Language aptitude: Multiple perspectives

Abstract

Aptitude is one of the most important, intriguing, messy, and often controversial topics in second language research. Though the field agrees that aptitude is among the myriad of individual differences learners bring with them to the metaphorical language learning “table,” the agreement often stops there. Doughty (2019) details some unresolved debates over questions like whether aptitude is a stable characteristic over the lifespan or if it evolves (or if it can even be trained!), whether aptitude provides a blueprint for how much and how quickly a learner can become proficient in a new language (and, by extension, whether aptitude constitutes a language learning “ceiling”), and whether the constituent components of aptitude exert themselves differentially in the language learning process at various maturational and proficiency stages—just to name a few. The articles in this 2021 issue of ARAL contribute to this ongoing debate and drive forward understanding, as well as raise new questions in aptitude inquiry by examining the impact of aptitude from theoretical, empirical, metanalytic and review perspectives. The first paper in the current volume, by Wen and Skehan, is entitled “Stages of Acquisition and the P/E Model of Working Memory: Complementary or contrasting approaches to foreign language aptitude?” This article probes and synthesizes the authors’ two current theoretical models of aptitude, exploring the roles of working memory (WM), input processing, and language analytic ability in the context of second language learning aptitude. Their perspectives on language aptitude (LA) are explained and compared. These are the Stages Approach, put forward by Skehan (2016, 2019), and the P/E Model described by Wen (2016, 2019). The authors discuss their models in the context of WM and LA, describing input processing, noticing, pattern identification, complexification, and feedback. While the authors concur that both working memory and language aptitude are of equal importance in input processing, their models diverge in other aspects, for example, in pattern identification. Other scholars—ourselves included—see working memory as a component of aptitude. For more views on theoretically oriented approaches, we recommend the reader also see Doughty (2019), Granena (2020), Jackson (2020), Robinson (2005), Robinson et al. (2012), Sáfár and Kormos (2008), Sparks et al. (2011), and Wen et al. (2019). The following article by Li and Zhao, moves from theory to methods. “The methodology of the research on language aptitude: A systematic review,” is a synthesis of methods utilized in current studies on the role of aptitude in second language acquisition research. Sixty-five studies were included, based on literature searches, and three metaanalyses by the first author (Li, 2015, 2016, 2017). The authors classify aptitude research into three categories: (a) the role of aptitude in naturalistic learning, (b) the association of aptitude with instructed learning, and (c) aptitude as it relates to individual difference