In the last chapter, I identified some potential limitations and caveats in the current WM–SLA research, which naturally led to a call for a more principled approach to conceptualizing and measuring WM in SLA research. To this end, I propose a conceptual framework for theorizing and measuring WM in SLA research that integrates current research insights from both the cognitive sciences (Chapters 2 and 3) and the emerging patterns in the findings on WM in L1 (Chapter 4) and L2 learning (Chapter 5). As such, in the first two sections of this chapter, I reconceptualize and redefine the two key constructs of WM and SLA, and the new versions of these will be adopted in the integrated framework. Based on these working definitions, in the third section I elaborate the integrated conceptual framework, including its overall structure and key constituents. The following section highlights the basic tenets of the framework and further outlines some general principles for applying the integrated framework in practical research. The last section summarizes the possible empirical consequences for future research and concludes the chapter.

Reconceptualizing and Redefining WM in SLA Research

The review of the theoretical literature on WM in the cognitive sciences in Chapter 2 showed that despite the theoretical debates and controversies surrounding the concept, most cognitive psychologists conceptualize WM as a multiple components/functions system that comprises both domain-specific storage mechanisms and domain-general executive functions (Conway et al., 2007; Coolidge & Wynn, 2009; Fenesi et al., 2015; Miyake & Shah, 1999; Williams, 2012, 2015). In line with this fractionated view of WM in cognitive psychology (Baddeley, 1996, 2003a, 2012, 2015), a working definition of the WM construct in the integrated framework presented here is as follows: those multiple cognitive mechanisms and functions implicated in the temporary maintenance, access and control of a limited number of pieces of linguistic information to facilitate the acquisition, representation, processing and development of various domains and activities in learning a second language.