These books represent two of the most recent additions to the growing number of introductory texts designed to be used as main or supporting resources in academic courses on pragmatics. Although each is intended for use by readers with little or no background in the field, they differ considerably.

This article reports the findings of a longitudinal study in interlanguage phonology examining the production of two structures in a markedness relationship, biliteral and triliteral onsets, the latter being more marked than the former. This study specifically tests the Interlanguage Structure Conformity Hypothesis (ISCH) by measuring the acquisition of the onsets in the markedness relationship against a criterion measure of 80% correct production. The subjects were 10 native Spanish speakers enrolled in intermediate courses in a community college. Data were gathered twice over a period of 10 months. Results of the study fail to provide any counterevidence to the ISCH.

This volume sets forth an excellent overview of cutting-edge research in reading and language processing and illuminates many of the controversial issues related to human cognition. Readers will find, as an example, apt commentaries on the tension between connectionist modeling and the antecedent symbolic processing, and the subsequent efforts of researchers to resolve paradigmatic conflicts. As a result, several hybrid models, incorporating elements of a symbolic system and an activation-based connectionist mechanism, have emerged. Similarly, the logic and value of relevant research procedures are debated. Methodological scrutiny, in fact, is a prominent theme throughout the volume. Among other things, a variety of online measures, such as technologically enhanced procedures for eye-movement tracking, pupillometry monitoring, and moving-window display techniques, are discussed.

Imagine a three-year longitudinal study of the acquisition of multiple target languages by learners of different language backgrounds. It may sound like an idealized example from a research-methods lecture, but it is the actual design of the European Science Foundation inquiry into adult second language acquisition and the latest report released by Benjamins, a substantial revision of Volume 5 of the final report on temporality (Bhardwaj, Dietrich, & Noyau, 1988). This volume reports on the acquisition of temporality in five target languages (English, German, Dutch, French, and Swedish) by 21 learners of six source languages (Punjabi, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, and Finnish) with learners from two source languages for each target language. The volume has eight chapters written by the main authors and cooperating contributors: “Introduction” (Dietrich & Perdue), “Frame of Analysis” (Klein), five chapters on the acquisition of temporality by target language—English (Klein), German (Dietrich), Dutch (Klein, Coenen, van Helvert, & Hendricks), French (Noyau, Houdaïfa, Vasseur, & Véronique), and Swedish (Noyau, Dorriots, Sjöström, & Voionmaa)—and “Conclusions” (Klein, Dietrich, & Noyau).

Can scores on L2 reading tests be interpreted as indicators of reading ability alone, or must they be considered indicators of the test takers' reading ability in addition to their knowledge of the subject matter chosen for a particular test? This book reports the results of a large-scale study investigating this question through analysis of ESL/EFL learners' performance on subject-specific reading tests.

In her engrossing account of the historical relationship between theory and practice in second language teaching, Diane Musumeci observes that in the often contentious discussions about this relationship “the one point on which almost everyone agrees is that scant evidence exists to support any single, unified theory of language learning” (p. 3). In Breaking Tradition: An Exploration of the Historical Relationship Between Theory and Practice in Second Language Teaching, Musumeci convincingly argues that the claim that there has been no consistent theory of second language teaching is not only ahistorical but has also discouraged critical investigation of the ideas of tradition and innovation in the field.

This monograph is part of a series on second language research methodology edited by Gass and Schachter. Their introduction to the text highlights the interdisciplinary nature of SLA research and the necessity for a fuller understanding of the wide variety of research methodologies in current use. Each monograph is devoted to a particular data collection method or instrument and provides an overview of (a) the theoretical and research background, (b) the current uses of the instrument or method, (c) appropriate research questions, (d) underlying assumptions, and (e) any problems associated with practical use. Forthcoming texts will cover case studies, conversation analysis, elicited imitation, data-driven modeling, and speech acts.

This paper discusses the simplification of forms ending in obstruents by native speakers of Mandarin, in particular two effects that are not obviously motivated by either the native- or the target-language grammars: a tendency to devoice final voiced obstruents and a tendency to maximize the number of bisyllabic forms in the output. These patterns are accounted for within Optimality Theory, which describes a grammar as a set of universal, ranked constraints. It is argued that the devoicing and bisyllabicity effects result from universal markedness constraints that are present in all grammars but that are masked in the learner's native-language grammar by the effects of higher ranking constraints.

This volume is a collection of papers presented at a conference at Stanford in April 1995. It has two sections: papers from a panel on Current Approaches to Phonological Development and papers from the general sessions. Eve Clark is to be congratulated for making the volume available so rapidly. It can still take years for some conference papers to make it to press and such delays severely limit the usefulness of such publications.

Savignon writes in her book, Communicative Competence Theory and Classroom Practice: Texts and Contexts in Second Language Learning (2nd ed.), that the communicative approach to language teaching has become so popular that many materials developers have jumped on the bandwagon, claiming a communicative focus to their materials. She writes, “What ‘nutritious’ and ‘natural’ are today to breakfast foods, ‘communicative’ and ‘functional’ are to language texts. How much change has actually taken place is debatable. Just as cereals containing ‘all natural’ honey are no less sweet, so ‘asking questions’ may be no more than a new label for an old unit on the formation of the interrogative” (p. 138).

This volume is most welcome in the field of SLA, especially in the discipline of Spanish SLA. Although there are some important translations of SLA material into Spanish—most notably Liceras (1992) and Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991/1994)—this volume is a step ahead because it provides an up-to-date discussion of SLA and UG based on studies of Spanish SLA.

Eve Gregory's book fills a void in literacy education for bilingual students. This text provides solid theory, useful resources, and practical teaching suggestions for literacy development in a second language for young children. Describing the multilingual, multicultural complexity of early schooling in Great Britain, Gregory provides a strong rationale for her views of early literacy training, both formal and informal, for “emergent bilinguals”—children who are “the first generation in their family to receive formal schooling in the new country, who do not speak the language of the host country at home, and who are consequently at the early stages of second language learning” (p. 8).

Marcia Moraes has made a contribution that will be of interest to many bilingual educators in the United States. Her book is an attempt to examine and critique contemporary bilingual education as it is generally conceptualized in the United States within the framework of a critical Marxian, poststructuralist perspective grounded in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Valentin Voloshinov. Thus, Bilingual education: A dialogue with the Bakhtin circle seeks to bring together two fields that have been, until this time, relatively unconnected. There is a great deal to be said for such undertakings, and both those interested in critical pedagogy and those involved in bilingual education have much to learn from one another.

This eclectic volume represents a selection of 17 papers from the Seventh Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language held in Trieste in 1993. They cover a wide range of languages, including Swedish, Italian, German, Spanish, a group of Bantu languages, Polish, Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN), Hebrew, American Sign Language (ASL), and English, and a wide range of topics and frameworks. Although almost all the papers can be mined by SLA researchers, I will mention five papers that might be of particular interest.

This edited volume consists of 20 chapters, and all but 3 are written in Spanish. The chapters are grouped under four major sections: the classroom, the standard language, teaching language through culture, and political aspects of the maintenance of Spanish. Each section is preceded by an overview.

This volume charts the development of contrastive rhetoric (CR) over the past 30 years. Although CR has not attempted to identify developmental stages of L2 writers, it is essentially the study of transfer: the influence of L1 writing conventions and cultural and cognitive dimensions on L2 writing. Major strengths of this book are its critical review of the literature, concise definitions, and documentation of the progression of CR from narrow L2 text-based analyses to the inclusion of multiple approaches.

Handbook of Second Language Acquisition is what its title suggests, a very thorough guide through the field of SLA. Indeed, the first chapter, an overview, is quite extensive in summarizing the history of SLA and the current issues in SLA. In addition to the lengthy overview, the handbook is divided into seven major sections: I. Research and theoretical issues in second language acquisition, II. Issues of maturation and modularity in second language acquisition, III. Second language speech and the influence of the first language, IV. Research methodology and applications, V. Modality and the linguistic environment in second language acquisition, VI. The neuropsychology of second language acquisition and use, and VII. Language contact and its consequences. These sections are thorough, well researched, and accessible. Section I includes one chapter by Gregg, which sets the tone and bias of the text with his claim that theoretical considerations that are central to SLA are those that address the issue of knowledge; that is, competence within the Chomskyan framework of Universal Grammar. Gregg makes it clear that he is not suggesting that other theories of acculturation or variation are uninteresting but rather that what is central to developing a theory of SLA is a theory that explains competence as the work done within the principles and parameter framework, not, for example, one that explains communicative competence. Section II, the core of the text, consists of six chapters on the various models, approaches, and frameworks of SLA. The first two chapters, by White and Flynn, support the principles and parameters framework for SLA and are followed by a well-reasoned challenge by Schachter.

Although the lexicon has traditionally been regarded as one of the three essential elements of language learning, the other two being phonology and syntax, it has often been almost ignored, or perhaps more accurately, taken for granted, whereas phonology and especially syntax have received most of the attention of theorists and teachers alike. However, there is now a growing awareness that lexical knowledge is both more complex than it appears and also more fundamental to learners' overall knowledge of a given language than previously thought. The volume under review is a good introduction to the complexities of lexical learning and a valuable guide for those who are interested in doing empirical research in this area.

The purpose of this book is to establish that language learning and teaching are the same as skill learning and teaching. In other words, a parallel exists between the learning and teaching of linguistic behavior and nonlinguistic behavior. To this end, Johnson presents a variety of linguistic theories and learning models, including Universal Grammar and information processing. He states that the processes of proceduralization and declarativization of language are the main ones in language learning and that these issues must be addressed in order to establish an effective framework for teaching. In the final chapter, he examines how communicative language teaching and information-processing theory support each other.

This is a selection of papers from a conference hosted by the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics at the Marino Institute of Education in Dublin in June 1994. In an introductory paper, Rosamond Mitchell calls us to “defend and develop the professionalism of language teachers” (p. 17), which Mary Ruane amplifies to counter pessimism among language professionals arising from a feeling of a lack of control over “issues on a wider agenda” (p. 27). On the same theme, John Edwards calls for sociopolitical engagement with ethnic-minority-language situations (p. 34) and Helen Ó Murchú calls for empowerment of the “lesser used language communities” (p. 44) in a supportive response to Edwards' keynote address.