ABSTRACT
In Chapter Four we began to address the so-called social-cognitive divide, with social theories looking at the context of learning, and those factors outside the learner that might have an impact on learning and cognitive theories focusing exclusively on mental activities and the linguistic structures stored within the learner’s mind. We have already seen that many theories account for both linguistic structures within the learner’s mind and the impact of social factors outside the learner on language development. Thus, the approaches presented in this chapter should not be taken as opposites of those reviewed in Chapter Four. In fact, in some cases one could argue that an approach might fit equally well in either chapter. Nevertheless, what the theories presented here have in common is their focus on mental activities, or cognition. Research on cognition may explore the structure of linguistic knowledge, the study of how this knowledge comes to exist, or of how it is stored and used. This knowledge may, of course, also contain social information. Nevertheless, this body of research is contrasted with those theories that believe that language or linguistic knowledge is co-constructed in the world through social interaction exclusively, rather than taking place through individual mental activity.
