Abstract
This article traces the evolution of the field of second language acquisition/development (SLA/SLD). It chronicles the evolution in terms of different disciplines and theories that have been influential, beginning with the origin of SLA/SLD in linguistic thinking and expanding its scope of inquiry to psycholinguistics. It has developed further with the disciplines of anthropology and sociology holding sway. More recently, newer cognitive theories have been influential. The article discusses the recent call for a transdisciplinary approach. More specifically, the author promotes the adoption of complex dynamic systems theory, in keeping with non-reductionist systems thinking. Not only is this sociocognitive theory an interdisciplinary theory, but it also highlights the dynamic, variable, nonlinear nature of second language development. This it does within an ecological conception of development, which insists on the relevance of context. It also maintains that SLA/SLD is not a matter of input becoming output, but rather that language patterns emerge from the interaction of its users, given the affordances that they perceive. The article concludes with a discussion of several instructional issues.
About the author
Diane Larsen-Freeman (Ph.D. in Linguistics) is Professor Emerita of Education and of Linguistics at the University of Michigan. She is former Director of the English Language Institute and Research Scientist Emerita at the ELI. She is Professor Emerita at the SIT Graduate Institute. She is also a visiting faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. Her interests lie in second language development, English grammar, and language teaching.
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