A Poetics of Second‐language Acquisition¹

Today there are many approaches to the study of second‐language acquisition (SLA), but the variety is superficial and misleading, for it disguises an underlying research ideal the controlled experiment. We can, in other words, scientifically “know” facts about SLA only after a controlled experiment replicates and cross validates, these facts. This ideal method is part of the nomothetic tradition of science, tradition which subordinates and ultimately excludes a hermeneutic mode of inquiry. But these two approaches to science need not conflict. For our SLA research I propose this change: that we alternate between two equal kinds of research. A poetics of SLA teaches us that the thing observed—language—is also the motive inferred—why we speak. Where a nomothetic experimental method gets at the language object, another equally good method of research, a hermeneutic diary study for example, reveals the biases of our work. We should promote in our SLA research this “bilingual attitude.”