Educational researchers have commonly used the traits of learners to explain schooling outcomes and, as I observed in the Introduction, second language learning research has often taken learners' characteristics or traits as a central concern. McDermott argued that such a view is limited and that observers also need to pay attention to learners' positions and social relations (their 'interactional circumstances'). This chapter begins with a survey of past and more current psycholinguistically-oriented second language education research and goes on to describe socioculturally-oriented work before 2000 (when Learning English at School: Identity, Social Relations and Classroom Practice (LEaS) was first published) and since 2000. This is a brief review of both psycholinguistic and sociocultural research and focuses on a few representative studies, summarising how this research has traditionally and more contemporarily conceptualised language, learners and the processes of language learning. As such, this is a rather 'broad-strokes' history, and not reflective of nuances in particular scholars' work.

With respect to socioculturally-oriented work, I consider how language, learners and language learning have been, and are, conceptualised. I used a sociocultural perspective to develop the theoretical framework and methodology for the 2000 report of my study. In Chapter 2, I discuss how new materialist theory might augment psychological and sociological ways to think about language learning and teaching.

Language, Learners and Learning in Early Second Language Acquisition Research

The study of second language acquisition (SLA) developed rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s and continues today. Early research drew upon structuralist theories of language, often cited as originating with the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1966), who urged attention to the linguistic knowledge that allowed speakers/hearers to use and understand language's stable patterns and structures.