This study places the predictions of the bilingual interactive activation model (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 1998) and the revised hierarchical model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) in the same context to investigate lexical processing in a second language (L2). The performances of two groups of native English speakers, one less proficient and the other more proficient in Spanish, were compared on translation recognition. In this task, participants decided whether two words, one in each language, are translation equivalents. The items in the critical conditions were not translation equivalents and therefore required a “no” response, but were similar to the correct translation in either form or meaning. For example, for translation equivalents such as cara-face, critical distracters included (a) a form-related neighbor to the first word of the pair (e.g., cara-card), (b) a form-related neighbor to the second word of the pair, the translation equivalent (cara-fact), or (c) a meaning-related word (cara-head). The results showed that all learners, regardless of proficiency, experienced interference for lexical neighbors and for meaning-related pairs. However, only the less proficient learners also showed effects of form relatedness via the translation equivalent. Moreover, all participants were sensitive to cues to grammatical class, such that lexical interference was reduced or eliminated when the two words of each pair were drawn from different grammatical classes. We consider the implications of these results for L2 lexical processing and for models of the bilingual lexicon.The writing of this article was supported in part by NSF Doctoral Enhancement Grant BCS-0111733 to Gretchen Sunderman and Judith F. Kroll, and by NSF grants BCS-0111734 and BCS-0418071 and NIH grant RO1MH62479 to Judith F. Kroll. We thank Maya Misra for advice on computing measures of orthographic similarity and Rachel Varra and Asha Persaud for research assistance. We also thank the anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful comments.

A number of studies of second language (L2) sentence processing have investigated whether ambiguity resolution biases in the native language (L1) transfer to superficially similar cognate structures in the L2. When transfer effects are found in such cases, it is difficult to determine whether they reflect surface parallels between the languages or the operation of more abstract processing mechanisms. Wh-questions in English and Japanese present a valuable test case for investigating the relation between L1 and L2 sentence processing. Native speakers (NSs) of English and Japanese both show strong locality biases in processing wh-questions, but these locality biases are realized in rather different ways in the two languages, due to differences in word order and scope marking. Results from a sentence generation study with NSs of Japanese and advanced English-speaking L2 learners of Japanese show that the L2 learners show a strongly nativelike locality bias in the resolution of scope ambiguities for in situ wh-phrases, despite the fact that the closest analogue of such an interpretation is impossible in English. This indicates that L2 learners are guided by abstract processing mechanisms and not just by superficial transfer from the L1.This research was supported in part by grants to Colin Phillips from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0196004) and the Human Frontier Science Program (RGY-0134). We are also grateful to Ellen Lau, Kaori Ozawa, Rozz Thornton, and Masaya Yoshida for valuable discussions of the study, to Deborah Eastman, Gretchen Jones, Eiko Miura, Yoshiko Mori, and Lindsay Yotsukura for assistance with recruiting the Japanese learners, and to John Matthews for assistance with the testing of the Japanese NS group.

This article examines alternating verbs (such as quemar(se) “to burn”) in second language (L2) Spanish by considering the learnability problem from a sequence learning perspective (N. Ellis, 1996, 2002). In Spanish, verbs of the alternating class are obligatorily marked with the clitic se in their intransitive form. Errors of omission among English-speaking learners, who transfer zero-derived morphology from their native language, have been previously documented (Montrul, 2000). This study also examines a different kind of error—overgeneralization of se to transitive event scenes—that is hypothesized to result from chunking se with particular lexical items. The results of a picture description task reveal that learners frequently make this type of overgeneralization error, but that they are able to recover from it at more advanced levels of proficiency. These findings suggest that the acquisition of L2 morphosyntax is shaped by learners' familiarity with individual lexical items and the sequences in which they tend to appear.This study forms part of my dissertation research and was presented at AAAL in Portland, Oregon, in May 2004. I acknowledge the generous support of the University of California, Davis and the Humanities Research Grant that allowed me to conduct this research. I wish to thank Robert Blake for his guidance during the data collection phase of the project, Susan Gass and Charlene Polio for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this article, and Lourdes Sánchez González for helping me collect the native-speaker data. The comments and suggestions of three anonymous SSLA reviewers were also tremendously useful. All remaining errors are my own. %Address correspondence to Eve Zyzik, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Michigan State University, 334 Old Horticulture Building, East Lansing, MI 48824; e-mail: [email protected].

The production of unstressed vowels in English by early and late Korean- and Japanese-English bilinguals was investigated. All groups were nativelike in having a lower fundamental frequency for unstressed as opposed to stressed vowels. Both Korean groups made less of an intensity difference between unstressed and stressed vowels than the native speakers (NSs) of English as well as less of a difference in duration between the two types of vowel than the NSs. The Japanese speakers, whose native language has a phonemic length distinction, produced more nativelike durational patterns. Finally, the vowel quality (first and second formant frequencies) of unstressed vowels was different from the NS group's for the late bilinguals, for whom unstressed vowels were widely dispersed in the vowel space according to their orthographic representations, and from the early Korean bilinguals, who substituted the Korean high central vowel. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of the phonological status of first language phonetic features and age of acquisition.This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation (KRF-2003-042-A00048) and partially supported by the National Institutes of Health (DC05132). A draft of this research was presented at the English phonology workshop division held for the 50th anniversary of the English Language and Literature Association of Korea (June 2004). The authors would like to thank four anonymous SSLA reviewers and Jonathan Loftin for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

A brief note on a review article by Valdman in SSLA 27, pp. 441–463.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

A History of English Language Teaching (2nd ed). A. P. R. Howatt (with H. G. Widdowson). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xix + 417. £19.20 paper.

This volume, a record of the teaching of English to speakers of other languages from the Renaissance to the present day, starts in 1400, when English was a minority language spoken by a population of no more than 3 million people. The book describes the process of making the language teachable and documents the developments in language teaching theory and practice that led to the emergence of English language teaching (ELT) as an autonomous profession.

Input Enhancement: From Theory and Research to the Classroom. Wynne Wong. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Pp. xx + 130. $43.44 paper.

This new title in the McGraw-Hill Second language professional series is a highly readable book written primarily for in-service and would-be teachers of second and foreign languages (L2) who have never studied SLA. The book addresses one of the fundamental concepts of current SLA research—input—in the context of its relationship to grammar instruction. It introduces readers to instructional techniques that help L2 learners pay attention to grammatical form while providing them with the input that they need for successful acquisition of their L2s. These techniques are called input enhancement techniques—specifically, input flood, textual enhancement, structured input, and grammar consciousness-raising tasks, which are explained in chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the book, respectively. This main part of the book is preceded by a historical overview of grammar instruction in chapter 1, a brief discussion of SLA research and its relation to classroom teaching in chapter 2, and a concise explanation focused on the concepts of input and input enhancement as used in the field of SLA in chapter 3. Chapter 8 is a concluding chapter in which the author gives caveats, suggestions, and advice for using the input enhancement techniques introduced in the book.

Task-Based Instruction in Foreign Language Education. Betty Lou Leaver and Jane R. Willis (Eds.). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004. Pp. vi + 336. $29.95 paper.

This volume provides in-depth coverage of what is actually meant by task-based instruction (TBI) through a large range of case studies carried out in government schools, private schools, universities, and Web-based programs. Although this book is useful for teachers and administrators who implement such programs in their curricula, it is also useful for preservice teachers, instructors, and publishers trying to integrate and comprehend TBI more extensively.

What is Meaning? Fundamentals of Formal Semantics. Paul Portner. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Pp. x + 235. $29.95 paper.

Another textbook on formal semantics? Before you reach for the Tylenol, relax; this is a textbook with a twist: It is an informal textbook on formal semantics. Portner's book is actually a very ambitious endeavor because it sets out to teach the basics of the scientific study of meaning in an accessible and user-friendly way. Readers of SSLA who have struggled with formal semantics as undergraduates, in graduate school, or both will appreciate the challenge. I believe that Portner is mostly successful in his endeavor. As I will explain, he is almost too successful; as a result, the apparent raison d'être of the book is defeated, to an extent. In what follows, I will qualify this claim.

Language Development Across Childhood and Adolescence. Ruth A. Berman (Ed.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. xiv + 308. $102.00 cloth.

This volume is the third in the Trends in language acquisition research series by the International Association for the Study of Child Language. It focuses on first language (L1) development in school-age children and adolescents, including both normal and impaired learners. The introductory chapter by Nippold lays out broad questions of later language development—namely (a) what develops (figurative language, low frequency syntactic structures, metalinguistic awareness, etc.) and (b) what drives development (education and literacy, new cognitive abilities, etc.). The 10 chapters that follow describe work in a variety of languages: English, French, Hebrew, Spanish, and Swedish.

What is Morphology? Mark Aronoff and Kirsten Fudeman. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Pp. xvii + 257. $29.95 paper.

This text introduces its readers to a wide range of morphological properties in multiple languages, including Standard American English and a number of typologically different languages (including Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Ancient Greek, Larike, and Jujamaat Joola). Each chapter is accompanied by examples in addition to morphological problems and exercises that contain data from multiple languages. Chapter 1 provides basic definitions of terminologies in morphology. Chapter 2 examines multiple types and definitions of words and lexemes and the effects of stress and affixation in different languages. Chapter 3 investigates the morphophonemic properties (including allomorphs, reduplication, and vowel harmony) of languages. Chapter 4 discusses different aspects of derivational morphology (including compounding, zero-derivation, and affixation), whereas chapter 6 explores the semantics involved in derivational morphology in different languages. Chapter 7 analyzes different kinds of inflectional morphology, with a focus on how it is different from derivational morphology across languages. Both universal and language-specific morphosyntactic processes in different languages are examined in this chapter, and chapter 8 investigates issues of morphological productivity with emphasis on different constraints on morphological processes observed in different languages.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family Literacy Practices: Power In and Out of Print. Rebecca Rogers. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2003. Pp. 232. $69.95 cloth, $29.95 paper.

Rogers' book is about language, literacies, ideologies, and power in family literacy practices and how these interplay paradoxically to impact on individuals' literate view of themselves and on their relationships to institutions such as school. Her critical ethnographic study centers around a mother and daughter in an urban African American family labeled as low income and low literate. They negotiate language and literacy in their home and community “proficiently, critically and strategically” (p. xiii), but the effect of schooled literacy leads them to view themselves as literate failures. Rogers' fine-tuned critical analysis illuminates how schooled literacy is embedded within the primary discourse of home and how it is both embodied and resisted through their literacy work and their identities as a mother and an adolescent who evoke conflicting subjectivities.

Publications received.