Access to meaning: The anatomy of the language/learning connection

• Autores: David C. Skinner
• Localización: Journal of multilingual and multicultural development, ISSN 0143-4632, Vol. 6, Nº. 2, 1985, págs. 97-116
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The author illustrates how the theories of Jean Piaget, Noam Chomsky, Lev Vygotsky and James Cummins may be integrated into a single, unified model of the interactions and connections between and among language, learning and language proficiency. The model then serves as an analytical tool for examining the mutual interdependencies of language, language proficiency and learning. The model provides a new perspective that lends further theoretical confirmation to Cummins’ ideas on language proficiency.

    Part I emphasises the implications of this new construct for primary language acquisition and for learning through use of one's primary language. This treatment establishes a conceptual framework for the examination, in Part II, of second language acquisition; and for a more rigorous evaluation of various second language acquisition methods and their impact on learning. The language/learning anatomy portrayed by the anatomical model founds the key prerequisite for such investigations.

    The stress placed here upon primary language acquisition and learning reflects the view that one cannot address second language acquisition issues properly without first articulating the anatomy and dynamics of the primary process. An important result of the articulations expressed in the model is a clearer view of how learning and language acquisition function together as different aspects of a whole process, rather than as separate and distinct processes that may be treated in isolation. (Part II to be published in the next issue.)