A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE CREATIVE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS IN CHILD SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION1

A new perspective is outlined on the creative construction process in second language acquisition. First, an attempt is made to use Brown's notions of semantic and linguistic complexity to account for differences between first and second language acquisition orders. Second, the notions “learning complexity” and “learning strategy” are clarified. Third, an alternative to rank order analyses of acquisition sequence is presented, along with some findings on L2 acquisition. Finally, the outline of a framework for research in second language acquisition is presented.