Abstract: It has been observed that language use accuracy of the English learners in China is determined by their familiarities with the form of life which the native speakers lead. The English learners' inaccurate performances are indicative of the learning controversy between the empiricist's approaches and the rationalist's approaches. Based on this observation, the present study attempts to provide a philosophical insight into the depth of language learning from the perspective of the latter Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. It is believed that the English learners vary in linguistic performance and deviate from the linguistic norms rightly because they are at the different levels of both language awareness and concept enrichment. In tune with Wittgenstein's idea that learning a language brings about the understanding of it, and in response to Augustine's question whether or not we agree that words are signs, the present study puts forward an idea that English learning is both a process of elevation from sign recognition to concept enrichment and a process of the learners' development from intuitive and incidental language awareness to planned and integrated language awareness.