Resumen de Acquisition of second languages: Spanish as a foreign language

Mónica Belda Torrijos , Linda Palfreeman

• Applied linguistics relates closely to the real functioning of language. It seeks to solve specific problems, either in the field of linguistics or in areas where other disciplines such as psychology or sociology intervene. Another of its defining features is its interdis-ciplinary character, its field of action delimited by the zone of intersection of the various theoretical conceptions of human language and the approaches of other disciplines that are in some way involved in the treatment of questions related to language. Another characteristic is its dynamism since it not only has to select the linguistic features to be investigated, but also has to be defined according to those same features. Among the diversity of topics with which applied linguistics is associated, learning and teaching a second language is the most important. With this in mind, this article attempts to present, succinctly, the main theories on the acquisition of foreign languages and, more specifi-cally, on the acquisition of Spanish, offering, in addition, an overview of the contributions offered by psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.