Findings from a longitudinal study of bilingual children acquiring Cantonese and English pose a challenge to the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH; Keenan & Comrie, 1977), which predicts that object relatives should not be acquired before subject relatives. In the children's Cantonese, object relatives emerged earlier than or simultaneously with subject relatives, and in their English, prenominal relatives based on Cantonese emerged first, with object relatives followed by subject relatives. These findings are discussed in light of findings on the typology and acquisition of relative clauses (RCs) and the underlying processing motivations of the NPAH. Prenominal object relatives in the bilingual children's Cantonese and English have the same word order as main clauses and can be analyzed as internally headed RCs. The reconceptualization of RCs as attributive clauses (Comrie, 1998a, 1998b, 2002) is supported by children's early RCs lacking a strict grammatical relationship between the head noun and the predicate. Furthermore, as observed by Diessel and Tomasello (2000, 2005) for English, bilingual children's earliest RCs consist of isolated noun phrases (NPs). The early object relatives produced by bilingual children are therefore essentially NPs with the linear order of a main clause, resulting in a configuration that is conducive to early production.We thank Yasuhiro Shirai for organizing the workshop on second language acquisition of RCs at Cornell University in January 2006, where this paper was presented, as well as for his valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. We thank all the participants at the workshop and two anonymous SSLA reviewers for their comments. Additional feedback offered by William O'Grady, Salikoko Mufwene, and John Whitman is greatly appreciated and hereby acknowledged. We thank our children for their contributions to this paper and all of the members of our research team who have contributed to this work—in particular, Uta Lam for her technical assistance. This research has been fully supported by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (project Nos. HKU336/94H, CUHK4002/97H, CUHK4014/02H, and CUHK 4692/05H) and direct grants from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (01/02, 03/04).

THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE OUT OF PRE-LANGUAGE. Talmy Givón and Bertram F. Malle (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2002. Pp. 394. $57.95 paper.

The notion that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny has a long tradition, with the collection here being a recent and cogent revisit of the idea. Among the possibly relevant data are, as the back cover states, “aspects of language learning that may serve as models of evolutionary change.”

RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS: BECOMING A DISCERNING CONSUMER.Fred L. Perry, Jr. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xx + 268. $29.95 paper.

As one might expect based on its title, this volume offers a basic introduction to research within the field of applied linguistics, including data collection methods, statistical analyses, and research write-ups. In contrast to other recent research methods volumes (e.g., Mackey & Gass, 2006), Perry frames this volume not as teaching readers how to do applied linguistics research but rather as how to read and critically evaluate this research, along similar lines as Porte (2002).

INTRODUCING SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.Muriel Saville-Troike. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. viii + 206. $29.99 paper.

Has this ever happened to you? Summer vacation has started, you've just settled in to your cabin on the lake, when suddenly you remember: You have a contract to write an introduction to SLA, and the manuscript is due next week. What do you do?

The articles that constitute the body of this journal issue present rich empirical evidence and theoretical reasoning that relate to the acquisition of relative clauses (RCs). Most are concerned with SLA, more specifically with the acquisition of East Asian languages (in particular, Japanese and Korean) by those who are already speakers of other languages, including European languages. The article by Yip and Matthews (this issue) is slightly different in that it documents the bilingual acquisition of Cantonese and English by children, with English being acquired with a slight lag relative to Cantonese, but, like the other articles, it also provides evidence of the confrontation of European and East Asian languages in the general area of language acquisition.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND THE STUDY OF CLASSROOM LANGUAGE AND LITERACY EVENTS.David Bloome, Stephanie Power Carter, Beth Morton Christian, Sheila Otto, and Nora Shuart-Faris. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. v + 263. $34.50 paper.

The authors of this volume explore a microethnographic approach to the study of classroom literacy events and provide useful models for analyzing classroom discourse. The heart of the book centers upon close analysis of transcripts of literacy events unfolding in various classrooms. These data reveal three methodological “issues in research on classroom literacy events: (a) classroom literacy events as cultural actions, (b) the social construction of identity, and (c) power relations in and through classroom literacy events” (p. xx). The final chapter attempts to locate this microethnographic approach within new literacy studies, “a broader intellectual movement concerned with people's everyday lives” (p. xxii). Readers will find useful models for how researchers might go about doing the kinds of analysis that lead to connections between local classrooms and larger social and cultural contexts.

TEACHING AND LEARNING VOCABULARY: BRINGING RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE. Elfrieda H. Hiebert and Michael L. Kamil (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. x + 273. $89.95 cloth, $39.95 paper.

This volume is an anthology of papers originally presented at a conference convened in response to the influential report by the National Reading Panel in the United States in 2000, which highlighted the need for renewed research into vocabulary teaching and learning in American schools as one key component of a national strategy to boost literacy levels. The authors of the 12 chapters are some of the relatively small group of researchers who continued to undertake research on vocabulary during the past 20 years, when it has been strictly a minority activity within the first language (L1) reading research community in North America.

EDUCATING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: A SYNTHESIS OF RESEARCH EVIDENCE.Fred Genesee, Kathryn Lindholm-Leary, William M. Saunders, and Donna Christian (Eds.). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. x + 245. $24.99 paper.

Focusing on empirical second language (L2) studies from the past 20 years, this highly informative and well-researched volume offers a detailed examination of the findings on learning outcomes and educational achievements of prekindergarten through grade 12 English language learners (ELLs) in the United States.

CONTEXTUALIZING COLLEGE ESL CLASSROOM PRAXIS: A PARTICIPATORY APPROACH TO EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION. Lawrence N. Berlin. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xxiii + 113. $24.50 paper.

This brief volume (119 pages of text) was written to provide “a model for engaging effective instruction with the variety of students that you [the reader] will encounter” (p. xv) in college English as a second language (ESL) or foreign language classrooms. The intended audience includes both graduate and undergraduate students as well as preservice and in-service teachers. The author espouses a problem-posing approach to teaching and to writing this volume, in that the reader is involved in a process of “naming issues, reflecting on them and possible solutions and acting upon your [the reader's] ideas” (p. xv).

Why are crosslinguistic generalizations like the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH) relevant to our understanding of language acquisition? The answer to this question relies on our view of language universals. In generative linguistics, it is commonly assumed that language universals are based on innate linguistic knowledge. In this approach, languages share some of their basic grammatical properties because the core of human grammar is innate (Crain & Pietroski, 2001). However, this view of linguistic nativism is incompatible with what we know about the neurological foundations of the human mind: Although language has genetic prerequisites, it is biologically implausible that these prerequisites consist of prespecified categories and constraints (Quartz & Sejnowski, 1997).

DIALOGUE WITH BAKHTIN ON SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING: NEW PERSPECTIVES.Joan Kelly Hall, Gergana Vitanova, and Ludmila Marchenkova (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. v + 241. $75.00 cloth.

This book is the first to explore the relevance of the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas for the field of SLA research and pedagogy. Each chapter in this edited volume is framed within a Bakhtinian perspective and uses his conceptual apparatus to address some aspect of second and foreign language learning. The authors' collective aim is to challenge traditional, formalist approaches to language and demonstrate how Bakhtin's insights can enrich our understanding of second language learning and teaching.

FOSSILIZED SECOND LANGUAGE GRAMMARS.Florencia Franceschina. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 288. $138.00 cloth.

This monograph by Franceschina presents an empirical study of what is known as Orwell's problem: a learnability problem manifested as lack of learning in spite of exposure to abundant and unambiguous positive input evidence. The study is premised on three main assumptions: (a) Universal Grammar (UG) operates normally in all types of natural language acquisition, (b) first language (L1)-selected parameterized functional features (PFFs) are available in the acquisition of languages other than the L1, and (c) there is a critical period for the acquisition of PFFs. Following Hawkins and Chan's (1997) failed functional features hypothesis (FFFH), Franceschina hypothesizes that in adult SLA, nativelike knowledge of PFFs will be restricted to the subset instantiated in the L1. Using gender marking in second language (L2) Spanish as a test case, the study addresses the following questions: (a) Can adult learners acquire nativelike knowledge of grammatical gender in the L2? (b) In adult L2 learners, is the possibility of nativelike attainment in the area of grammatical gender determined by the learner's L1? (c) What might prevent near-natives from reaching the same endstate knowledge as L1 speakers? Two experimental groups of adult near-natives with contrasting L1s (+gen vs. −gen) relative to the target language and a control group of native speakers were formed and subsequently subjected to six experimental tasks that tapped into comprehension, production, and metalinguistic judgments. The data from each test task separately underwent quantitative analyses, and the results consistently pointed to an advantage for the +gen group and, conversely, a disadvantage for the −gen group, thereby confirming the FFFH and, hence, Franceschina's own hypothesis.

CONFLICTING PARADIGMS IN ADULT LITERACY EDUCATION: IN QUEST OF A U.S. DEMOCRATIC POLITICS OF LITERACY.George Demetrion. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xiv + 320. $36.00 paper.

Adult literacy in the United States is a contested field, lacking a working consensus on the definition and purpose of adult literacy education. Demetrion's volume contributes to the field by presenting a historical overview of adult literacy from the mid-1980s to the present and by addressing the most hotly debated issues. These include the nature of adult literacy education, pedagogical practices, and assessment and accountability. Recognizing the importance of a coherent philosophical approach to adult literacy, this volume also proposes a mediating theoretical framework for the field.

PRAGMATICS AT WORK: THE TRANSLATION OF TOURIST LITERATURE. Maria Pilar Navarro Errasti, Rosa Lores Sanz, and Silvia Murillo Ornat (Eds.). Bern: Peter Lang, 2004. Pp. 245. $49.95 paper.

This volume is a collection of chapters on research in translation studies and pragmatics that focuses on the translation of tourist literature. It contains chapters by well-established figures in translation studies as well as contributions by scholars at the University of Zaragoza (Spain), including three by the editors themselves.

EXPLORING CORPORA FOR ESP LEARNING. Laura Gavioli. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005. Pp. viii + 176. $119.00 cloth.

Gavioli's volume, published in Benjamins' “Studies in Corpus Linguistics” series, states that its aim is to “discuss the relevance of corpus work for learners of English as a foreign language,” focusing on English for specific purposes (ESP) settings, with an intended audience of “materials designers, teachers and applied linguists in general” (p. 1). Gavioli explicitly states that she does not provide any comparison of corpus-based instruction to other, traditional methods to evaluate their effectiveness but that her view is that they “can be largely complementary” (p. 3).

The purpose of this commentary is to discuss some of the findings and claims of the five articles contained in this special issue that deals with the relationship between the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH), first proposed by Keenan and Comrie (1977), and the acquisition of relative clauses (RCs) in three Asian languages—Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean. This topic is of interest to SLA theory for at least two reasons. First, as Ozeki and Shirai (this issue) pointed out, there is significant literature proposing to explain facts about the SLA of RCs involving European languages. This raises the question of whether the NPAH has the same explanatory value for languages that are genetically unrelated and geographically separated. The second reason is that Comrie (1998, 2002) recently proposed that nominal-attributive clauses in some Asian languages differ from RCs in European languages in important ways that might have an impact on whether the NPAH holds true for the acquisition of RCs in these languages.

ANGLES ON THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD: WRITING AND VOCABULARY IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (Vol. 4). Dorte Albrechtsen, Kirsten Haastrup, and Birgit Henriksen (Eds.). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004. Pp. 151. $23.00 paper.

Comprised of eight research-based chapters and one book review, this volume brings together a compelling and unique array of research studies on two topics of ongoing interest to second language (L2) professionals. The volume opens with three L2 writing studies, the first two of which draw from the same investigation of university and preuniversity English as a second language (ESL) writers. The first chapter, “Activity Systems for ESL Writing Improvement: Case Studies of Three Chinese and Three Japanese Adult Learners Of English,” is co-authored by Yang, Baba, and Cumming. Using an activity theory framework, the researchers explore writers' perceptions of their learning intentions, crosslinguistic relationships, vocabulary, grammar, and the role of instruction in promoting their L2 composing skills. As the participants progressed in their ESL writing development, their activity systems evolved as a function of the interaction between external factors and internal predispositions. In the second chapter, “Scaling Changes in Learners' Goals for Writing Improvement over an ESL Course,” Cumming, Eouanzoui, Gentil, and Yang report on an analysis of interviews conducted with 45 preuniversity ESL writers. Their method featured dual scaling, which showed that participants' short- and long-term goals as students and writers remained stable over time, although the actions taken by students to improve their writing reflected individual learning styles.

One of the authors of this commentary conducted her dissertation research (Gass, 1979) on relative clause (RC) acquisition and, with the exception of a pedagogical intervention study (Gass, 1982), has since then participated in the discussion of RC acquisition only from afar. Therefore, the opportunity to provide commentary is particularly welcome. The framework adopted in Gass' earlier work was the earliest formulation of the Keenan and Comrie (1977) noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (NPAH). In what follows, we build on and extend that earlier work within the context of SLA.

THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES BY HUNGARIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH.Judit Kiss-Gulyás. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2004. Pp. 169. $26.00 paper.

This volume presents a study on the acquisition of English restrictive relative clauses (RRCs) by Hungarian speakers through an investigation of two universal principles—subjacency and the empty category principle (ECP)—and consideration of how the different instantiation of these two principles and the different parametric settings of the languages play a role in the interlanguage development of first language (L1) Hungarian learners of English as a second language (L2). Assuming the generative theory of Universal Grammar (UG), the objective of the study is to investigate whether Hungarian learners of English provide particular evidence for the partial availability of UG in their interlanguage grammar—also known as the partial access view of UG—or provide evidence for other views, such as the no access or the full access view, considering both the weak and strong versions.

SIGN LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALS.Wendy Sandler and Diane Lillo-Martin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xxi + 547. $45.00 paper.

Sandler and Lillo-Martin's volume is an incredibly important, powerful, and timely work. That the sign languages used by deaf people around the world are real human languages in every meaningful sense of the term has become a given among linguists over the past 30 years; as Sandler and Lillo-Martin point out, “In sum, the way sign language is acquired and the ease and speed of its transmission strongly support the view that a single cognitive system underlies language in both [spoken and signed] modalities” (pp. 3−4). Furthermore, apart from the psycholinguistic perspective, it is clear that