This article describes how information gap tasks can be designed as instruments for data collection and analysis and as treatments in interaction research. The development of such tasks is illustrated and data are presented on their role in drawing learners' attention to second language (L2) forms that are difficult to notice through classroom discussion alone. Because the tasks presented here are closed-ended and precision oriented and require the exchange of uniquely held information, they promote modified interaction among participants and orient their attention to form, function, and meaning. These processes can be observed by the researcher during task implementation. Thus, the tasks reduce researcher dependence on externally applied treatments and analytical instruments not integral to the interaction itself. To illustrate this methodology in use, we report on a study in which six pairs of intermediate-level English L2 learners carried out three types of information gap tasks in their classrooms. They first read passages on familiar topics, whose sentences contained L2 forms that were low in salience and difficult to master but developmentally appropriate. To complete the tasks, the learners were required to identify, recall, and compare the forms, their functions, and their meanings. Data revealed close relationships among learners' attentional processes, their recall of form, function, and meaning, and the interactional processes that supported their efforts.In carrying out the design and implementation of the tasks in this article, we have worked most closely with Kristine Billmyer and MaryAnn Julian, and also Jin Ahn, Marni Baker-Stein, Mara Blake-Ward, Lyn Buchheit, Junko Hondo, Sharon Nicolary, and Jack Sullivan. Among the many graduate students who have provided assistance are Vivian Chen, Yao Chen, Yi-Chen Chen, Cathy Fillman, Leslie Harsch, Hanae Katayana, Ji Hwan Kim, Atsuko Matsui, Lisa Mullen, Amy Nichols, Matthew Salvatore, Margaret Skaarup, Lauren Smith, Cheng-Chen Tseng, Debbie Tsui, Melissa Yi, Wei-Chieh Yu, and Mira Yun.

I apologize for the overkill in ascribing the calque trou de nez “nostril” to Parkvall (2000). This confusion stems from my failure to check carefully the original sources cited in Chaudenson (2003, pp. 227–228). The African origin of Haitian Creole (HC) twou nen (misspelled twou-ne) is claimed by Lefebvre (1998, p. 335). Chaudenson is more thorough than I am, given that he cites the precise page numbers for the data he adduces. My comments about Parkvall's failure to consider the potential French origin for the various calques he cites still hold. There appears to be convergence of compounding strategies in the substrate languages and the French target. An analogous convergence also exists in the case of the postposed definite determiner (HC chat la “cat the”), in which models from French vernaculars and child language (Chaudenson 2003, pp. 280–286) no doubt served as filters for speakers whose languages had postposed nominal determiners.

THE ACQUISITION OF FRENCH IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS: FOCUS ON FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES. Philippe Prévost and Johanne Paradis (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. 381. $132.00 cloth.

This collection of essays explores, in a generative framework, the acquisition of functional categories in French across four “acquisition contexts” (p. 1): first language (L1) acquisition, second language (L2) acquisition, bilingual L1 acquisition, and L1 acquisition by people with specific language impairment (SLI).

LEARNING TO REQUEST IN A SECOND LANGUAGE: A STUDY OF CHILD INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATICS. Machiko Achiba. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2003. Pp. xii + 223. $69.95 cloth.

This volume is one of those workhorses that could easily be overlooked. However, it represents one of the most detailed and extensive of the very few longitudinal studies of the pragmatic development of a child learning English as a second language. The learner, Yao (the author's daughter), is a native speaker of Japanese. At the age of 7, with only brief prior exposure to English, she moved with her mother to Australia, where she was immediately enrolled in a local school. Shortly after their arrival, Yao's mother began collecting audio and videotaped data of Yao playing with peers, a teenager, and two adults (a babysitter and a neighbor). Transcripts of these interactions—collected every 6 weeks over 17 months by Achiba, who was present as an observer—form the basis of the analysis. Despite the fact that Achiba continued to use Japanese with her daughter, Yao began early on to address her mother in English. Achiba was thus able to supplement the play data with a diary of additional requests by Yao to her mother as well as Yao's metalinguistic comments. Yao's requests were analyzed to determine the development of request strategies—linguistic realizations and modifications as well as variation according to goal or addressee.

PROCESSING INSTRUCTION: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND COMMENTARY. Bill VanPatten (Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2004. Pp. 360. $79.95 cloth.

I have often been struck by how highly fluent second language (L2) speakers of English can make errors in, say, possessive determiner gender agreement (e.g., Chinese, French, or Russian speakers saying “his” instead of “her”) without being disturbed at all by what they have said. To me, as a first language speaker of English, the error is extremely jarring and can disrupt understanding. For the L2 speaker, the error has much less impact. By contrast, an error in lexical reference (e.g., saying “boy's” instead of “girl's”) is generally experienced as jarring and potentially disruptive, even by L2 speakers. Why, then, do L2 speakers perceive errors in linking grammatical form to meaning so differently than errors in linking lexical units to meaning? Does this difference pose a challenge for L2 instruction and, if so, how should the challenge be met?

Teaching Writing in Second and Foreign Language Classrooms. Jessica Williams. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Pp. xv + 209. $41.56 paper.

New in the McGraw-Hill second language professional series, this volume is a welcome addition to current resources for English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL), and foreign language (FL) teachers seeking an introduction to research and practice in second language (L2) writing instruction. The book unifies insights from multiple sources from a SLA perspective. An experienced language teacher, teacher educator, and researcher, Williams emphasizes that writing involves more than text production; “it is also a learning and thinking process” (p. 76).

This article reviews previous studies of the effects of implicit and explicit corrective feedback on SLA, pointing out a number of methodological problems. It then reports on a new study of the effects of these two types of corrective feedback on the acquisition of past tense -ed. In an experimental design (two experimental groups and a control group), low-intermediate learners of second language English completed two communicative tasks during which they received either recasts (implicit feedback) or metalinguistic explanation (explicit feedback) in response to any utterance that contained an error in the target structure. Acquisition was measured by means of an oral imitation test (designed to measure implicit knowledge) and both an untimed grammaticality judgment test and a metalinguistic knowledge test (both designed to measure explicit knowledge). The tests were administered prior to the instruction, 1 day after the instruction, and again 2 weeks later. Statistical comparisons of the learners' performance on the posttests showed a clear advantage for explicit feedback over implicit feedback for both the delayed imitation and grammaticality judgment posttests. Thus, the results indicate that metalinguistic explanation benefited implicit as well as explicit knowledge and point to the importance of including measures of both types of knowledge in experimental studies.This research was funded by a Marsden Fund grant awarded by the Royal Society of Arts of New Zealand. Researchers other than the authors who contributed to the research were Jenefer Philip, Satomi Mizutami, Keiko Sakui, and Thomas Delaney. Thanks go to the editors of this special issue and to two anonymous SSLA reviewers of a draft of the article for their constructive comments.

ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF PIDGIN AND CREOLE LANGUAGES. Claire Lefebvre. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. xvi + 358. $119.00 cloth.

This volume is a collection of 10 articles that Lefebvre has written since the publication of her 1998 volume, Creole genesis and the acquisition of grammar: The case of Haitian Creole. With the exception of the first chapter (a brief introduction) and the third chapter (a summary of her relexification hypothesis), the chapters of this volume consist of articles that were originally published elsewhere. For that reason, each chapter essentially stands on its own. Consequently, the volume suffers from some unavoidable overlap and, more significantly, a lack of coherence.

Second Language Learning Theories (2nd ed.). Rosamond Mitchell and Florence Myles. London: Arnold, 2004. Pp. xiii + 303. $21.95 paper.

According to one authority, there are over 20 theories of SLA. This book attempts to help students without a substantial background in linguistics make sense of this diverse field by explaining and relating the most important of these. The second edition updates the original by dropping or shortening the discussion of older theories (Schumann's, 1986, acculturation model is now discussed in the chapter on historical antecedents) and updating the discussion of others (the expanded chapter on Vygotsky is particularly good). Chapter 1 contains a discussion of what an adequate theory of SLA would look like, pointing out, for example, the distinction between a property theory like Universal Grammar (UG) and a transition theory like connectionism; this distinction is referred to throughout the book. Chapter 2 offers a valuable account of the historical development of the SLA field, which includes discussions of behaviorism and the monitor model. Again, this preliminary groundwork is referred to in subsequent chapters.

URBAN MULTICULTURALISM IN EUROPE: IMMIGRANT MINORITY LANGUAGES AT HOME AND SCHOOL. Guus Extra and Kutlay Yagmur (Eds.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2004. Pp. viii + 428. $99.95 cloth, $34.95 paper.

This volume reports a large-scale international study on immigrant languages in several European cities. The book contains 16 chapters and four appendixes. The first chapter is the introduction, in which the editors explain the content of the book and its crossnational and multidisciplinary perspectives. The rest of the chapters are grouped into three parts.

The goal of this epilogue is to use the methodological contributions of the studies presented in this special issue as a starting point for suggestions about methodology in conducting future interaction research. As is the case in most developing fields, interaction research develops methods internally as it continually borrows and extends techniques used in other disciplines and revitalizes older techniques by adding new or different angles unique to interaction. Interaction researchers have also begun to forge relationships in new areas (e.g., by working with psychologists and developing working memory [WM] tests). This sort of cooperation is an important step in the drive to uncover more information about the relationship between interaction and learning. As several contributors to this special issue have noted, the most recent advances in methodology have been driven by questions about how interaction works (as opposed to whether it works). In turn, some of the methodological innovations discussed here will also ultimately allow new questions to be asked. Indeed, the relationship between questions (i.e., suggestions about what needs to be investigated next) and methods (i.e., plans for how to carry out such investigations) is particularly close in interaction research, which is a relatively new but vibrant and quickly developing area. Consequently, this epilogue considers both methods and questions conjointly, beginning with a discussion of methodological issues in the most recent theorizing about the interaction hypothesis.I am grateful to Helen Carpenter, Akiko Fujii, Susan M. Gass, Mika Hama, Jennifer Leeman, Kim McDonough, and Jenefer Philp for various kinds of help, including discussions of ideas and feedback, in relation to an earlier version of this paper, and to Amanda Edmonds and the other SSLA editorial staff members for their outstanding work and assistance with this Epilogue and the entire special issue. Any errors are, of course, my own.

METHODS OF RESEARCH ON TEACHING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS: THE METHODOLOGY CHAPTERS FROM THE HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH ON TEACHING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS (2nd ed.). James Flood, Diane Lapp, James R. Squire, and Julie M. Jensen (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. viii + 337. $39.95 paper.

This text combines the research methodology chapters from the second edition of the Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts (Flood, Lapp, Squire, & Jensen, 2003) to provide readers with a concise account of contemporary research methodologies in the English language arts (ELA). The volume begins with a general overview of ELA research for teachers before addressing more specific methodological topics, which include multiple literacies, empirical research, longitudinal studies and literacy development, case studies, ethnography, teacher research, synthesis research, and fictive representation. The volume concludes with a summary chapter that speculates on current methodological issues and future directions for researching the ELA.

PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY IN LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION: DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES. Niels O. Schiller and Antje S. Meyer (Eds.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. Pp. 355. $123.20 cloth.

This collection offers various psycholinguistic perspectives on the link between the processes of speech comprehension and production. Some authors in this collection approach the topic by reviewing how well existing models deal with the comprehension-production relationship; others propose new approaches, including ones that show compatibility with evidence from neuroimaging studies. The final two of the nine papers address the topic from a SLA standpoint.

Maintaining A Minority Language: A Case Study of Hispanic Teenagers. John Gibbons and Elizabeth Ramirez. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2004. Pp. x + 240. £25.95 paper.

On reading the title of this volume, the reader might assume that the study involves teenagers in a large urban area of the United States. Potential readers will be surprised to realize that this book is about Hispanic teenagers in Sydney, Australia, and the efforts of these teens and their families to maintain their Spanish language. The authors, Gibbons and Ramirez, argue that the understanding of minority language maintenance and shift “requires the examination of the degree of acquisition of various elements of proficiency, including spoken language, basic literacy skills, grammar and high register” (p. l). Thus, having set a rather rigorous benchmark for themselves, they proceed to study 106 Hispanic teenagers to determine the degree of maintenance of Spanish among them as well as their attitudes toward their bilingualism.

Publications received.

HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH IN SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING. Eli Hinkel (Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xxii + 1144. $260.00 cloth, $99.95 paper.

Hinkel's ambitious tome is the newest addition to handbooks in the field of applied linguistics. The volume is composed of eight sections: “Important Social Contexts in Research on Second Language Teaching and Learning,” “Methods in Second Language Research,” “Applied Linguistics and Second Language Research,” “Second Language Processes and Development,” “Methods and Curricula in Second Language Teaching,” “Second Language Testing and Assessment,” “Identity, Culture, and Critical Pedagogy in Second Language Learning and Teaching,” and “Language Planning and Policy and Language Rights.” Each section includes an introduction and 3–12 chapters written by researchers who are well known in their respective areas.

APRENDIZAJE DE SEGUNDAS LENGUAS: LINGÜÍSTICA APLICADA A LA ENSEÑANZA DE IDIOMAS [Second language learning: Applied linguistics to foreign language teaching]. Susana Pastor Cesteros. Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, 2004. Pp. 374. 22 € paper.

This volume sprang from the desire to “ofrecer los contenidos necesarios para la comprensión del proceso de adquisición de una lengua no nativa, tanto desde la perspectiva del docente como desde la del aprendiz” [“to offer the necessary contents to understand the process of the acquisition of a non-native language, from both the teacher and the learner's perspective”] (p. 14). In her work, Pastor attempts to make matters of learning and teaching accessible to university students and foreign language teachers interested in applied linguistics.

UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: A HISTORY. Margaret Thomas. London: Routledge, 2004. Pp. xiii + 262. $105.00 cloth.

As the title of this volume indicates, Thomas traces the history of ideas behind the contemporary concepts of Universal Grammar (UG) and SLA as well as their coming together in contemporary approaches to linguistics and language acquisition.

MULTILINGUAL COMMUNICATION. Julian House and Jochen Rehbein (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. vii + 358. $90.00 cloth.

Studies on multilingualism embody a range of theoretical approaches, research paradigms, and methods. In this book, the third publication in the Hamburg studies on multilingualism series, the focus is on the form-function relationship between the languages involved in multilingual communication and on the mechanisms that relate multilingual communicative processes to social structures. The volume consists of 11 chapters divided into three sections, and two useful appendixes (author and subject indexes). The editing is highly competent and the selection of papers is excellent in quality and scope. Papers mostly emerge from colloquia on linguistic aspects of multilingualism organized by the Research Centre on Multilingualism at the University of Hamburg; many provide access to empirical studies that had previously existed only as unpublished manuscripts or research reports. Most of the contributions deal with the creation of differentiated, multilingual communication systems due to the mutual influence of languages in contact, whereas others deal with functional explanations of problems in second language (L2) use.

A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. Michel Paradis. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. vi + 299. $39.95 paper.

It is hard to think of anyone who is in a better position to talk about bilingualism and aphasia (differential patterns of recovery and so forth) than Paradis. Since the 1970s, he has been a central figure in this area of research, and it is widely recognized that his contribution has been major. It is impossible to imagine any discussion of the topic that does not rely heavily on his work. Given this author's prominence in the field, second language (L2) researchers will find much to admire in this volume.