Difference Between SLA And Second Language Acquisition

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INTRODUCTION: 1.1 What is SLA and which are its objectives: The obvious first step is to ensure that is provided a clear understanding of what is meant by the term SLA. However, depending on some aspects, different researchers have presented their own interpretation. On the one hand, second and foreign language are not defined as the same. While a second language is a cultural part of the community you live, the role of the foreign language is played abroad. Another distinction to take into consideration is whether the acquisition or the learning of the language takes place in a naturalistic or an instructed environment. The difference between both concepts lies in whether there is guidance or not. It remains an open question if the process of acquisition is different in a classroom or a naturalistic setting. By the same token, Klein (1986) discerns between spontaneous and guided acquisition. He discusses that in the latter you focus on the different grammar parts and, on contrary, in spontaneous acquisition you learn incidentally. Similarly, we also find another …show more content…

According to Chomsky (1965) competence consist of the mental representations learners have of the linguistic rules. By contrast, performance has more to do with how the learner puts into practice their knowledge of the language. As a consequence of such diversity, the current scope of SLA is very wide and, therefore, providing a precise definition requires much effort. Notwithstanding this fact, diverse researchers coincide on a general set of questions that will be subsequently accounted for. The first question tries to identify what second language learners acquire. In other words, there is an attempt to describe what learners come to know. In order to answer this question, there is a collection of learner's samples so as to see their production. The aim of this corpus is merely

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