Schools of

thought in second
language
acquisition
 Three
different
schools of ▹ Structural Linguistics and Behavioral
thought psychology
▹ Generative Linguistics and Cognitive
Psychology
▹ Constructivism: A multidisciplinary
approach

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 Structural
Linguistics and
Behavioral
Psychology

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Early 1900s,
1940s and
1950s Structural Linguistics
● Descriptive
● Linguist’s job is to describe
human languages and to identify
their structural characteristics
● Only interested in overtly
observable data, ignoring the
“mind” (meaning and thought)
● Language can be broken
down into small units, which can
be added up to form the whole.
Behavioral Psychology
● Empirical
● Focusing on the responses
that are objectively perceived,
recorded, and measured.
● Notions such as intuition,
memory and thinking are
ignored
● Learning a behavior:
Conditioning organisms to
respond in desired ways through
reinforcement (positive/negative)
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Early 1900s,
1940s and
1950s

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Language
Learning
● Conditioning learners with positive/negative
reinforcement to make the right connection
between a stimuli and the desired response
● Drilling in language classroom was a
dominant method

Stimuli → response → reinforcement → habit

formation

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 Generative
Linguistics and
Cognitive
Psychology

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1960s, 1970s
and 1980s
Generative Linguistics
● Noam Chomsky
● Linguist’s job is to go beyond
mere description of the surface
structure of language
● Studying competence reveals
the hidden level of meaning and
thought (deep structure) that
generates the observable
performance
Cognitive Psychology
● Seeking to discover underlying
motivations and deeper
structures of human behavior
● Meaning, understanding, and
knowing as legitimate data for
psychology
● Rational approach, using logic,
reason, inference to explain for
behavior.
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1960s, 1970s
and 1980s
Generative Linguistics

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Language
Learning ● Language is species-specific
● Language is innate: human beings are born with the
ability to acquire language.

Structural Linguistics/ Generative Linguistics/

Behavioral Psychology Cognitive Psychology
Observable Hidden
Empirical Rational
Descriptive Explanatory
What? Why?

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Constructivism
A multidisciplinary Approach

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1980s, 1990s,
and 2000s
● Post - Structuralist
● Linguistic, Psychology and
sociological paradigms integrated
● The active role learner is
emphasized
● Two branches: Cognitive vs. Social

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Proponent Cognitive Constructivism
● Jean Piaget
● Emphasizes the role of learner
in constructing his/her own
representation of reality
● Learner must discover and
transform complex information
to make it their own (schema,
assimilation, accomodation)
Social Constructivism
● Lev Vygotsky, Mikahail
Bakhtin
● Emphasizes the role of social
interaction and cooperative
learning in constructing both
cognitive and emotional images
of reality
● Language learning is a result
of thinking and meaning-making
that is “socially constructed and
emerges out their social
interactions with their
environment.
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 Vygotsky’s
zone of ● The zone between a child’s level of independent and
proximal assisted performance.
development
Level of independent ZPD Level of assisted
performance performance

● What a child can do alone and what he or she can do

with support?
● Often applied to ESL/EFL contexts.

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Constructivism

Cognitive Social
● Development as a ● Unity of learning and
precondition for learning development
● Cognitive development ● Social interaction as
as a solitary act foundation for cognitive
● Biological timetables development
and stages of ● No pre-determined
development stages of development

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 Schools of
Thought for
Second Structural Generative
Language Linguistics, Linguistics,
Cognitive
Acquisition Behavioral
Psychology Psychology

Constructivism: A
multidisciplinary
approach

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“

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 “
Bakhtin
Language is “Imersed in a social and cultural
context, and its central function is to serve as a
medium of communication”

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 PPT Reference:

References https://prezi.com/zbmusjrej_lc/schools-of-thought-in-second-
language-acquisition/

Other Information Reference:

https://prezi.com/xri4ed3nnns-/linguistics-schools-of-thought/

https://www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijsell/v2-i8/13.pdf

https://www.verywellmind.com/behavioral-psychology-4157183

https://currikicdn.s3-us-west
2.amazonaws.com/resourcedocs/55c33aaf3db04.pdf

https://gomaayounis.wordpress.com/1-theories-of-second-
langauge-acquisition/

https://documen.site/download/please-click-here-to_pdf

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-generative-grammar-1690894

https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-psychology-
4157181#:~:text=Cognitive%20psychology%20involves%20the%20s
tudy,problem%2Dsolving%2C%20and%20learning. 19
References https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-
9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-
0059.xml#:~:text=Cognitive%20linguistics%20is%20an%20inter
disciplinary,in%20the%20study%20of%20language.

http://ijellh.com/papers/2015/July/23-228-236-July-2015.pdf

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 Thank You!

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