Apples and Oranges: Or, Why Apples Are Not Orange and Don't Need to Be a Response to Firth and Wagner

Abstract

This is a response to the article by Firth and Wagner (F&W) “On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research” that appeared in MLJ 81,3. The present article deals with three areas discussed by F&W. First, I point out that F&W misinterpret my own work as well as that by others who have written within the input/interactionist framework (and within SLA in general); claims that are attributed to certain researchers were not ones made by those researchers. In particular, the scope of inquiry that F&W attribute to some SLA research is quite different from the actual area of inquiry. Second, I deal with the notion of “learners as deficient communicators,” arguing that F&W's attribution of this concept to SLA researchers is flawed. Finally, I discuss F&W's reanalysis of data that originally appeared in some of my earlier publications.

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