A Philosophy of Second Language Acquisition

How does a person learn a second language? In this provocative book, Marysia Johnson proposes a new model of second language acquisition (SLA)—a model that shifts the focus from language competence (the ability to pass a language exam) to language performance (using language competently in real-life contexts).

Johnson argues that current SLA theory and research is heavily biased in the direction of the cognitive and experimental scientific tradition. She shows that most models of SLA are li...