ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I review connectionist research that brought in a new perspective to SLA research as well as second language teaching. First I reviewed Gasser’s (1990) localist connectionist model, which brings a new ‘spreading activation’ perspective to SLA, and was then applied to conceptual reviews of language transfer focusing on conditions of transfer by Shirai (1992), and also Gasser’s distributed connectionist model which addressed the issues of L1 transfer. Gasser’s localist model was also applied to communication strategy by Duff (1997). Then I review the work on the frequency effect, focusing on a connectionist model that learned pronominal systems (Blackwell & Broeder, 1993), and Koda’s connectionist interpretation of L2 word-recognition research. Finally, I review papers that applied connectionism to language teaching, including conceptual papers on language teaching methodology, bilingual education, language assessment, listening comprehension, and task design.
Most studies reviewed in this chapter did not involve actual connectionist simulations except for Gasser’s two models, Meara et al.’s assessment tool, and Blackwell and Broeder’s model, but, nevertheless, they provide new perspectives to second language learning/teaching that would not be available without connectionism. One might wonder if such conceptual papers are too speculative to make a solid contribution to SLA, but I would like to repeat the point made in Shirai and Yap (1993) that the attraction of connectionism is its generality and it helps us ‘make sense’ of a wide range of phenomena with simple notions such as ‘activation’, ‘nodes’, and ‘connections’. Moreover, MacKay (1988) claimed that, under rational epistemology, quantitative statements are not essential, and qualitative statements will help us advance theory building by bringing in new insights. Also the connectionist emphasis on ‘representational change’ and ‘learning’ (Bates & Elman, 1993) will also help us understand the process of learning and teaching at a theoretical level. In this sense, the papers reviewed in this chapter make unique contributions to SLA as applications of connectionism.
