The Problem of the Approach Definition

The idea of approach in linguistic education has often been defined as a certain overall view of language and its acquisition. This kind of description evades distinct analysis as long as the two constituents are isolated crystallizations of largely different domains. The insulation of the major conceptual constituents causes the imprecision of current approach definitions which hampers specifying the concept's characteristics. The formulation of a precise definition implies extinguishing the concept's ambivalence for a new working model of the concept to be developed and its relations with coterminous notions to be explicated. The task of this chapter is to work out a conceptualization of an approach definition based on a variety of the concept's dimensions delineated due to establishing a new configuration of the concept perspectives viewed in terms of approach essentials. The main issues considered include the feasibility of approach definition, extinguishing the ambivalence of the approach concept, general principles of approach classification, type groups and taxonomies, antinomies of the approach concept definition issues, definition patterns of approach and the contiguous notions of method and technique, and conditions and criteria involved in the notional cluster.