Honderd jaar theorie en onderzoek van tweedetaalverwerving Afgedankte inzichten en nog onopgeloste raadsels

This paper characterizes three views on learning and language development that successively prevailed over the last hundred years: (1) behaviorism and structuralism (1920-1960), (2) the Cognitive Revolution, including Chomsky’s generative linguistics (1960-1990), and (3) connectionism and Usage-based linguistics (1990-present). Because of the large distance between abstract constructs and empirical observations in all three approaches, it is difficult to empirically falsify theories in any of them. Views of the behaviorist/ structuralist and of the generative schools can no longer be considered relevant for the teaching and learning of a foreign or second language, while some views of connectionism, Usage-based linguistics and Construction Grammar are. The paper is rounded off with some recommendations for second-language instruction, emphasizing the importance, for implicit learning of grammatical  patterns, of word-by-word understanding of spoken language.