TY - JOUR
AU - SMITH, MICHAEL SHARWOOD
AB - Comprehension versus Acquisition: Two Ways of Processing Input* MICHAEL SHARWOOD SMITH University of Utrecht I. GENERAL OVERVIEW The stage seems set for the development of fully-fledged theories of language acquisition by the end of the 1980s. In first- and second-language acquisition, adherents of the Chomskyan approach to explaining how languages can be learned are developing approaches which involve the notion of 'learnability' (cf. Wexler and Culicover 1980, Pinker 1984, White 1985, for example). This means making linguistic theorizing subordinate to the goal of explanatory adequacy (cf. Chomsky 1965: 27 ff.). It also provides developmental psycho- linguists in both first- and second-language studies with a coherent link between theoretical linguistic frameworks and their own interest in how languages, or rather grammars, actually develop. In second-language studies, the link was already there in the 1970s, that is, in some general form at least, in the 'creative construction' approach developed by Burt and Dulay, and by Krashen (see Dulay, Burt, and Krashen 1982 for a recent description of this framework). In every case, an innate linguistic acquisition device is postulated to account for the way in which language input is processed over time in order to create new grammars. The basic argument 
TI - Comprehension versus Acquisition: Two Ways of Processing Input*
JF - Applied Linguistics
DO - 10.1093/applin/7.3.239
DA - 1986-10-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/comprehension-versus-acquisition-two-ways-of-processing-input-lp0C7fj3SN
SP - 239
EP - 256
VL - 7
IS - 3
DP - DeepDyve
ER -