文档介绍：Toward a Sociocognitive Approach to
Second Language Acquisition
DWIGHT ATKINSON
Graduate School of Education
Temple University Japan
2-8-12 Minami Azabu
Minato-ku
Tokyo 106-0047
Japan
Email: dwightatki@
This article develops the notion of a sociocognitive perspective on second language acquisition
(SLA), proposed as an alternative to the cognitivism pervading the field. By sociocognitive, I
mean a view of language and language acquisition as simultaneously occurring and interac-
tively constructed both “in the head” and “in the world.”
First, I develop a view of language and its acquisition as social phenomena—as existing and
taking place for the performance of action in the (socially-mediated) world. Second, I describe
the cognitive nature of language and its acquisition, focusing especially on recent develop-
ments in connectionism. Third, I introduce sociocognitive views of language and posit a social
interpretation of connectionism as bridging the gap between cognition and social action.
Fourth, I discuss sociocognitive perspectives on first language acquisition. Fifth, I describe the
cognitivist biases of much SLA research, then suggest how sociocognitive approaches can help
e them. I end by considering implications of the perspective I develop in this paper.
Theorists and researchers tend to view SLA as a mental pro- essential to understand how they constitute each other.
cess, that is, to believe that language acquisition resides Rather than according primacy to the role of sociocultural
mostly, if not solely, in the mind. (Davis, 1995, pp. 427–428) activity or of the individual, the aim is to recognize the
essential and inseparable roles of societal heritage, social
Most SLA researchers view the object of inquiry as in large engagement, and individual efforts. (Rogoff, 1990, p. 25)
part an internal, mental process. (Long, 1997, p. 319)
A RECURRING ES TO MIND WHEN
SLA has been essentially a psycholinguistic ent