically and method- ologically richer, more robust enterprise, better able to explicate the processes of second or foreign language (S/FL) acquisition, and better situated to engage with and contribute to re- search commonly perceived to reside outside

THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES CRITICALLYTHE
predominant view of discourse and communica-tion within second language acquisition (SLA) research.1 We argue that this view is individual- istic and mechanistic, and that it fails to account in a satisfactory way for interactional and socio- linguistic dimensions of language. As such, it is flawed, and obviates insight into the nature of lan- guage, most centrally the language use of second or foreign language (S/FL) speakers. As part of this examination, we discuss the status of some fundamental concepts in SLA, principally nonna- The Modern LanguageJournal, 81, iii, (1997) 0026-7902/97/285-300 $1.50/0 1997 The Modern LanguageJournal tive speaker (NNS), learner, and interlanguage. These concepts prefigure as monolithic elements in SLA, their status venerated and seemingly assured within the field. We claim that, for the most part, they are applied and understood in an oversimpli- fied manner, leading, among other things, to an analytic mindset that elevates an idealized “native” speaker above a stereotypicalized “nonnative,” while viewing the latter as a defective communi-cator, limited by an underdeveloped communica-tive competence.