From Input to Output: Chapter 1

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This chapter helped answer a lot of the general questions I had about SLA and bring new questions to the surface. I trust VanPatten will answer these new ones in the future. I did not realize that SLA was such a young field, though I should have known, as the academic world has only recently made efforts to avoid xenocentrism and to reflect on culture from many perspectives. Of course, as VanPatten admitted, the five "givens" really are simple on the surface and are ones we could have identified in class. However, it was interesting to read VanPatten's reflection on the details behind these "givens." We, as those who could have so wisely discovered these five on our own, only accept them as "givens" because learning our first language was so natural. We recognize these "givens" because of the work that we have already done to learn our initial language (and perhaps a second).