ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses the construct of metalinguistic awareness in second language acquisition (SLA) from two theoretical perspectives. The first perspective was labelled the cognitive-developmental approach as applied in psycholinguistic and/or cognitive-psychological research with bilinguals and multilinguals as well as in language-educational research with child additional language (L2) learners in the classroom and low-educated adults. The second perspective distinguishes categorically between explicit and implicit knowledge, memory, learning and teaching and is the predominant paradigm informing applied linguistics research with literate and educated adult learners who typically receive L2 instruction. Whenever a broader theoretical framework was required, the chapter focuses on the usage-based approach to language and language learning. The usage-based approach both acknowledges and tries to account for the dynamic interplay of a multitude of variables in SLA, that is, characteristics of the language input.
