Research Scope, Themes and Issues

Language aptitude and working memory in SLA

Even casual observations in our daily lives tell us that some people are able to learn a foreign or second language (L2) easier, faster and/or better than others (Grigorenko et al., 2000; Segalowitz, 1997). This common phenomenon is best captured by the concept of language aptitude in applied linguistics. By definition, L2 aptitude presupposes that ‘there is a specific talent for learning foreign languages which exhibits considerable variation between individual learners’ (Dörnyei & Skehan, 2003; Skehan, 1998). This underlying assumption of an L2 aptitude was put to considerable test as early as the 1950s and 1960s, mostly with respect to the research done by John Carroll on US military personnel (see Spolsky, 1995; Stansfield, 1989).

From the 1970s, however, research on L2 aptitude languished, with ‘relatively little empirical work and little theorizing’ taking place during the next three decades (Skehan, 2002: 69). This lack of research interest stemmed partly from several major criticisms levelled against the very concept of language aptitude per se (for more detailed discussion see Dörnyei & Skehan, 2003; Skehan, 1998, 2002). The first accusation was related to the anti-egalitarian ‘labelling effect’ of a concept that assigns the label of ‘loser’ to anyone who gets a low aptitude score (e.g. from the Modern Language Aptitude Test, or MLAT; Carroll & Sapon, 1959). The second accusation targeted the ‘indecent origin’ of the outdated teaching methodology used during the heyday of early language aptitude research (i.e. the audiolingual method, which was dominant in the 1950s when Carroll conducted most of his aptitude research). As a result of these accusations and other criticisms, such as Krashen’s (1980) verdict that aptitude predicts only explicit learning, not language acquisition), there was little research on L2 aptitude from the 1970s until the 1990s (Wen et al., 2016).

In recent years, however, research on L2 aptitude has managed to gain some renewed momentum (Granena & Long, 2013; Granena et al., 2016; Li et al., 2015; Robinson, 2002).