In the 2000s research was focused on much the same areas as in the 1990s, with research split into two main camps of linguistic and psychological approaches. The 1990s also saw the introduction of sociocultural theory, an approach to explain second-language acquisition in terms of the social environment of the learner.
The latter category also saw the new theories of processability and input processing in this time period. However, the two main areas of research interest were linguistic theories of SLA based upon Noam Chomsky's universal grammar, and psychological approaches such as skill acquisition theory and connectionism. The 1990s saw a host of new theories introduced to the field, such as Michael Long's interaction hypothesis, Merrill Swain's output hypothesis, and Richard Schmidt's noticing hypothesis. This period also saw the beginning of approaches based in other disciplines, such as the psychological approach of connectionism. Some approaches included White's descriptions of learner competence, and Pienemann's use of speech processing models and lexical functional grammar to explain learner output. Research in the 1980s was characterized by the attempt to fill in these gaps. Krashen's model was influential in the field of SLA and also had a large influence on language teaching, but it left some important processes in SLA unexplained. In his theories, often collectively known as the Input Hypothesis, Krashen suggested that language acquisition is driven solely by comprehensible input, language input that learners can understand. īy the 1980s, the theories of Stephen Krashen had become the prominent paradigm in SLA. The 70s were dominated by naturalistic studies of people learning English as a second language. Examples include research into error analysis, studies in transitional stages of second-language ability, and the " morpheme studies" investigating the order in which learners acquired linguistic features. In the 1970s the general trend in SLA was for research exploring the ideas of Corder and Selinker, and refuting behaviorist theories of language acquisition. Corder's essay rejected a behaviorist account of SLA and suggested that learners made use of intrinsic internal linguistic processes Selinker's article argued that second-language learners possess their own individual linguistic systems that are independent from both the first and second languages. However, there are two publications in particular that are seen as instrumental to the development of the modern study of SLA: (1) Corder's 1967 essay The Significance of Learners' Errors, and (2) Selinker's 1972 article Interlanguage.
While the orientation of each research strand is distinct, they are in common in that they can guide us to find helpful condition to facilitate successful language learning. These multiple fields in second-language acquisition can be grouped as four major research strands: (a) linguistic dimensions of SLA, (b) cognitive (but not linguistic) dimensions of SLA, (c) socio-cultural dimensions of SLA, and (d) instructional dimensions of SLA. The field of second-language acquisition involves various contributions, such as linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and education. The main purpose of theories of second-language acquisition (SLA) is to shed light on how people who already know one language learn a second language.
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