1996 Lantolf

Language Learning 46:4, December 1996, pp.
713-749
Review Article
SLA Theory Building:
“Letting All the Flowers Bloom!”
James P. Lantolf
Cornell University
This article presents a postmodernist critical analysis

of the SLA theory building-literature as primarily repre-
sented in the writings of Beretta, Crookes, Eubank, Gregg,
Long, and t o some extent Schumann. I argue that there is
no foundational reason to grant privileged status to the
modernist view of SLA theory these scholars espouse.
Scientific theories are metaphorical constructs that are
elevated to theoretical status because they are “taken
seriously”by their developers. All of which argues against
cutting off any would-be SLA theory before it has the
opportunity to be taken seriously (i.e., to bloom).
Scholars concerned with the problem of second language

acquisition (SLA) have recently begun to focus their energies on
the question of SLA theory and theory building (e.g., Beretta,
An earlier version of this paper was presented as a plenary address to the
annual meeting of the British Association ofApplied Linguistics, University
of Southampton, September 1995. I thank all those who provided important
feedback, suggestions, and criticisms on earlier versions of this article. I am
especially grateful to Merrill Swain, John Schumann, Elaine Tarone, and
Leo van Lier. Any shortcomings, and there are no doubt many, are my
responsibility alone.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to James P.
Lantolf, Department of Modern Languages, 314 Morrill Hall, Cornell Uni-
versity, Ithaca, New York 14853 USA. Internet: JPL5Qcornell.edu
713
714 Language Learning Vol. 46, No. 4
1991, 1993; Beretta & Crookes, 1993; Crookes, 1992; Eubank &
Gregg, 1995; Gregg, 1989, 1993; Klein, 1990, 1991; Long, 1985,
1990, 1993; Spolsky 1985, 1989, 1990). Presumably, this indi-
cates that the field has attained sufficient maturity, empirical
richness, and sophistication that in order t o legitimize itself as a
science it requires a centripetal core around which the efforts of its
researchers, supposedly engaged in normal Kuhnian science, can
coalesce.’ Others have worried not so much about the shape of
SLA theory or theories as they have about the interface between
theory and practice (Clarke, 1994; Ellis, 1994; Pennycook, 1990,
1994;van Lier, 1991,1994,among others). Still others, especially
Schumann ( 1983)have wondered whether the entire enterprise of
theory building is even worth the effort, given the “relative”(I use
the term with due caution) unimportance of the field. I want here
to address the literature whose concern is to imbue the field with
a proper sense of theory, and consequently, of science. Hence, I
primarily focus my remarks on the writings of Beretta, Crookes,
Eubank, Gregg, Long, and Schumann.
Coming to Terms
As a point of departure, I would like t o consider two key

portions of Beretta, Crookes, Gregg, and Long’s (1994) brief
written reaction to van Lier’s (1994) response paper t o the special
issue of Applied Linguistics (1993) on theory construction.2 In
their reaction, Beretta, Crookes, Gregg, and Long accused van
Lier of not having read what they had written and attributing t o
them a “joint position” that they in fact do not have (p. 347).3 For
his part, van Lier (1994) stated up front that he in no way wished
“to imply that its [the special issue] contributors can be lumped
together as representing one single view” (p. 328).” As the editors
of Applied Linguistics commented on Beretta et al.’s reaction,
there is indeed a common bond among the special issue’s contribu-
tors-a commitment to the rationalist epistemology and (despite
claims t o the contrary) the positivist legacy that continue t o
pervade SLA research.
Lantolf 715
I suspect that van Lier had indeed read every word of the
texts in question and probably more than once. However, I also
suspect that the contributors to the special issue take a strict
modernist, or readerly, stance toward texts-a stance that buys
into the well-known conduit metaphor (Reddy, 19931, which
assumes that language and mind are containers that hold thoughts,
ideas, and meanings. In communicating, the speaker or writer
puts thoughts and meanings into words, thus making the thoughts
and meanings available for others to insert into their mind once
the packaging is undone. The metaphor further assumes that if
authors are sufficiently careful in constructing their texts, the
meaning will be there for the reader to unpack in precisely the way
the author intended. Hence, texts have objective content and
readers are merely passive consumers of the author’s meaning
“lying in wait” in the text (Villancourt Rosenau, 1992, p. 37). On
the other hand, a postmodern, or writerly, perspective on texts
“implies that meaning originates not in the production of a text
(with the author), but in its reception (by the reader)”(Villancourt
Rosenau, 1992, p. 37). Hence, texts have private and multiple
interpretations. This has clear implication, for theory, and for
theory building, which will form the core of my argument.*
The modern scientific enterprise has its roots in the Enlight-
enment, which brought to the fore reason, rationality, the univer-
sal, idealism, objectivity, and the search for the truth. All these
elements permeate the writings of those concerned with SLA
theory building. They may disagree as t o some of the details, such
as whether property theories should precede transition theories
(Gregg, 1989, 1993) or whether, as van Lier (1994) contended,
theories need to take account of praxis; but they all concur that
theory building is a worthy pursuit, because it will lead t o
explanation (in causal terms) and ultimately to the “truth”about
the “reality”of SLA. Another important feature many, though not
all (cf. Schumann, 1983),SLA theory builders share is a common
fear of the dreaded “relativism.”As Beretta (1991)put it, “I argue
for the possibility of rationality and claim that the persistence of
multiple SLAtheories (without principled complementarity)would
be inimical t o progress in theory construction” (p. 495). Here we

encounter another common assumption by theory builders, also
shared by most workers in the field: the notion of progress toward
the truth about SLA.
But SLA theory building as currently construed must be
questioned. It presents a lopsided and uncritical view both of
itself and of the scientific tradition from which it arises, and it
precipitously dismisses those who would challenge it. I am
neither the first nor the most capable writer challenging modern
science and its concept of theory; others have been engaged in this
task for a lot longer and with a good deal more eloquence and
insight. Consequently, I take the liberty of harvesting from their
work in order t o develop my own argument.
Physics Envy
SLA theory builders confer an air of legitimacy on the

discipline by tyingit t o the apron strings ofthe natural or so-called
“hard” sciences. Beretta and Crookes (1993, p. 271, n. 7) for
example, arguing the importance of separating theory from prac-
tice, which van Lier (1994) saw as a problem, stated: “If SLA is to
take its cue from the natural sciences (as Chomskyan linguists
think linguistics should do), then it cannot be guided, inhibited, or
distracted by practical concern^;"^ in the same note, they contin-
ued, “no one expects a theoretical physicist to attend to engineer-
ing nor theorists working on the Human Genome Project t o attend
t o medicine.”6 Furthermore, Gregg (1989, 19931, Beretta (1991,
19931, Long (1985,1990,1993), and Crookes (1992) all cited work
in Newtonian physics, plate tectonics, and relativity theory as
evidence of how scientists operate and how theories are con-
structed. Long (1993) provided a particularly revealing illustra-
tion of the SLA theory builders’ reverence for the natural science
model when, in discussing the importance of disengaged and
rational experimentation, he warned of the “dangers of importing
criteria from the natural to the social sciences, since we are
dealing with people, who can affect the systems and processes
Lantolf 717
SLA theories seek to explain in ways physicists, for example, need

not worry about” (p. 235). I find this statement revealing not only
because it refers t o physicists but also because it seems t o assume
that the systems and processes of SLA should somehow be inde-
pendent of the very people who are trying t o learn a second
language. SLA is not situated in processes but in people embed-
ded in activity; if these people change the conditions of our
experiments, so be it. What we need to “worryRabout is the ways
in which people alter our experiments; here we can gain under-
standing ofhow people learn second languages. As Vygotsky often
said, when things go wrong or breakdown in experiments, that is
when the experiment really begins (Vygotsky, 1978h7
In essence, the theory builders are experiencing an episode
of what Gould (1981) called “physics envy” (p. 262). This is more
interesting when one considers that researchers in anthropology,
sociology, and psychology, including an increasing number of
researchers in cognitive psychology, have for some time realized
that the natural sciences might not be the most appropriate model
to follow and have begun t o look to historical research and literary
theory for their inspiration (Polkinghorne, 1988). Hence, writers
such as Gergen (1990a, 1990b, 1992,1994),Leary (1990), Lather
(19921, Kvale (19921, and Best and Kellner (1991), among others,
have argued that science is a matter of discourse and the produc-
tion and interpretation of texts. To appreciate what this means,
I would like to consider a particular kind of scientific text-the
text known as theory.
Metaphor as Theory
Gregg (1989) opened his paper on generativism in SLA

research with the seemingly neutral comment that “the ultimate
goal of second language acquisition research is the development
ofa theory of second language acquisition” (p. 15).Although some,
such as van Lier (1991) and t o some extent Ellis (1995), might
challenge this assertion, a fair number of SLA researchers would
not oppose this setting of what, at first glance, seems an innocuous
if not desirable goal.s Beretta (1993) echoed this view when he

wrote, “Theory construction is the normal activity (whether im-
plicit or explicit) of any scientist in formulating explanatory
principles” (p. 221). Although he may believe research can be
carried out without theory, as apparently most L2 research is,
Gregg (1993) argued it is better to have a theory as a guide because
it provides the researcher with a set of interesting questions, a
way of determining the phenomenon to be explained (explanan-
d u m ) , and a statement (explanans-or more properly a set of
statements) to explain how or why things are the way they are (p.
277). Theories are supposed to lead t o the truth.
In the case of SLA, Gregg (1993) argued the explanandum is
the acquisition of L2 competence and the explanans is some as-
yet-undiscovered mechanism-a mechanism that supposedly
causes acquisition (p. 278). Gregg contended, however, that
before worrying about the mechanism of acquisition, research
must explain precisely what the acquirers acquire. Therefore, we
need a theory of linguistic competence, and for Gregg (1989,1993)
the only theory of competence worth considering is Chomsky’s,
because it is the most developed and scientifically sophisticated of
all linguistic t h e ~ r i e s Eubank
.~ and Gregg(1995, p. 51) went even
further in proclaiming UG theory “the only one there is” and
therefore to be taken seriously (p. 54): a pretty good metaphysical
move, because, as they stated, it allows us t o “transcend loose talk
of proficiency, ability, ‘communicative competence”’ (p. 54). Of
course this comes a t a cost, specifically what people need t o learn
t o be able t o interact with other people from different cultures and
speech communities. Lest this sounds too anthropological,
Schumann’s (1995, p. 61) insightful response t o Eubank and
Gregg’s criticism of his neurobiological L2 research reminds us
that what has to be taken seriously is language, not linguistics,
and that language entails much more than knowledge of a set of
permissible sentences.’O Moreover, Schumann’s colleague, Jacobs
(1995), in countering Eubank and Gregg’s criticism, contends,
their arguments “confuse mental concepts with neural substrate
and are only convincing if one already accepted GB theory” (p. 68).
Lantolf 719
At this point I make my incision into the metaphor-as-theory

issue. I begin with two statements from the L2 literature that
probably have not received much attention. First, regarding the
supposed plethora of SLA theories floating around:
I imagine further that most of the 40 or 60 [SLA theories]
are not in fact really theories, but rather either descrip-
tive, non-explanatory frameworks for L2 researchers on
the one hand, or else metaphors [italics added] for organiz-
ing one’s thoughts on the other” (Gregg, 1993, p. 289)
Second, “I’d like t o suggest that, for a moment, we look at the
acquisition/learning distinction and controlled versus automatic
processing as literary metaphors [italics added] rather than scien-
tific constructs” (Schumann, 1983, p. 54). Indeed, both Gregg and
Schumann are correct in implicitly, at least, relating scientific
theories (SLAor otherwise) t o metaphors, and further in recogniz-
ing that we use metaphors, including those discursively elevated
to the status of theory, for organizing our thoughts: a key point
that applies to scientists and their thoughts as much as to
everybody else (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 185). As Gergen
(1990b) put it, “Indeed, without metaphor, scientific thinking as
a whole would remain paralyzed” (p. 267).
The history of the Western scientific tradition from its roots
in Plato and Aristotle shows quite clearly the central role played
by metaphor (Leary, 1990; Smith, 1990). From the outset of his
career as a psychologist, William James argued for the critical role
of analogical thinking in the development of human knowledge,
scientific or otherwise (Leary, 1990, p. 45,n. 44). Some of the
preeminent thinkers in the natural sciences relied heavily on
metaphors and, in a curious twist, constructed their metaphors to
explain the physical world from their observations of the social
world. Newton’s concept of universal gravitation, for example,
conceptualized the movement of masses of matter toward each
other “as analogous t o the ‘attraction’ of human persons toward
one another” (Leary, 1990, p. lo), and Darwin relied on the
comparison between animal breeding controlled by humans “and
the putatively natural selection of variants carried out by Nature
(Leary, 1990, p. 11). Indeed, Campbell (1990) in his study of

Darwin’s notebooks concluded that “each of Darwin’s theories is
grounded in a trope-a central metaphor featuring some aspect of
reproduction-and explicated by topics or sequential arguments”
(p. 59). One of the most famous and enduring metaphors was
Locke’s comparison of the human mind t o a tabula rasa (Leary,
1990, p. 37, n. 27). Many scholars, including none other than
Einstein, have recognized the metaphorical quality inherent in
even as sacred a discipline as mathematics, understanding that
the application of numbers to a problem, whether in pure or
applied research, is a rhetorical tactic intended to persuade rather
than t o present a completely definite account of reality (Leary,
1990, p. 33, n. 19).l1
Despite the pervasiveness of metaphor in scientific thinking,
or perhaps because of it, scholars from very early on have been
trying, unsuccessfully, to purge science of such an “insidious
deterrent to clear and objective thinking” (Leary, 1990, p. 9).
However, even in this case, they were themselves unable t o avoid
use of metaphors. Thomas Hobbes denounced the use of meta-
phors as ignes fatui (foolish fires) (Leary, 1990, p. 9); and Pierre
Durham, a turn-of-the-century physicist and advocate of
descriptivism, objected to the use of mechanical metaphors and
models in developing theories as “ ‘parasitic growths’ that have
‘fastened themselves on a tree already robust and full of life”’
(Smith, 1990,p. 239). Even the logical positivists ofthe 1930s and
1940s, who relegated metaphors to the third discursive category
of nonsensical expressions (the first two consisting of logical and
empirical propositions, respectively), could not sustain their
antimetaphorical position, and used such phrases as “logical
atoms, molecular proposition, picture theory of meaning, machine
for grinding out theorems, soil of observation, empirical founda-
tion, and plane of empirical facts” (Smith, 1990, p. 240).
SLA researchers can no more sustain the antimetaphorical
stance than can their colleagues in other human and social
sciences. Spolsky ( 19891, for example, encouraged researchers to
resist their metaphorical and model-building urges as he set out
Lantolf 721
to explore “the conditions under which language learning takes

place” (p. 5). Despite his exhortation and despite his stated desire
of avoiding “amodel of how language is learned” (p. 51, by Page 12
Spolsky was well on his way t o succumbing to these urges, as he
described the components of just such a causal model, which he
finally presented in full pictorial form on Page 28.
Crookes (1992) recognized the central role that metaphor
and related processes, such as analogy, play in theory build-
ing.I2 Although Crookes and I agree here, we disagree on the
crucial point of when metaphors enter into the theory construc-
tion process. As I read Crookes (1992, p. 4321, theories are
cognitive objects arising in the scientist’s mind prior to their
linguistic or logical formulations in the form of analogies and
models. Crookes’ perspective is based on the received view in
orthodox cognitive science, heavily influenced by Chomskyism,
which holds that the mind imposes structure on thought and
language; thus, the conduit metaphor: “Put thoughts into
words.” Not everyone accepts the received view, however. A
postmodernist, or even a Vygotskian, sociohistorical, take on
cognition reverses the relationship between mind and lan-
guage: Language and linguistically constructed (metaphorical)
concepts (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 3) and discourse (Harre &
Gillett, 1994, p. 123) impose structure on the mind; thus, a new
metaphor: “Put words into thought” (see Vygotsky, 1934/1986).13
In this view, without the linguistically constructed metaphori-
cal concepts of a particular discursive domain (determined
largely by the sociohistorical circumstances in which the scien-
tists live as scientists and as humans) theorizing and theory
building would be impossible. In fact, in this view, theories are
metaphors that have achieved the status of acceptance by a
group of people we refer t o as scientists. An important part of
the acceptance process, the literalization or mythification of
the metaphor, entails the crucial step of erasing the “as if”
(Leary, 1990, p. 47, n. 49). The literalization process in turn
rests on the belief that “proper theories are literal, logical
constructs, which is itself an abstract metaphor” (Hoffman,
722 Language Learning Vot. 46, No. 4
Cochran, & Nead, 1990, p. 212). The following section dis-

cusses what the literalization process looks like.
The Myth o f Literalization
Researchers generally assume that metaphorical language

derives its meaning from its opposition to literal language, which
they see as directly representing the phenomena t o which it refers
(Gergen, 1990b, p. 268). This statement makes clear why scien-
tists have struggled so mightily, if in vain, to develop a literal
discourse (Gergen, 1990b, p. 268). Literalists have then consis-
tently worried about a hearer or reader understanding a speaker’s
or writer’s utterance or sentence “as meaning something other
than its literal objective meaning” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p.
206).14 Yet, “the distinction between a literal and a metaphorical
language is specious” (Gergen, 1990, p. 2691, given that meta-
phorical language depends for its very existence on literal lan-
guage; without literal language there can be no metaphor (Gergen,
1990b, p. 269). Basing his argumentation on Wittgenstein’s
(1953) notion of language “games”, Gergen proposed that literal
language is “essentially any constituent of an established or
reiterative pattern (word-action-object)”or “inother words, literal
words are simply those that occupy an established position in a
language game that is repeated with some kind of regularity” (p.
270) to the point where they eventually “feel right” sufficiently
that “they seem to ‘reflect’ the world” (p. 270). To ponder the
meaning of a word is not to worry about its referents nor the
speaker’s or writer’s intentions (a hermeneutic perspective) but to
ponder the “fuller set of practices in which the term is embedded
on a particular occasion”;metaphor arises when the regularized,
“culturally sedimented” pattern is altered (Gergen, 1990b, p.
270).‘5 Although “a new term thrust into an alien context will
seem metaphoric at the outset,” once eventually integrated into a
community’s common practice, it takes on a literal character
(Gergen, 1990b, p. 270). Often, searching out the term’s origins
will bring to light its metaphorical dimension. Seemingly literal
Lantolf 723
scientific terms like gravity, linguistic competence, and correla-

tion, have become literal within the respective scientific commu-
nities that use them, not because they capture reality, but because
they allow scientists to “coordinate their activities across time and
circumstance” (Gergen, 1990b, p. 271).16
The greater the acceptance of and acquiescence to standard
scientific language within a discipline, the greater the chances
that the productivity of the scientific endeavor will diminish.
Hence, to keep a field fresh and vibrant, one must create new
metaphors, which maintain some convention while simultaneously
violating others (Gergen, 1990b, p. 272). Below I present a
compelling example of Chomsky’s recent efforts t o keep his theory
alive with the metaphors of minimalism.
Gregg (19931, in cautioning against the use of metaphors in
SLA, cited a statement by Fodor and Pylyshyn from the late 1980s
in which they asserted that reliance on metaphor often conferred
“license t o take one’s claims as something less than serious
hypotheses” (p. 291, n. 16). The discussion above, however, makes
clear that without metaphor there would be no scientific theory.
In a sense, to develop a theory one must behave precisely contrary
t o what Fodor and Pylyshyn contended; that is, one must take
one’s metaphor seriously and succeed in convincing others t o take
it seriously as well (a topic discussed below) in order to elevate it
to the status of scientific theory. A decisive step in achieving this
is to erase the “as if” from the metaphor, thus rendering the
metaphor literal. But, as I have already mentioned, the danger in
taking this step is the mythification of the metaphor (see Barthes,
1957/1962). As William James, among others, warned, the fluid-
theory of electricity, the emission theory of light, the archetype-
theory ofthe skeleton, the theory that holds curves to be composed
of small straight lines, and the associationist theory of mind, if
taken literally, are all equally false (Leary, 1990, p. 48, n. 49). In
fact, SLA theory building, like all scientific theory building, is
about taking metaphors seriously: in other words, incorporating
metaphors into scientific practice through repetition and subse-
quently mythologizing them into literal language.
Mind (as if3 Computer and Chomsky’s Property Theory IMetaphor
Given Gregg’s (1989) and Eubank and Gregg’s (1995) insis-

tence on the need for a property theory in SLA and their further
claims that the only property theory worthy of consideration is
Chomsky’s, I examine this theory from the metaphorical perspec-
tive.
In his famous review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, Chomsky
(1959) dismissed Skinnerian theory on the grounds that among
other things, it relies on:
analogic guesses (formulated in terms of metaphorical
extension of the technical vocabulary of the laboratory) as
evidence for its scope. This creates the illusion of a
rigorous scientific theory with a very broad scope, al-
though in fact the terms used in the description of real life
and of laboratory behavior may be mere homonyms, with
at most a vague similarity of meaning. To substantiate
this evaluation, a critical account of his book must show
that with a literal reading the book covers almost no aspect
of linguistic behavior, and with a metaphorical reading it
is no more scientific than traditional approaches to its
subject matter, and rarely as clear and careful. (pp. 30-31)
Chomsky recognized the possible dual reading of Skinner’s work;
however, he failed to appreciate the inherent discursive connec-
tion between literal and metaphorical readings. He eventually
succumbed to the same practice he chided Skinner for following;
that is, he managed to replace Skinner’s rat metaphor with one of
his own-the “computing heads” metaphor. As Hoffman et al.
(1990) so metaphorically characterized it, “if metaphoricalness is
sufficient to condemn Skinner, then Chomsky is the sinner who
cast a stone” (p. 212).
Chomsky’s rhetorical prowess played a pivotal role in bring-
ing computationalism t o center stage as the dominant metaphor
of mind,17and it quickly became regularized as theory within the
cognitive science of the 1970s and 1980s (Sternberg, 1990, p.
112).18 Mainstream cognitive science so strongly believes in the
metaphor-in effect, to be in mainstream cognitive science means
Lantolf 725
that many people find it difficult t o conceive of neural computation

as a theory, it must surely be a fact (Globus, 1995, p. 60). The
pervasiveness of this view has made its way into supposed alter-
native theories, such as connectionism, which suggests that,
although conventional symbolic manipulation is not going on in
the brain, subsymbolic computation is indeed being carried out
(Globus, 1995, p. 61; cf. Clark, 1989).
Despite its strength, the computer metaphor is not without
challengers. The Dreyfus brothers have questioned the useful-
ness and validity of the metaphor almost from the inception of
modern cognitive science (see Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986). More
recently, Searle (1992) and Globus (1995) presented cogently
argued cases against computationalism. Briefly, Searle argued
there is no more reason t o assume brain processes (other than
conscious mathematical thinking) are computational than to
claim that a hurricane is computational, simply because we can
model both on computers. He argued that cognitive scientists
search for complex patterns (such as those discovered in language
and perception) and then, failing t o find conscious or shallow
unconscious mental representation, posit deep inaccessible repre-
sentations. Epistemically, the existence of the patterns is taken
as evidence for the existence of the representations; causally, the
existence of the representations is supposed t o explain the exist-
ence of the patterns (Searle, 1992, p. 241). Searle went on t o state
that when such a view is challenged, the “What else could it be?”
argument is evoked (p. 246). Globus based his challenge on
careful and detailed description of the neurochemical data. He
pointed out that the nervous system has strong nonlinear and
dynamic fractal properties, which irreducible t o simpler linear
structures, are thus incapable of performing “computations” in
anything like the term’s traditional sense (Globus, 1995, pp. 79-
80).
The Metaphors of Linguistic Theory
I would like to highlight some of the metaphorical properties

of Chomskyan linguistics because of their relevance t o the discus-

sion of truth and relativism and because Chomskyan linguistics
apparently is the major property theory t o be incorporated into a
general theory of SLA.
At the metalevel, two of the most pervasive metaphors of
Enlightenment thought find their way into modern times and
eventually into Chomskyan linguistic theory: universalism and
idealism. That these are indeed metaphors we should not doubt.
They both arise as a metaphysical move to transcend the ineluc-
table uncertainties of the world, natural as well as human, and
thus allow scientists t o overlook “the rootedness of human activ-
ity” (Kvale, 1992, p. 33).
According to the proto-postmodern critic Theodore Adorno
(cited in Best & Kellner, 1991), idealism is “a form of rage which
wants to subsume the object in the categories of thought, eager to
capture and assimilate all that is different from itself” (p. 225) and
thus constructs propositions that are:
objectively existent, binding, and valid for all individuals
at all times. The ideal universality of its conceptual
fetishes compensates for the lack of universality of mate-
rial objects which in a class divided society are available
only to the privileged classes. Anyone, however, can
possess the universal concepts and propositions of bour-
geois philosophy. (Best & Kellner, 1991, pp. 231-232)
They’re free and they guarantee that we are all e q ~ a 1 . l ~
In its linguistic guise, idealism, as in “the ideal speaker-
hearer,” ends up promoting “aparticular set of linguistic practices
[usually those of the dominant social groups] which have emerged
historically and have certain social conditions of existence,” and in
so doing creates the “illusion of linguistic communism” (Thomp-
son, 1991, p. 5). In Harris’s (1981) view, the metaphorical ideal
speaker-hearer is a:
communicational cripple . . . who can utter and hear only
as much of what is said as is represented by certain rather
limited sets of phonetic symbols . . . his [sic] hearing is, for
example, vastly inferior to the sensitivity of even the
cheapest tape recorder. . . he can mean and comprehend
Lantolf 727
no more than is captured by the semantic representations

correspondingto the sound-sequencesthese phonetic sym-
bols designate. (p. 33)
Furthermore, concepts such as grammar, verb, noun, or subject,
in yet another intriguing twist of science, are extended metaphors
borrowed by linguistic theory from Western pedagogical tradi-
tion; they were originally devices to aid in the teaching of Latin
(Harris, 1981, p. 75).
Perhaps the most interesting metaphors of Chomskyan theory
are those developed from the 1980s to the present. (I am not sure
about the precise time frame; ifwrong, I stand to be corrected.) An
entire series of metaphors reflects a conceptual metaphor ofpower
and control, including dominance, command, government, bind-
ing, subjacency, barriers, bounding, filter, domain, constraints,
heads, dependency, rules, and chains. Notice that researchers use
such terminology in a system designed t o capture human linguis-
tic Creativity, construed (of course) as the capacity t o generate an
infinite number of sentences of infinite length. As Harris (1981,
p. 153) quite correctly argued, linguistic theory has excluded the
interesting kind of linguistic creativity exhibited by people in
their daily use oflanguage, including the use ofmetaphor, as some
kind of performance problem. Linguistic competence itself, the
supposed knowledge that permits creativity, is a metaphor drawn
from mathematics; but it has created no end of interpretive
problems for linguists and nonlinguists alike (see Bialystok,
1990).
As suggested earlier, one way of maintaining the vibrancy of
a theory is t o introduce new metaphors. In developing minimalist
theory, Chomsky (1992) introduced three new terms intended as
economy principles and whose metaphorical properties are still
quite transparent, because they have not yet been mythologized.
These metaphors have clear anthropomorphic qualities that re-
flect what most people would construe as negative: procrastinate
(movement at LF is “cheaper” than overt movement), last resort
(legitimizes necessary steps in derivations t o prevent them from
crashing), andgreed (the “self-serving”property of last resort that
does not allow it t o benefit other elements) (Chomsky, 1992, pp.

46-47). Even more recently, Chomsky (1995) introduced three
new, kinder, gentler, metaphors into minimalist theory--link,
attach, merge-to characterize an assumed pregrammatical phase
in child language acquisition.
Two final metaphorical properties of the theory are the
innately specifiedorgan of language or UG, and a term that at first
glance does not reveal its metaphorical status-sentence. As
almost everyone in SLAresearch is well aware, a good deal oftime,
effort, and controversy have gone into the search for evidence of
the UG metaphor among adult L2 learners.20
One of the more intriguing arguments supporting the meta-
phorical status ofthis construct comes from Lieberman (1991, pp.
130, 1341, who contended that, if it were really a genetically
transmitted property of the human brain, UG should be subject to
the same constraints as all such systems, including genetic varia-
tion. Thus, researchers should find evidence of certain syntactic
traits running in families, just as eye coloring and handedness do.
Researchers would not be surprised, then, t o find children born
with binding-domain problems, who could not acquire the locally
bound reflexives in a language like English, but who could still
acquire the long-distance reflexives of a language like Chinese.
No such evidence exists. Gopnik (1990) and Gopnik and
Crago (1991), studying a speech and language disorder affecting
tense, number, and gender assignment over four generations of a
single family, claimed to have isolated a possible grammar-
specific gene. However, recent work by Vargha-Khadem, Watkins,
Alcock, Fletcher, and Passingham (1995) with the same family
has indicated that the inherited disorder is not restricted to
morphosyntax but affects intellectual and orofacial praxic func-
tions as well. Indeed, these researchers concluded that “the
evidence from the KE family thus provides no support for the
proposed existence of grammar-specific genes” (Vargha-Khadem
et al., 1995, p. 930). Commenting on Chomsky’s insistence on the
biological validity of the language faculty, Diller (1990)remarked
that Chomsky does not appear to have learned much from biology:
Lantolf 729
“For Chomsky, the relationship between linguists and brain

scientists is entirely one-way: Linguists will teach brain scientists
what t o look for, and brain scientists will confirm that linguists
are correct” (p. 335).
What could be metaphorical about sentence? One of the
objections often leveled against modern linguistic theory is that it
assigns primacy to spoken language (even if it is idealized) and
often leaves written language pretty much out of the picture.
Moreover, many linguists themselves hold to the view that writ-
ten language is simply a more stylized version of its spoken
progenitor. Harris (19811,for example, who was highly critical of
modern linguistics, charged that Saussure’s and Chomsky’s theo-
ries left out written language. I believe the situation t o be
precisely the reverse; that is, modern linguistic theory is a theory
based on the written language with its reification of utterance, the
domain of the spoken language (see Voloshinov, 1929/1973) as
sentence (the perfect utterance). Utterance in its reified and
supposedly complete written form then becomes the model (i.e.,
metaphor) not ofbut for the spoken language (see Olson, 1994).
Kress (1994)similarly argued that sentence is a written language
construct and is not part of the grammatical competence one
develops in learning to speak one’s native language. In fact, Olson
(1994) claimed that “people [and I see no reason to exclude
linguists in this case] introspect the grammar of their speech in
terms of their writing system and, hence, may judge casual speech
t o be ‘loose and unruly’ or ‘ungrammatical’ and learn to shape
their speech [and grammars?] to the norms of the written mode”
(p. 118).21
Consider the well-known garden path sentences. There are
only two ways to get a garden path effect in a sentence like “Susan
convinced her friends are unreliable” (from Smith & Tsimpli,
1995, p. 59). One way is t o write the sentence and sanitize it by
eliminating marks ofinternal punctuation; the other is t o read the
sentence purged of its normal intonational contours-that is,
according to its sanitized written rendition. As a discursively
spoken, or written, utterance, there is nothing garden path about
“Susan convinced her (pause) friends are unreliable.” Jacobs’

(1995, p. 68) defense of his work with Schumann reminds us that
data drawn from decontextualized written sentences ignore such
crucial factors for acquisition as intonation, context, environmen-
tal interaction, and individual differences. On the basis of their
work on spoken corpora, Carter and McCarthy (1995) offered the
important proposal that it is necessary to develop separate gram-
mars (i.e., theories) of spoken language; presumably such gram-
mars would be based on the utterance rather than the sentence
metaphor.22
Truth and “Relatiuaphobia”
The question of truth and relativism flows naturally from the

foregoing discussion of theory and metaphor. Even though sci-
ence has supposedly cast off the coils of positivism, it seems clear
that many of its beliefs continue t o make themselves felt to the
present day. In addition to falsificationism, which has been
questioned by some (see Beretta, 1991; Long, 1993) and even
rejected by other SLA researchers in favor of exploration (see
Schumann, 1993), the positivist legacy is alive and well in the
absolutist position on a single reality existing “out there” and in
the presumed objectivity of scientific practice as it progresses
toward uncovering the ultimate truth about that reality.23
Long (1993) wrote that “the increasing accuracy of predic-
tions suggests when the theorist is getting closer to the t r u t h (pp.
233-234). He also stated that even though researchers normally
report results in “theory-dependent language, the physical re-
sults of experiments themselves depend on the way the world is,
not the way the theory that motivated them, nor the strength of
the researcher’s belief in the theory” (p. 233). Gregg (1993)
sympathized with this view, rejecting the theory-ladenness of
observation as a “red herring” (p. 291, n.10). He supported his
contention with a recent experimental study, by Eubank, de-
signed to test sentence processing constraints via grammaticality
judgments of sentences flashed on a computer screen (Gregg,
Lantolf 731
1993, p. 284). For Gregg, not only was Eubank‘s study free from
theoretical coloring but also it was observation free, because it
used a computer to record responses and carry out statistical
analysis. If this doesn’t beg the question, I don’t know what does.
The computer did not decide to conduct a study about people’s
judgments on the acceptability of sentences that were then statis-
tically compared. Even Popper (1981) dismissed pure, theory-
free, observation as a ludicrous supposition and argued that what
scientists observe is a function of what they are searching for.
Beretta (19911, although strongly desiring the contrary, at
least acknowledged that observation is theory-laden and that
“relativism may be inevitable” (p. 502). Ellis (1995, p. 88) echoed
this view, commenting that theories are not contextless creations
but are developed by specific groups of researchers with specific
intentions and purposes (e.g., the desire of some to establish firm
ties with mainstream linguistics). Beretta argued that there is “a
better basis for belief in one theory than another” (p. 502) includ-
ing the possibility that one theory is more successful at solving
problems than another. However, theories often can suggest the
existence of the very problems they are supposedly designed to
solve (see Yngve, 1986, on linguistic theory as an example).
Beretta’s worries about theory-ladeness and about what I
will call relatiuaphobia, or the irrational fear “that there is no
uniquely privileged position from which t o know” (Usher &
Edwards, 1994, p. 37) pervade the SLA theory-building litera-
t ~ r e Their
. ~ ~ roots reside in the assumption that difference and
heterogeneity are impediments t o mastery of the truth (Usher &
Edwards, 1994, p. 37). Only Schumann (1983)dared to advocate
an openly relativistic stance on SLA theory in the name of an
esthetics rather than a science of SLA.25Throughout his article,
he clearly argued for a (modifiedor perhaps cautious)constructivist
position on model building. At one point he wrote, “now the
question is whether this formulation [Perdue’s depiction of the
development of pragmatic into syntactic speech1 describes a
reality or whether it creates one. Although Figure 1 does not
represent pure creation, for several reasons, I think we can argue
that there is substantial creation involved” (1983, p. 64). Near the

end of his article, however, he stated that “all these drawings [i.e.,
models for SLAI are attempts to depict the same reality (SLAY (p.
67). He concluded that because we cannot determine whether
symbolic realism or positivism is ultimately correct we ought t o
adopt both positions and engage in SLA research as a n art and as
a science (p. 68). In Beretta’s opinion (1991, p. 4951, Schumann’s
position is an extreme form of nihilism (realities are constructed,
so anything goes) that is to be shunned.26
Much of the writing by SLA theory builders aims t o rid the
field of its relativistic personality. Hence, authors such as Long,
Crookes and Beretta have suggested ways of culling the 20 t o 60
SLA theories, models, and metaphors. According t o Long (1993,
p. 2281, oppositional theories, those based on radically different
underlying assumptions so as to result in incommensurable
explanations of SLA phenomena (presumably the case for vari-
able competence models vs. homogeneous competence models)
must be eliminated. Theoretically coherent complementary theo-
ries (acculturation models and UG models, perhaps?), which
supposedly account for different aspects of the same reality,
should be saved. Beretta (1991), who expressed a parallel view-
point, contended that in the successful sciences, presumably the
hard sciences, “single theories tend to dominate” (p. 497). The
implication for the field of SLA is obvious.
Long (1993), recognizing the inherent dangers of a single-
theory science (suggesting that it could give rise t o a Hitlerian
Neue Welt Ordnung),tempered this stance by pointing out that in
the history of any scientific field, there generally coexists a triad
of theories: a dominant theory, a competing theory, and an
alternative to both (p. 229). Apparently, for Long relativism is not
so bad after all, provided it is a constrained relativism. However,
it is not the maximum or minimum number of theories that
matters, but the attitude of the scientists espousing them. In
other words, the danger arises when scientists adopt an absolutist
posture and accordingly assume that theirs is the true theory
corresponding to a presumed single reality.
Lantolf 733
In his penetrating critique of absolutism, Adorno (1971/

1984) attributed its origins to the need of bourgeois philosophers
to compensate “for their own lack of material grounding” (Best &
Kellner, 1991, p. 231) and legitimize their existence by proclaim-
ing “an absolute ground for knowledge” (Best & Kellner, 1991, p.
23 1);thus bequeathing t o themselves intellectual property. Above
all, according t o Adorno, it is the “quest for certainty and founda-
tions” (Best & Kellner, 1991, p. 231) that can give rise to the
tyranny of “authoritarian personalities” (Best & Kellner, 1991, p.
231) and ultimately lead t o the kind of Neue Welt Ordnung that
Long so justifiably fears. As Brown (1994, p. 27) pointed out, the
world has witnessed far fewer atrocities as a result of excessive
tolerance than it has as a consequence of absolutism.
Given the relation between metaphor and theory outlined
above, the relativistic view of things is not only plausible but
represents a serious challenge t o the hegemony enjoyed by the
absolutism and foundationalism of modern scientific theorizing
and practice. In fact, for some scholars the hegemony of modern
science has already been undermined, if not destroyed completely
(Gergen, 1994, p. 58). Thus, the relativism that Long, Beretta,
Crookes, and Gregg so eagerly seek to avoid is already upon us.
A strong relativist view holds that theories as regularized, or
in some cases mythologized, metaphors create through linguistic
means the very reality they seek t o explain. Some late modernist
scholars, such as Adorno (1971/1984) and Lakoff and Johnson
(1980) adopt a more moderate view, which supports a single, but
only partially knowable, reality-partially knowable because our
observations are always and everywhere mediated by society,
objects, and above all, by language. This is the perspective that
Whorf unsuccessfully tried t o convince his scientific colleagues to
consider with regard to their own discursive practices (see Schultz,
1990).
Although the mediational perspective might be a safe middle
ground, I nevertheless find merit in the antirepresentational
constructivist position that emphasizes multiple realities and
denounces claims to theoretical superiority and absolute truth,
especially with respect t o the grand narratives of modern science

(see Villancourt Rosenau, 1992, p. 80). But in allowing for
multiple, and often incommensurable, theories, is not the specter
of relativism, or indeed, nihilism, now given free reign? However,
one can allay people’s fears while at the same time maintaining
the relativist posture.
First, as Lather (1992)observed, relativism and nihilism are
concepts emanating from modern foundationalist discourse that
“posits grounds for certainty outside of context, some neutral,
disinterested, stable point of reference” (p. 99) and masks the role
of power and arrogance. Truth, according to Foucault (1980, p.
131)is not discovered, but produced, and by those who have power,
which in turn imbues the power holders with even more power. In
Western science the producers of truth, not too surprisingly, have
tended t o be white class-privileged men (Lather, 1992, p. 100).
Second, we can distinguish epistemic relativism from judg-
mental relativism. The former recognizes that knowledge is
always and everywhere constructed and molded by specific his-
torical and social circumstances and cannot be extralinguistically
described; the latter differentiates itself by its insistence that
because all knowledge is situated, and thus shaped by
sociohistorical and linguistic forces, it is all equally valid, so it is
illegitimate to compare and discriminate among different kinds of
knowledge (Brown, 1994, p. 27). The epistemic view refuses t o
accept the judgmental stance and contends that we can distin-
guish among different forms of knowledge in terms of their
relevance and adequacy for attaining particular goals. Some
forms of knowledge are more successful at solving practical
problems and others more successful at explaining specific phe-
nomena (Brown, 1994, p. 27). How do we decide which forms of
knowledge are indeed more successful in realizing the intended
goal? Not through logical, computational, argumentation but
through rational social discourse. That truth is then socially
constructed and thus situated does not make it untrue (Brown,
1994, p. 22). It does, however, mean that ways of determining
truth are constructed, at times cooperatively and at times
Lantolf 735
conflictively, through discursive practices t h a t , being

sociohistorical, are constantly reviewed and periodically reshaped
(Brown, 1994, p. 22).
If one accepts the constructivist view, one has t o wonder
about the value of theory building and the research that theories
are supposed to guide and inform. If theories are not getting us
closer to the truth, what good are they? A postmodernist might
answer that, although they do not deserve the grail-like status
they enjoy in modern science, theories do matter because they are
invitations for scientists t o engage in discussions (Villancourt
Rosenau, 1992, p. 82) aimed at working out discursive forms that
serve their local needs (Gergen, 1990b, p. 292). Hence, the goal of
science, from this perspective, is no longer the uncovering of a
single truth about a single reality but “different forms of intelligi-
bility or understanding, each with restricted, practical value”
(Gergen, 1990b, p. 292). Interest now shifts from truth existing
independent of its explanation to how the explanation is con-
structed and made adequate. Thus, the search for the Holy Grail
is still on, only the telos is not the grail but the quest itself. As
Brown (1994) put it, “the ideal republic did exist for Plato and his
friends in their quest, in their actual practice of talking about it”
(p. 33).
Clearly, all of this has implications for the on-going “theory
versus practice/ basic versus applied research” debate that has
ebbed and flowed within the covers of many of the leadingjournals
in SLA. Unfortunately, I cannot pursue the point further here but
have taken it up elsewhere (see Lantolf, 1995).27
Pledging Allegiance
So, how do theories accumulate followers? Beretta (1991)

suggested that theories “command allegiance” (p. 493) because
they are corroborated by experimental research. Although this
certainly happens in some cases, it is probably wishful thinking
rather than anything else. Indeed, Beretta (1991, p. 5051, sug-
gested that a tribal system, based on appropriate rewards and
punishment for those who display or withhold theoretical loyalty,

functions whenever weakly corroborated theories compete for
scientific domination. (This is no doubt also a likely scenario even
for strongly corroborated theories.) However, if, as Beretta and
Crookes (1993, p. 253) recognized, science is a social institution
and if social institutions are discursively constituted spaces (see
Harre & Gillett, 1994), then allegiance is ultimately more a
matter of which discourses scientists are exposed to in their
formative years than it is a matter of corroboration or even
tribalism. In this regard, despite protestations t o the contrary,
scientists do not differ from other people-they are formed by
their discourses. Like other people, if a would-be or practicing
scientist is inculcated (Bourdieu, 1991) into certain discourses
and not others, that person’s scientific habitus (Bourdieu, 1991)
could not easily diverge from the doxa as constructed by those
discourses (failing a major academic life-crisis).
To pursue this issue, consider the Bakhtinian notion of voice,
or “speaking personality, the speaking consciousness” (Wertsch,
1991, p. 51) of the individual that arises through the imitation of
the voices of others during our ontogenetic formation. Put sim-
plistically, the voice of normal individuals consists of multiple
voices appropriated from those in whose world they are embed-
ded. For Bakhtin, a pathological situation arises in the case of
official or authoritative (or more appropriately, perhaps, authori-
tarian) discourse, which in its radical form is a “collectiveversion”
of “autism for the masses” that compels “everyone to speak the
same language” (Holquist, 1990, p. 52). Official discourses loathe
difference and refuse t o acknowledge otherness; they are univocal,
resistant to the multivoicedness of dialogue, and, in their extreme
form, totalitarian (Holquist, 1990, p. 52). However, even in less-
than-extreme cases, authoritative discourses are ideological and
thus demand “unconditional allegiance” (Wertsch, 1991, p. 78,
citing Bakhtin).28
Among authoritative discourses Bakhtin included the utter-
ances of parents, adults, and teachers, and texts of a religious,
political, and moral nature (Wertsch, 1991, p. 78). I would add
Lantolf 737
scientific textbooks to Bakhtin’s list, because they, like the voices

Bakhtin mentioned, function to inculcate the discourse of a
particular scientific discipline, or theory, which shares a canon
and a doxa and specifies ways of reading about, talking about,
writing about, and therefore thinking about, that canon (Olson,
1994, p. 273). The extent to which one masters that discourse, or
more to the point is mastered by it, determines in large measure
the amount of scientific capital and accompanying privilege (i.e.,
power) one can accumulate.
Textbooks generally “consist of an unremitting flow of asser-
tions, that is, statements offered as true” (Olson, 1994, p. 192)
without any illocutionary markers indicating how they are to be
taken; that is, whether they are assumptions, hypotheses, tenta-
tive claims, or metaphors. Olson (1994) nicely illustrated the
point with a sentence drawn from a standard elementary chemis-
try textbook: “Hydrogen, the 16 element of the periodic table, is a
colorless odorless gas” (p. 281). The statement fails t o differenti-
ate the relative, illocutionary, status of the two principal proposi-
tions. The first, hydrogen is the 16 element of the periodic table,
is a theoretical /metaphorical claim; the second, hydrogen is a
colorless and odorless gas, is an empirical fact. Yet, both propo-
sitions are given equal status as truths. The rhetoric of scientific
discourse is not a trivial matter; in fact, it is at the very core of
science itself (see Simons, 1990).
An especially poignant example of authoritative scientific
discourse comes from the Chomskyan tradition. Gardner (1985)
characterized it as a tradition that dismisses criticisms regularly
leveled by other discourses-a central feature of the Bakhtinian
notion of authoritative discourse. Similarly, de Beaugrande
(1991) stressed the importance of Chomsky’s ability as “a skillful
public debater” (p. 147), who often “foregrounds points of conten-
tion even where he implicitly agrees with or borrows from his
adversaries, and uses a highly confident rhetoric for his ‘tentative’
view and proposals” (p. 147) (cf. Botha, 1992, p. 139).
Chomsky took control of linguistics, “not by convincing the
previous generation that it had been in error, but by winning the
allegiance of the most gifted students of the succeeding genera-

tion” (Gardner, 1985, p. 209). This allegiance surely was won by
inculcating the students with the rhetoric of the paradigm, begin-
ning with its elementary texts, and, if we believe Gardner, by
Chomsky’s polarizing rhetorical style that is equally dismissive of
scholars who have criticized him (especially those of the previous
generation of linguists) and of those who influenced him (Gardner,
1985, p. 213). For instance, Hockett’s (1968) forceful
metatheoretical argument against Chomsky’s assumption that
language is a logico-mathematical system produced, at best, a
minimal written reaction from one of Chomsky’s young disciples,
George Lakoff (Gardner, 1985, p. 209). In turn, Chomsky and his
followers simply ignored many of Lakoff s (1987) convincing
criticisms of autonomous
Conclusion: Letting All the Flowers Bloom
I conclude this presentation with a metaphor, maybe even a

somewhat extended metaphor. The picture of the future of SLA
as painted in the papers on theory building is rather stark. Long
(1993) nicely captured this view, in (what I hope remains as) a
utopian image of SLA as populated by researchers satisfied with
their theory, “at peace with themselves and each other over basic
issues in the philosophy of science” (p. 230), and therefore having
nothing left t o do but attend to the details and harvest the
applications of the theory; that is, they engage in the business of
normal science. I much prefer the image of a Kandinsky painting
with its richness ofcolor, shapes, lines, angles, and patterns, some
intersecting, some not, always intriguing, appealingly creative
and highly stimulating-not too unlike a program at conferences
like AAAL, BAAL, or AILA, or the contents of most issues of many
of the leading SLAjournals. As a field of study, SLA came into its
own contemporaneously with the rise of postmodernism. Is it
merely a coincidence that the field is so incredibly, and happily,
diverse, creative, often contentious, and always full of contro-
versy?
Lantolf 739
Sapir (1921) commented that the worlds in which different

societies live (I include the world of science) are distinct worlds,
not merely the same world with different labels attached. From
such a perspective, insistence on a definitive theory or even a
small number of commensurable theories is troublesome. Once
theoretical hegemony is achieved, alternative metaphors are cut
off or suffocated by the single official metaphor; subsequently,
those who espouse different world views (i.e., different meta-
phors) cease to have a voice. Equally disturbing, as Leary (1990)
observed:
the metaphors bandied about today with such confidence
by psychologists and cognitive scientists may infiltrate
public consciousness (and personal self-consciousness)and
remain lodged there, long after these same psychologists
and cognitive scientists have adopted a new set of meta-
phors. Do we really want our children and fellow citizens
t o think of themselves as more or less adequately net-
worked information systems and computational devices?
(p. 40)
An important way of guarding against the dangers inherent in the
absolutist world view i n any sphere of human endeavor, including
science, is to let all the flowers bloom, not just a chosen few. You
never know which ones will catch the eye to become tomorrow's
realities (Gergen, 1990a, p. 295).
Revised version accepted 12 March 1996
Notes
'Bakhtin, writing of discursive communities (and science is a discursive

community), perceived a n essential dynamic tension between centripetal
forces, whose aim is to centralize, unify, and monologize a community, and
centrifugal forces, whose goal is to decentralize, maintain heterogeneity,
and hence, dialogize that community (Holquist, 1990). The arguments I
develop here present a necessary, and indeed inevitable, centrifugal coun-
terbalance to the monologizing forces pushing for a single unifying theory of
SLA.
?Some readers may wonder, as one anonymous reviewer for Language
Learning has, why this article does not appear in Applied Linguistics,
perhaps as a n editorial statement, given that the core set of articles to which
it reacts appeared in t h a t journal and given that I am currently the coeditor,

although not involved with the journal at the time of its special issue on SLA
theory building. Because this article has nothing whatsoever to do with the
editorial policy ofApplied Linguistics, it could not be published there in any
form. The arguments I present here reflect my own views as a n SLA
researcher and not as coeditor of a journal t h a t publishes SLA research.
Thus, it was imperative the article be subjected to the normal peer review
process, which would have been virtually impossible in Applied Linguistics.
3Theyalso chided van Lier for discussing, and taking them to task for, what
they excluded from their articles. Although I do not intend to focus on this
issue, I do not find fault in taking someone to task for choosing to exclude
things from a discussion. Again, van Lier (1994), in a brief, though
unpublished reaction to Beretta e t al.’s (1994) criticisms of his response
paper, pointed out t h a t on Page 328 of his article he stated that he would say
“less about what was in the papers than about what was not in them” (van
Lier, 1995).
4Adding to the intriguing question of readerly and writerly approaches to
texts, van Lier (personal communication, December 1995) pointed out t h a t
he interpreted the accusation of not having read Gregg and colleagues’ texts
a s referring to what these authors had written in other publications and not
to the set of articles in the special issue ofAppZied Linguistics.
5Accordingto Newmeyer and Weinberg (1988, p. 42), the field of SLA cannot
attain scientific maturity until it sheds its direct connections with matters
of language pedagogy. For a n alternative view of the question of scientific
maturity and SLA, see Lantolf (1995).
‘Although I wish to avoid entering the theory/practice fray, I would
nevertheless like to caution theoreticians against casting a blind eye toward
the potential consequences of their theorizing. For Foucault (1980) knowl-
edge (e.g., theory) and power are entwined in a n inseparable relationship.
As Richer (1992, p. 111)put it:
those psychological movements t h a t most insist on their own socio-
political purity are most assuredly duplicitous. . . . Poor Chomsky, a
socially aware and active psychologist if ever there was one, yet, I
suppose blind with regard to the social consequences of his ‘purely
theoretical’research on syntactical development. J u s t discovering the
natural stages of syntactical development, it would seem, but soon
enough we have a new set of objectivized and scientized concepts to
apply to deficits in minority children, the retarded, schizophrenics.
New academic hyper words t o make our judgments sound more
believable. (p. 111)
Chomsky (1979) provided a revealing insight into what can only be charac-
terized a s a disquieting attitude toward the need of scientific researchers to
worry about the social (and political) consequences of their academic re-
search.
%ee Ynjpe (1986)for a n interesting argument that the science oflinguistics
Lantolf 741
is not about the study of language systems, but about the study of people
learning and using language. For a discussion of how second language
learners orient themselves to, and thus alter, experimental tasks, see
Coughlan and Duff (1994).
RAccordingto Gregg, (1993, p. 289, n. 1)van Lier (1991) misinterpreted his
intended meaning of ultimate in the above statement. Gregg apparently
intended it to mean final, whereas van Lier, a t least in Gregg’s view, took
ultimate t o mean most important or only. If the two authors had had the
opportunity t o talk about the term, they might have avoided the problem,
which, incidentally, is what I think L2 researchers mean by “negotiation for
meaning” (Gregg, 1993, p. 291, n. 13). For an informative consideration of
meaning negotiation in conversation see Markova, Grauma, and Foppa
(1995). Of course, a Derridian approach to the problem would argue that van
Lier’s interpretation of Gregg’s terminology is as legitimate as Gregg’s own
interpretation of it.
gSystemiclinguistics and cognitive linguistics are rather sophisticated and
weli-developed linguistic theories as well; so why shouldn’t we choose one of
these as a property theory for SLA? How do we make such decisions? This,
I believe, gets us into political issues and questions of theoretical allegiance,
a n important topic I will take up later.
10Schumann’s(1995) response to Eubank and Gregg (1995) brought to the
fore one of the most persistent and annoying terminological maneuvers
encountered in the generative literature-the conflating of language and
grammar (see Hacker, 1990).
‘IMinsky (1985, p. 284) remarked that researchers tend to rely on quantita-
tive measurements when they are unable to assess the quality of something.
Van Lier (personal communication, December 1995) raised the interesting
possibility that classification and quantification are primitive forms of
thought.
12Accordingto McLaughlin (1987), all SLA theories have been based on a
system of metaphors and each such system is “valid to the extent that it
increases our understanding” (p. 161).
13Thisis not to say that the original metaphor, “put thoughts into words,”
should be abandoned. Both metaphors together show that the relation
between thinking and speaking can be conceived of a s an interactive process
instead of the “one-way street” that the original metaphor implies.
14HenceGregg’s (1989) and van Lier’s (1991) relative interpretations of the
meaning of ultimate.
15Fora detailed example ofhow this process occurs in dialogue, see Rommetveit
(1991, pp. 9-12).
I6For discussion and analysis of how language serves to coordinate the
activities of “ordinary” people as well as scientists, see Malinowski (1935).
17Actually,computationalism can be seen as a modern-day offspring of the
“mind as machine metaphors” that enjoyed great popularity among Enlight-
enment philosophers (Hoffman et al., 1990, p. 181) and eventually made
their way to modern times via Husserl (Globus, 1995, p. 58).
181n his informative book, Sternberg (1990) discussed some seven major
metaphors of mind, including, in addition to the computer metaphor, the
geographic metaphor, the biological metaphor (to which Chomsky has also
made a substantial contribution-see, Chomsky, 1986>,the epistemological
metaphor, the systems metaphor, anthropological metaphor, and the socio-
logical metaphor. The latter two have informed my own research (see
Lantolf & Appel, 1994).
lgStatistics, also a human metaphorical invention with thick roots in En-
lightenment thinking, was, perhaps, a more empirical means of dealing with
the problem of the recalcitrant individual and thus represents yet another
way of ensuring equality among members of a group (Porter, 1986).
2oAstudy that, despite its authors’ conclusion to the contrary, presents
strong support for non-UG effects in adult SLA, was carried out by Smith
and Tsimpli (1995) with a language savant named Christopher. Christo-
pher, as Smith and Tsimpli showed, apparently cannot reset syntactic
parameters in any of his nonprimary languages, even though his L1 syntax
is normal. Nevertheless, the authors believe they have uncovered evidence
for UG effects in Christopher’s ability to acquire the null-subject property of
many of his relevant nonprimary languages. They argued that acquisition
of null-subject cannot have resulted from L1 transfer, given that his native
language is English, a non-null-subject language. However, perhaps once
Christopher developed proficiency in Greek, his strongest L2, he could
transfer this knowledge to subsequent null-subject languages. Second-
language transfer might account for how easily Christopher learned the
null-subject feature of a new language like Berber or even the artificial
language Epun, constructed by the researchers. The authors found no
evidence that Christopher had acquired features generally affiliated with
the null-subject property, namely trace effects and non-SVO orders.
ZIHarris(1981, p. 152)criticized orthodox linguistics for its unwillingness to
take seriously what people do with language and for the tricks it uses to
avoid confronting the problem (cf. Yngve, 1986).
2ZEventhough Chomsky (1957) used utterance fairly regularly throughout
Syntactic Structures, he seemed t o construe it t o be more or less synonymous
with sentence, (e.g., “assuming the set of grammatical sentences of English
to be given, we now ask what sort of device can produce this set (equivalently,
what sort of theory gives a n adequate account of the structure of this set of
utterances,” p. 18). In Aspects of the Theory o f Syntax (19651, however,
sentence was by far the favored term. Whether or not this represents a final
succumbing to the written language is a n open question.
23F0rthe time being, I leave aside the problem of “progress,”also part of the
positivist legacy in science; nevertheless, it is an issue that must be
addressed because of its illusory properties (see, Rosenau, 1992).
24Perhapsa gentler way of putting things would be to say that it is not so
much that relativism is feared a s that it leads to feelings of nostalgia for lost
foundations and fixed rules of conduct (Brown, 1994, p. 23). However, SLA
is still probably too young to experience strong feelings of nostalgia for
Lantolf 743
something lost; thus, fear is a more appropriate way of capturing the

antirelativistic position of many researchers working in SLA.
W a n Lier (1994) and Spolsky (1990) have argued for theoretical pluralism
in SLA and thus have avoided the negative baggage affiliated with relativ-
ism.
26Happilyfor those suffering from relativaphobia, according to Long (1993,
p. 242, n. 51, Schumann recanted his relativist ways at a 1992 conference and
openly declared himself to be a realist. According to Schumann (personal
communication, February 1996), he is a realist on some things, but prefers
the relativist stance on others.
27F~ a nr instructive analysis of the localized interface between theory and
practice in clinical psychology, see Polkinghorne (1992).
28Zdeologydoes not always and everywhere mean totalitarian; it can have the
friendlier connotation of the study of ideas. (Thanks to Leo van Lier for
reminding me of this.)
"As a n insightful and compelling social critic, Chomsky has at least one foot
in the postmodern world; as a n academic researcher, he still has both feet
firmly planted in the modernist culture that dominates scientific thinking.
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Language Learning 46:4, December 1996, pp.

This article presents a postmodernist critical analysis

Scholars concerned with the problem of second language

As a point of departure, I would like t o consider two key

be inimical t o progress in theory construction” (p. 495). Here we

SLA theory builders confer an air of legitimacy on the

SLA theories seek to explain in ways physicists, for example, need

Gregg (1989) opened his paper on generativism in SLA

if not desirable goal.s Beretta (1993) echoed this view when he

At this point I make my incision into the metaphor-as-theory

(Leary, 1990, p. 11). Indeed, Campbell (1990) in his study of

to explore “the conditions under which language learning takes

Cochran, & Nead, 1990, p. 212). The following section dis-

The Myth o f Literalization

Researchers generally assume that metaphorical language

scientific terms like gravity, linguistic competence, and correla-

Mind (as if3 Computer and Chomsky’s Property Theory IMetaphor

Given Gregg’s (1989) and Eubank and Gregg’s (1995) insis-

that many people find it difficult t o conceive of neural computation

The Metaphors of Linguistic Theory

I would like to highlight some of the metaphorical properties

of Chomskyan linguistics because of their relevance t o the discus-

no more than is captured by the semantic representations

does not allow it t o benefit other elements) (Chomsky, 1992, pp.

“For Chomsky, the relationship between linguists and brain

“Susan convinced her (pause) friends are unreliable.” Jacobs’

Truth and “Relatiuaphobia”

The question of truth and relativism flows naturally from the

that there is substantial creation involved” (1983, p. 64). Near the

In his penetrating critique of absolutism, Adorno (1971/

especially with respect t o the grand narratives of modern science

conflictively, through discursive practices t h a t , being

So, how do theories accumulate followers? Beretta (1991)

punishment for those who display or withhold theoretical loyalty,

scientific textbooks to Bakhtin’s list, because they, like the voices

allegiance of the most gifted students of the succeeding genera-

Conclusion: Letting All the Flowers Bloom

I conclude this presentation with a metaphor, maybe even a

Sapir (1921) commented that the worlds in which different

'Bakhtin, writing of discursive communities (and science is a discursive

it reacts appeared in t h a t journal and given that I am currently the coeditor,

something lost; thus, fear is a more appropriate way of capturing the

Brown, R. H. (1994). Reconstructing social theory after the postmodern

Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford

in experimental psychology. In D. E. Leary (Ed.),Metaphors in the history

Markova, I., Grauma, C. F., & Foppa, K. (Eds.). (1995). Mutualities in

Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to

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