6 Main trends I
Theoretical and methodological aspects
In this chapter and the following one, the responses to the question“What
are the main trends over the last 30 years?”are presented. The complete list of
topics mentioned is long and varied. I have attempted to bring topics together
to make it more coherent, but the responses could have been structured in
many different ways. Not all informants who mentioned certain trends are
mentioned all the time. In some cases I have taken notions from various
informants and combined them. The trends are structured into three sets. In
this chapter the focus is on theoretical and methodological aspects of AL
and in the next chapters topics related to psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics
and education are presented. Chapter 8 discusses the dynamic turn.
6.1 Theoretical aspects
6.1.1 Linguistic theories
The last three decades have seen a proliferation of linguistic theories that
have played a role in AL. Three theories have dominated the scene, though
not all to the same degree or at the same time: Chomsky’s Generative
Grammar (GG), Usage based (UB) approaches with cognitive linguistics as
its main component and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG).
This section assumes some knowledge about current linguistic theories and
how they are applied to language learning. A detailed description of the
various theories is beyond the scope of this book.
To start with the latter, this theory is based on“meaning potential”, as for
Halliday linguistics is the study of “how people exchange meaning by
‘languaging’”(1985: 193). Grammar is functional“since language has evolved
in the process of carrying out certain functions as human beings interacted
with their‘eco-social’environment”(2013: 1). While SFG has a very strong
position in Australia, its impact in other parts of the world seems to be fairly
limited, though it is the leading theory on language in a number of uni-
versities, in particular Georgetown, where Heidi Byrnes managed to reform
the German program according to the principles of SFG, but also Berkeley
and Birmingham. Few of the informants refer to SFG as a linguistic theory