Present Tendencies of the Linguistic Studies. Their Implications for the Teaching-learning of Foreign Languages

Abstract

The present article had as objective to determine the main approaches of the linguistic studies of the English language, as well as their perspectives of development. To achieve this objective, different methods were used. From the empirical level, the analysis of official and personal documents, interviews and surveys were used; from the theoretical one: the analysis-synthesis, induction-deduction, the historical-logical and the hypothetic-deductive. From the statistic level, the non-parametric test Q of Cochran was used. The results obtained established two general groups of linguistic studies: those of a formal character (which emphasized the study of structures and the processes of language by means of their description); and those of a functional perspective (which viewed language as an essential means of cognition and communication). Based on these elements, the main implications of such studies in the teaching-learning process of foreign languages in the universities of pedagogical sciences were analyzed. The observations made became a point of departure for foreign language teachers to self-assess their pedagogical practice, in order to reinforce it or reconsider their positions about it.