Second Language Acquisition Research: Staking out the Territory

Abstract

Since its emergence some 20 years ago, the field of second language acquisition research has focused on two areas: the nature of the language acquisition process and the factors which affect language learners. Initial research was essentially descriptive. More recently, researchers have been attempting to explain how acquisition occurs and how learner factors lead to differential success among learners. The focus has alternately broadened as researchers became more aware of the complexity of the issues and narrowed as greater depth of analysis was required. The paper suggests that the next phase of research will be characterized by a union of these two focal areas: learning and the learner. It also recommends that more research attention be given to tutored acquisition. One could argue that the launching of the TESOL Quarterly 25 years ago predated the emergence of second language acquisition (SLA) research as an identifiable field. Accordingly, my task should have been easier than that of my colleagues writing for these commemorative issues of the Quarterly. This was small comfort, however, when faced with the daunting challenge of doing justice to all that has transpired since the early 1970s.' What has occurred since then, of course, is a veritable explosion of research focusing first upon the acquisition/learning process and second upon the language learner.2 This review will be organized around these two foci and around two subthemes: the alternate broadening and 1 Certainly some important studies of language learning were conducted prior to this (see, for example, some of the early studies compiled in Hatch, 1978), but these did not constitute a field of investigation as was to emerge in the 1970s. 2 It is beyond the scope of this article to treat either of these comprehensively. Interested readers may wish to consult overviews by Ellis (1985), and Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) for more detail. I have especially drawn upon the latter in writing this review. I will also be unable to deal with matters concerning research methodology in this article. Interested readers should see J. D. Brown (1988), Hatch and Lazaraton (1991), Kasper and Grotjahn (1991), and Seliger & Shohamy (1989).