Reflexivity

Bill VanPatten says that research in second language acquisition is not showing the connection between explicit and implicit learning. He asks

"...What is the mechanism...that can somehow convert explicit information into some kind of implicit knowledge or what is the mechanism by which explicit knowledge somehow aids implicit knowledge?" (The Motivated Classroom Episode 50 19:22 - 19:40).

What does "connection" or "mechanism" mean here? Do I understand what VanPatten is saying here?

These questions of mine can be said to be reflexive in that it is language about language. Similarly our students express language about the language they are learning - what does this word mean, can you repeat that, oh ok i get that now. Such talk about language is often described as being explicit knowledge and is contrasted with using language which is described as being implicit knowledge.

Dorthe Duncker writes:

"Apart from verbal language, as we know it, no other form of human communication is reflexive. There may be reflexive elements, but they are inessential. Such elements are found, inter alia, in pictorial communication, music, architecture, dance, and fashion, but in none of these cases have participants found it necessary or relevant to produce explicit signs for the signs pertaining to the activity itself. Verbal language has not only words, but also words for words. Other forms of communication incorporate no metasigns. That is, they have no subset of forms, devices, or techniques dedicated solely to the playing of music, depiction of pictures, building of buildings, etc." (Duncker 2019: 2, emphasis added)

Reflexivity could be a possible mechanism for connecting explicit knowledge (or second order metalanguage) to implicit knowledge (or first order language). VanPatten's generative framework assumption relegates reflexivity to an inessential role. Talbot Taylor calls this the Immanency Thesis:

"Linguistic reflexivity - metalanguage and metadiscourse, has, from their point of view [John Searle and Steven Pinker], no role in the process of acquisition; nor indeed is it a crucial component of language. Reflexive language is a peripheral, supplementary feature of language, the disappearance of which might affect many of the particular cultural uses that we make of language but not language itself, the properties of which are self-identifying." (Taylor 2000: 487)

Is it possible for students to not reflect on the input they have in a language classroom? Is it possible to teach a language without employing metalanguage?

Can reflexivity be the connection between explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge?

References:

Duncker, D. (2019). The reflexivity of language and linguistic inquiry: Integrational linguistics in practice. Routledge.

Taylor, T. J. (2000). Language constructing language: the implications of reflexivity for linguistic theory. Language sciences, 22(4), 483-499.