Ulf Schütze: Language Learning and the Brain: Lexical Processing in Second Language Acquisition

Excerpt

In Language Learning and the Brain: Lexical Processing in Second Language Acquisition, Ulf Schütze accomplishes his mission of describing how learners acquire words in a second language. Schütze argues that much of a learner’s success is based on how much the learner’s brain can handle at a time. Therefore, he considers the conditions under which a learner can acquire, remember, and speak the words of another language. Factors that determine these conditions are age, individual background, emotional connotation of words, and memory facilities. Schütze considers these factors, with special focus on cognitive psychology, to describe how learners process a new, foreign word. Schütze does not set out to create an instructional manual but connects his findings to educational uses. The book achieves its mission with ample scientific evidence and accessible examples. …