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This paperis concerned with a desciip- traditionally"the term applied linguis-
tion of majordifferencesbetween child tics suggests that its concern is with
and adult Second Language Acquisi- the use of findings from theoretical
tion (SLA) as wellas withanoverviewof studies of language for the solution of
majortheoretical frameworks that pro- problems of one sort or another aris-
vide us with accounts of it. Beginning ing in a different domain" (1984:7,au-
with a consideration of SLAsrelation
Child and Adult Second Language
Acquisition (SLA):
Anoverviewofkeydifferencesandtheories
to applied linguistics as a field and to thor’s italics) to conclude that "the
languageteachingin general, the paper close association of applied linguistics
Paschatis Nikolaou movesontoanoverviewof cognitive,bio- with language teaching (to the extent
logical, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, insome quartersof virtualsynonymy)
and social psychological aspects of a is based on the belief that such find-
suggested differentiation between child ings must necessarily be relevant to
and adult SLA as wellasof relative (and the practical teaching of languages".
often contradictory) theoretical frame- Indeed, thestudyof SLA isfrequently
works,andis followed byamoredetailed discussed in a pedagogic context for
consideration of a pedagogicperspective, obvious reasons.Reviewing the litera-
the contribution of Krashen ’s Monitor ture though, it has also to be pointed
TheorytoSLAtheory.Itis suggestedthat out how comparatively recentlySLA
we are far fromreaching a consensuson seems to have established itself as a
an overall theory of SLA and/or agree- separate discipline in terms of the at-
ment on differences between adult and tention it concentrates, as well as a
child second language acquisition, even multidisciplinary field in relation to
moreasthisgoalmightbedeceptive,given where this attention might originate
the unique nature of the experience of (see Ginsberg, 1997:337). Its study,
second language acquisition. importantly, "impacts on and draws
from many other areas of study,
among them linguistics, psychology,
Introduction: Applied Linguis- psycholinguistics,sociology,sociolin-
tics, SLA and key concepts guistics, discourse analysis, conversa-
tional analysis and education" (Gass
In a consideration of the major differ- & Selinker, 1994:9). Thus, a consid-
ences between adult and child Second eration of this topic has to also point
Language Acquisition, astarting point out the diversity, controversial and
may be made in recognizing the rela- contradictory nature of these theories,
tionship of studying SLA to applied creating rather an ' agenda’ of certain
linguistics.Widdowson pointsout that phenomena and their theorizations,
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