This paper examines the interference of L1 neutralization rules in the acquisition of a marked L2 phonological feature. More specifically, it presents results from a study of the acquisition of the voicing contrast in English word-final obstruents by native speakers of Catalan. The voicing contrast in final position in Catalan is neutralized by voicing or devoicing rules, depending on the environment. The results of an experiment testing the production of target final obstruents in different environments indicate a very high incidence of devoicing, which confirms the prevalence of final devoicing in second language acquisition and points to the joint effect of transfer and universal tendencies. In contrast with devoicing, the results reveal a more limited effect of the L1 voicing rules. It is argued that this difference is due to an effect of word integrity in the interlanguage that restricts the domain of application of the transferred rules.

This paper reports the results of an exploratory cross-sectional study of pragmatic development among three groups of primary school students in Hong Kong who completed a cartoon oral production task (COPT) designed to elicit requests, apologies, and compliment responses. The first two of these speech acts are among the most well represented in the pragmatics literature and are also included in the Hong Kong English language syllabus for primary schools. The latter has also been studied extensively but is not part of the syllabus. Data was collected in Cantonese using the same instrument. Although a number of developmental patterns are revealed—particularly in choice of request strategy, frequency of supportive moves, and use of adjuncts with apologies and compliment responses—there is little evidence of sensitivity to situational variation or pragmatic transfer from Cantonese. This study adds to the small, but growing, body of research on pragmatic development in a second language.

This study examines the generalizability of VanPatten and Cadierno (1993b) by investigating the relative effect of two types of explicit grammar instruction on learners' ability to interpret and produce sentences containing the French causative. Nine classes of 179 fourth-semester French students were assigned to three groups: (a) processing instruction, (b) traditional instruction, and (c) no instruction. The results indicate that processing instruction is as effective as traditional instruction in enabling learners to interpret the French causative and that traditional instruction is more effective in enabling learners to produce the French causative.

This study investigates whether conceptualizable agents in the discourse play a role in English L2 overpassivization errors (nontargetlike passivization of unaccusative verbs, a subclass of intransitives). It hypothesizes that learners are more likely to make overpassivization errors in externally caused events (in which an agent or cause may form part of the speaker's mental representation) than in internally caused events (in which the cause or causer of the event is not clear). Advanced Chinese learners of English were asked to choose the more grammatical form (active or passive) in target sentences with unaccusative verbs. Each target sentence was embedded in two different contexts expressing external and internal causation. A significant difference in error rates was found between the two different contexts: Learners accepted passivized unaccusative verbs more frequently when an agent or cause was available than when it was not. This finding is taken as an indication that learners transitivize unaccusative verbs before they passivize them and that the degree of transitivization varies depending on the presence of conceptualizable agents in the discourse. Thus this paper argues against a purely syntactic analysis of interlanguage errors such as overpassivization and in favor of an approach that takes cognitive factors into account.

This is the fifth volume in a renowned series edited by Dan Slobin, focusing on cross-linguistic studies of children acquiring their first language. The series is seminal for its focus on languages other than English and for addressing the astonishing diversity and complexity of the language acquisition task. Slobin notes that, in contrast to Chomskyan models that consider core grammar to be the main topic of interest, the series was conceived with the notion of showing “how much fruit there is beyond the core” (p. 14). The goal of Volume 5 is to explore themes that were relatively backgrounded in the others. Specifically, these themes include: typological analysis, semantic systems, phonology and prosody, individual differences, and diachronic processes.

Input, interaction, and the second language learner is, as the title suggests, a view of the relationship among input, interaction, and second language development. Susan M. Gass has written an extremely readable book that explicates many of the most discussed issues in second language learning in the 1990s. Her intention, successfully achieved, is to demonstrate where theories and frameworks coincide, not just collide.

This book brings together some of the foremost scholars in pidgin and creole linguistics to address key issues confronting the field—most especially, the inability to provide generally agreed upon structural classifications of pidgin and creole languages, and in particular, less prototypical varieties like semi-creoles, post-pidgins, and post-creoles.

Is there an interface between explicit and implicit knowledge in L2 acquisition? Rick de Graaff's doctoral dissertation tests this question in an experimental study from a weak interface position. This position indicates that explicit knowledge has a facilitative role in the acquisition of implicit knowledge when it engages the attention of learners and makes them notice input features (Schmidt, 1990). De Graaff studies the effect of explicit computer-aided self-instruction on the acquisition of morphosyntax in Experanto (an artificial language, based on Zamenhoff's Esperanto) and Spanish (as a foreign language) by adult native speakers of Dutch. Acquisition is tested in interaction with five intervening factors that constitute a controlled linguistic, psychological, and pedagogic context (i.e., complexity of structures, rule-based learning in syntax and exemplar-based learning in morphology, familiarity with the structures, availability of explicit knowledge, and learners' aptitude). Experanto is chosen to control for the influence of previous knowledge and contact outside class, and Spanish is chosen to make the results more generalizable.

This collection explores recent developments in both community and college adult ESL education to meet the needs of adult ESL learners in current social and political contexts in North America. The 22 women and 2 men contributing to the volume argue persuasively and even passionately for programs that prepare adult ESL learners for citizenry in a 21st-century democracy. Collectively and individually the chapter authors argue eloquently that adult education programs need to assist learners not only in their academic lives but also in their professional, personal, and civic lives. These teacher-scholars demonstrate what it means to be a knowledgeable, committed, and effective educator.

This six-volume, beautifully bound, boxed set contains 112 reprinted papers covering the history and development of modern theoretical pragmatics from its beginnings back in the 1940s and '50s with Charles Morris, Rudolf Camap, Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, via the major works in the 1970s of those such as Stalnaker, Bach and Hamish, J. L. Austin, John Searle, and Paul Grice, to the more recent contributions of, among many others, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, François Recanati, and Anna Wierzbicka. The bulk of the contributions, either free-standing papers or sections from books, come out of what one might term a philosophical approach to pragmatics, but toward the end of the collection there is an attempt to cover more ethnographically rooted approaches and even to get into applied pragmatic issues related to aphasia, first language acquisition, second language acquisition (one paper), and politics.

Nonverbal behavior has received little serious attention among second language acquisition researchers until now. Its importance is acknowledged with token attention in communicative competence frameworks and taxonomies of communication strategies, but empirical studies are few and far between. Marianne Gullberg's study of second language learners' use of gesture as a communication strategy is a welcome attempt to fill this gap.

This volume contains 10 original chapters reflecting research and discussion on the issue of focus on form (FonF) in second language instruction. As the editors point out in the preface, it is timely now to discuss and clarify terminology and research issues in FonF studies, mainly because of the diversity of reactions to this construct. The central aim of the chapters is to explore the nature and feasibility of FonF and their intended audience is second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and language teaching practitioners, as well as graduate students in the field of applied linguistics.

More than 75 years ago, at the Second All-Russian Psychoneurological Congress, L. S. Vygotsky presented a paper, “Methods of Reflexological and Psychological Investigations,” in which he began to lay the foundation for a unified theory of mind. Vygotsky's concern was that psychology had lost sight of the uniqueness of human mental functioning, which for him resides in our ability to intentionally mediate, and hence regulate, our biologically specified mental systems (i.e., in today's jargon, input systems) through culturally determined means. Contemporary sociocultural psychologists, J. V. Wertsch in particular, have noted that, although Vygotsky called for the unification of psychology, in his writings, he actually paid very little attention to one part of the mental equation—the biological, or natural, mind. As it turns out, even those who fault Vygotsky for his failure here have themselves not focused much attention on the contribution of the natural, or what Frawley refers to as the computational, mind, preferring instead to concentrate on the sociocultural parameters of cognition. The present book can be seen as an attempt to bring to fruition Vygotsky's earlier vision of a unified psychology.

This book is an outstanding contribution to the literature on language policy, language planning, and language rights. It provides a fascinating comparative treatment of developments related to issues of language and politics in the United States and Canada. Divided into five sections, the book includes chapters that present broad overviews of the demographic and policy situations in the two nations, chapters on indigenous languages in North America, chapters on the legal implications of official language policies, chapters on educational issues related to language policies, and finally, chapters addressing issues of language services and language rights.

This book is intended for teachers of children whose first language is not English and who are in mainstream classes in an English-speaking country. It has a strong orientation toward Great Britain.

This updated version of Cruttenden's popular first edition (1986, reprinted in 1989, 1991, 1994, & 1995) focuses on British English but also discusses other varieties of English, comparative intonation, universals, and L1 acquisition. Much of the work is unchanged from the original, yet this edition includes a significant update to the literature.

The acquisition of Native American languages is an area of study in which there is still much work to be done, and this is especially true of Inuit languages. That alone makes Shanley Allen's Aspects of argument structure acquisition in Inuktitut a welcome addition to the list of publications on first language learning. The book is not, however, strictly intended for those who study Native American language acquisition. The extensive background information provided, both theoretical and methodological, makes Allen's work accessible to linguists with various interests. Furthermore, although her analysis is based largely on principles and parameters theory, she deliberately makes her research amenable to a variety of theoretical frameworks.

Traditionally, the study of the social dimensions of interpersonal communication has been separated from the study of the cognitive dimensions. Recent research efforts from both social and cognitive psychology, however, have made apparent the value of integrating both approaches for increasing our understanding of language use. The volume by Fussell and Kreuz is an excellent illustration of these efforts.

Hellinger and Ammon have compiled a volume of 21 papers that cover a broad range of sociolinguistic topics, with a primary focus on Western Europe. In their introduction, the editors consider approaches to sociolinguistics, grounding this volume in Hymes' original discussion of language as a social phenomenon. According to the editors, the authors of these papers “seek to relate findings to underlying social, cultural or political structures” (p. 4).

This volume is a collection of articles that explore language acquisition through the lens of current phonological theories, such as Optimality Theory, Lexical Phonology, and Feature Geometry. It is divided into one section on first language acquisition (L1) and another on second language acquisition (L2). There is an introduction by the editors.