Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In second language learning and teaching, there seem to be two principal ways in which neurolinguistics is of interest: as a source of evidence to support a particular approach to SLA, usually via the critical period issue; and as a source of evidence to promote some supposedly “brain-compatible” classroom teaching technique and to dismiss other techniques that fail on this criterion. The latter use of language-brain research is, to say the least, premature. Even the neuroimaging work on the critical period issue appears to entertain higher expectations than can reasonably be sustained in view of the uncontroversial fact that far less complex problems in language-brain research remain to be solved. This chapter attempts to provide a more realistic perspective. In an attempt to anchor debate to reality, the question that first needs to be considered is what the enterprise of neurolinguistics could possibly be. After all, there is nothing obvious about what is meant by grafting linguistics onto neuro . Once this question is confronted, the answer that it yields may serve as a basis for judging what claims are warranted and what expectations might reasonably be entertained with respect to brains and second language teaching and learning. Someone wishing to find out what neurolinguistics is might turn to the Linguistic Society of America's website ( www.lsa.org ), as it contains ... log in or subscribe to read full text