Chaos, Complexity and Language Learning

Abstract

Complex systems theory is a relatively new paradigm for understandingsystems behavior. It was originally developed in the fields ofmathematics and physical sciences. Complex systems theory has alsobeen widely proposed as an important new way to look at social andcognitive sciences, including language learning. One criticism of this newparadigm in the field of language learning is that no clear model oflanguage learning based on complex systems theory has been developed.This paper considers the current state of language education, provides anoverview of complex systems theory and then proposes a basic model oflanguage learning based on the new paradigm. The paper concludes withsome implications of adopting a complex systems model of languagelearning