Generative Grammar, Structural Linguistics, and Language Teaching

This work presents two theoretical approaches (empiricist vs. rationalist) to account for the principles and processes involved in language acquisition, and discusses the psychological and linguistic bases underpinning the multiplex series of methodologies used in second language teaching. Each of the methodologies is further analyzed in terms of its affiliation with either the empiricist or the rationalist theory of language acquisition. Throughout the book, Diller convincingly demonstrates the inability of the empiricist based, audiolingual methodologies to develop in the second language learner certain necessary, linguistic capabilities possessed by native speakers of natural languages. He makes a strong and very convincing argument for several methodologies which are based on the rationalist theory of language acquisition, but is unwilling to admit to any practical application of transformational generative grammar for second language learning. It seems undesirable totally to exclude generative grammar from the classroom, and it is suggested that, since second language learning involves becoming native-like in the ability to manipulate language structures, and generative grammar has the capacity to account for what it is the language learner must control if he is to approximate the competence of the native speaker, then it would seem to follow that second language learners receiving language data in terms of the explicit statements of grammatical composition and interrelationships provided by the generative grammar should benefit considerably. Diller offers some practical suggestions concerning certain advantages realized from adopting an eclectic approach to second language learning which would take the best from three methods (Mim-Mem, Gouin's Series Method, and the Direct Method) to maximize the learner's control of a language's phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. Diller's penetrating and revealing analysis of language acquisition theory and teaching methodologies poses several compelling questions for anyone truly concerned with the future of foreign language teaching.