According to language development frameworks, acquiring a second language at a later time in life must be acquired through different cognitive processes, often requiring greater involvement with cognitive skills such as metacognition, analysis and pattern recognition.
From this perspective, the same methodologies applicable for Second Language Acquisition (SLA) might also be applicable for the development of greater intellectual virtue.
In Virtues of the Mind, Zagzebski brings to light words such as “right”, “wrong”, “obligation” and “duty”, associating them with judigical processes as well as Judeo Christian belief systems, indicating how deeply language dictates the breadth of our worldviews and the structures that support our cognitive processes.
As such, acquiring a second language challenges learners to re-contextualize their ingrained presumptions and existing mental models to further extend cognitive skills, not simply as behavior, but life long to create life long guard rails that direct us towards the most virtuous modes of cognitive function.
In this way, we can see the applications of how such cognitive structures function as well as amplify learner engagement, autonomy and agency in digital spaces.
Dorneyi’s L2Self model provides an excellent framework to understand how learner motivation and expression of self informs language acquisition, particularly in the ways which learners picture themselves to be speakers and users of said language. Such cognitive functions, as per Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, aids learners in affecting external determinants as external determinants in turn affect internal processes, thus creating a symbiotic relationship between learner, their learning process and their environment. The reciprocal determininst theory therefore undergirds my claim that SLA is an ideal space in which critical digital literacy might be practiced and/or enforced.