ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the major tenets of several theoretical underpinnings of second/foreign language learning/acquisition premised on the psycholinguistic underpinnings of attention and/or awareness for succinct descriptions of other theoretical underpinnings postulated for second language acquisition (SLA). One indisputable key process in all of these psychology-based theoretical underpinnings is the role attention plays in the L2 learning process. Schmidt's Noticing Hypothesis was the first theoretical postulation in the SLA field to address the role of attention in direct relation to the construct of awareness at the early input-to-intake stage of the L2 learning processing. While concurring with Schmidt's Noticing Hypothesis on the important role of attention in learning, Tomlin and Villa's model of input processing in SLA differs sharply from Schmidt's regarding the role of awareness in the input-to-intake process. In addition to input, intake, and knowledge processing, we have attention, awareness, depth or levels of processing, and prior knowledge.
