State of the Scholarship: The generative approach to SLA and its place in modern second language studies
State of the Scholarship: The generative approach to SLA and its place in modern second language studies
This article has two main goals. The first is to summarize and comment on the current state of
affairs of generative approaches to SLA (GenSLA), 35 years into its history. This discussion brings
the readership of SSLA up to date on the questions driving GenSLA agendas and clears up
misconceptions about what GenSLA does and does not endeavor to explain. We engage key
questions, debates, and shifts within GenSLA such as focusing on the deterministic role of input
in language acquisition, as well as expanding the inquiry to new populations and empirical
methodologies and technologies used. The second goal is to highlight the place of GenSLA in the
broader field of SLA. We argue that various theories of SLA are needed, showing that many
existing SLA paradigms are much less mutually exclusive than commonly believed (cf. Rothman
& VanPatten, 2013; Slabakova, Leal, & Liskin-Gasparro, 2014, 2015; VanPatten & Rothman,
2014)—especially considering their different foci and research questions.
second language acquisition, generative approaches to sla, generative linguistics, Poverty of the Stimulus
Rothman, Jason
f111b6cb-c90b-479d-a82a-57ad06f4dcfa
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
Rothman, Jason
f111b6cb-c90b-479d-a82a-57ad06f4dcfa
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
Rothman, Jason and Slabakova, Roumyana
(2017)
State of the Scholarship: The generative approach to SLA and its place in modern second language studies.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition.
(doi:10.1017/S0272263117000134).
Abstract
This article has two main goals. The first is to summarize and comment on the current state of
affairs of generative approaches to SLA (GenSLA), 35 years into its history. This discussion brings
the readership of SSLA up to date on the questions driving GenSLA agendas and clears up
misconceptions about what GenSLA does and does not endeavor to explain. We engage key
questions, debates, and shifts within GenSLA such as focusing on the deterministic role of input
in language acquisition, as well as expanding the inquiry to new populations and empirical
methodologies and technologies used. The second goal is to highlight the place of GenSLA in the
broader field of SLA. We argue that various theories of SLA are needed, showing that many
existing SLA paradigms are much less mutually exclusive than commonly believed (cf. Rothman
& VanPatten, 2013; Slabakova, Leal, & Liskin-Gasparro, 2014, 2015; VanPatten & Rothman,
2014)—especially considering their different foci and research questions.
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 14 March 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 May 2017
Keywords:
second language acquisition, generative approaches to sla, generative linguistics, Poverty of the Stimulus
Organisations:
Modern Languages and Linguistics
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 406875
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/406875
ISSN: 0272-2631
PURE UUID: cf243d24-90b6-41d1-890e-3025cec9f1a6
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Date deposited: 25 Mar 2017 02:03
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:16
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Author:
Jason Rothman
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