Most theories of language focus very little on how our history of interacting with our environment contributes to us being able to do these things. They also focus very little on how factors in the current setting affect our ability to do these things. In other words, traditional theories of language and cognition pay little attention to the overall context in which language is learned and used. This makes it difficult to use these theories to help change or influence the many important psychological events related to language and cognition.