Trends in Second-Language-Acquisition Research

Recent concern with bilingual education has led to an increased interest in understanding the process of second-language acquisition. In this article Kenji Hakuta and Herlinda Cancino present a critical, historical overview of research on second–language acquisition. In this account the authors outline four analytical approaches—contrastive, error, performance, and discourse analysis—trace the shifts among these approaches, and demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of each. They also show how the different approaches reflect changing conceptions of language and the nature of learners. The authors give special emphasis to the influence of first-language-acquisition research on studies of second-language acquisition,and they speculate on future research trends.