The Psychology of Language Learner; Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition by Zoltán Dörnyei; Book Review

Abstract

By taking a close look at the field of language learning, one understands that the psychology of teachers and learners play a crucial role especially in learning second language, in my Ph.D. study and in the course of SLA, I conducted a paper on the communication strategies and gender differences in language learning, and one of the distinguished resources that I depended on was Zoltán Dörnyei’s work. He is the author of ‘The psychology of language learner; Individual differences in second language acquisition’. The book published in 2005 then revised and in 2015 published by Rutledge and it becomes the primary reference for teachers and researchers of ELT departments around the world. The author presented the highlighted concepts of discussions and topics well formulated. The main objective of writing this book can be seen as an effort to come up with a monograph about the research on individual differences in language learning. Hinge to this objective, the author presented a rich literature on the contemporary studies of the field. This paper is an attempt to review, critique the book from different perspectives, give further attention to the literature review, sociocultural understanding, and also, examine the book from philosophical perspectives.