We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2021
Giftedness, genius, and exceptional ability have captured the imagination of philosophers, educators, scientists, and researchers across disciplines for centuries. This chapter charts the giftedness concept through time and across competing theoretical paradigms. Those in the “nature” camp assert that giftedness is fundamentally inborn, while those who prioritize experience or “nurture” point to concentrated effort and practice, along with external opportunities, drive, etc.
Fuzzy terminology, narrow empirical approaches, and the inability to directly observe the mind-brain mean that the etiology of giftedness remains a mystery, and a point of heated contention in some disciplines. The problematics and usefulness of this concept for second language acquisition and learning are introduced, along with the argument for a broader, contextualized, and personalized account of L2 native-likeness.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
