It is instructive to look at some of the ways in which the transformational-cognitive school (T-C) has been contrasted with its immediate predecessor (A-L). An unusually clear comparison is found in Kniesner (1969). According to Kniesner, A-L was characterized by a preoccupation with the differences between languages rather than the similarities, and by the belief that any language is a set of habits used in speaking (as opposed to writing). It consists of the habits that its native speakers actually have, and not either the habits that someone thinks they ought to have, or linguistic statements about those habits. The goal of A-L language teaching was 'fluent, error-free speech, without conscious attention to rules.' All the points in this summary, as well as in Rivers' (p.2-3), may be easily and amply documented from the writings of the leaders of A-L;[1] there is little use in denying that they were characteristic emphases of the A-L tradition.
By contrast, Kniesner considers Chomsky's observations (1966) to be typical of the T-C approach. Two of these draw principally on the linguistic side of T-C thinking:
Two more are primarily psychological:
In this view, the learner's task is not 'to master a corpus' (Kuno, 1969), but rather (Kniesner, op. cit.) 'to limit and test hypotheses to find the generative rules which link surface manifestations with meaning-bearing underlying abstract structures
- ↑ For three key statements, see Fries (1948), Moulton (1961), Brooks (1961).
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