Social network analysis (SNA) examines the relationships that an individual speaker creates and maintains with others in order to explain and predict language behavior. Over the past 20 years, SNA has been used by a growing number of researchers to better understand the language learner and the language learning process, especially in the context…

THE RELATIONSHIP OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT TO CULTURAL BARRIERS AND THE TEACHING OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES IS DISCUSSED IN THIS ARTICLE. VARIOUS VIEWS OF THE MEANING OF CULTURE ARE MENTIONED IN ORDER TO SINGLE OUT ANTHROPOLOGICAL CULTURE AS A MAIN FOCAL POINT. INTERCULTURAL DIFFERENCES ARE SPELLED OUT WITH EXAMPLES OF LINGUISTIC BARRIERS, AND…

The author feels that there is no reason to suppose that adults are less capable than children in learning a second language, given adequate opportunity and motivation. In terms of amount learned in comparable time, the adult is about five times as efficient as the child. This is what would be expected of any other kind of intellectual or rational…