American Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences 2015; 2(3): 98-100 Published online May 30, 2015 (http://www.openscienceonline.com/journal/ajpbs) Subconscious Vs. Unconscious Learning: A Short Review of the Terms Mehrdad Rezaee 1, * , Majid Farahian 2 1 Department of Foreign Languages, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran 2 Department of ELT, College of Literature and Humanities, Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran Email address mehr351@yahoo.com (M. Rezaee), farahian@iauksh.ac.ir (M. Farahian) To cite this article Mehrdad Rezaee, Majid Farahian. Subconscious Vs. Unconscious Learning: A Short Review of the Terms. American Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. Vol. 2, No. 3, 2015, pp. 98-100. Abstract The issue of consciousness in its different forms has raised many controversies among scholars, both in definition and its role in learning, especially second/foreign language learning. In this article, an attempt has been made to have a short review of the terms ‘Unconscious’ Vs. ‘Subconscious’ both from scholarly and non-scholarly points of view and get the scholars’ idea about the terms together with a review of the role of these two terms in second/foreign language learning and the difference each would make in the outcome. Keywords Subconscious, Unconscious, Foreign Language Learning, Second Language Learning 1. Introduction The concept of consciousness has been the subject of hot debates. Because of the illusive nature of the construct, the attempt to substitute the construct in cognitive psychology with some other ones has not yield fruitful results. To shed some light on the nature of the concept and in order to present a vivid picture of consciousness in education, especially foreign language learning, one has to be familiar with the scholarly and non-scholarly definitions of the terms ‘Unconscious’ Vs. ‘Subconscious’. 2. Non-Scholarly Definition of ‘Unconscious’ First of all, the term ‘Unconscious’ should be defined. Various definitions have been given for it. In the very first place, Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1999) defines the word ‘unconscious’ as follows, “A Psychoanalytic term; the part of the mind containing psychic material that is only rarely accessible to awareness but that has a pronounced influence on behavior”. Too, according to Macmillan English dictionary (2008), the term ‘unconscious’ is defined as, “In a condition similar to sleep in which you do not see, feel, or think, usually because you are injured”. Meanwhile, according to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), the word ‘unconscious’ means, “The part of your mind in which there are thoughts and feelings that you do not realize you have”. 3. Scholarly Definition ‘Unconscious’ Looking at the issue of ‘unconscious’ from scholars’ viewpoint, we see that Malim & Birch (1998, p. 204), define it by saying, “Unconscious implies a total lack of awareness. For example, when you are anesthetized, knocked out in the boxing ring or through an accident, you are unconscious”. Other psychologists, however, may not agree with this definition of ‘unconscious’. For example, Freud (1933, cited in Malim & Birch, 1998, p. 205) viewed the unconscious mind as “the repository for repressed memories”. So, as it can be seen, most of the scholarly and non- scholarly definitions consider the phrase, ‘lack of awareness, feeling, ability, or thought’ or emphasize the expression, ‘repressed memories’. 4. Non-Scholarly Definition of ‘Subconscious’ As to the term ‘subconscious’, again, it can be seen that Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines it