Language is not simply a formal system of sounds, words, and syntactical structures; language also reaches into the domain of human interaction, which for its own part follows certain rules. Every native speaker assimilates individual social experiences characteristic of his own culture. These experiences inhere in statements that obtain their communicative significance through interpretation: “Die Bedeutung eines sprachlichen Zeichens kennen heisst wis en, wie es verwendet werden kann, d.h. wie man mit ihm handeln kann, welche Regeln für seinen Gebrauch gelten” (Heringer, 1977). Each society accumulates rules according to which concrete statements are interpreted abstractly and which are valid among communicating partners through common usage.

CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE IN THIRD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: PSYCHOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES. Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen, and Ulrike Jessner (Eds.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2001. Pp. 197. $54.95 cloth.

Although linguists often employ “native-language influence” as a shorthand for language transfer, most are well aware that crosslinguistic influence can come not only from the first language (L1) but also from the second language (L2) in cases where the target language is the third language (L3). Even so, there remains the question of just how similar the acquisition of L3 (or L4, etc.) may be to what is, strictly speaking, L2 acquisition. This question naturally intersects with the complexities of crosslinguistic influence, and the study of transfer beyond L2 has received increasing attention in the past 10 years or so. It was high time for a single volume that would bring together many strands of research on the problem, and this one edited by Cenoz, Hufeisen, and Jessner will no doubt become a key resource. The collection has an introduction by the editors and 10 chapters with the following authors: Cenoz; Hammarberg; De Angelis and Selinker; Ringbom; Dewaele; Ecke; Herwig; Kellerman; Fouser; and Gibson, Hufeisen, and Libben.

HANDBOOK OF BILINGUALISM: PSYCHOLINGUISTIC APPROACHES. Judith F. Kroll and Annette M. B. de Groot (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 588. $147.00 cloth.

The study of bilingualism has become an important field within applied linguistics, as indicated by the fact that in the past 3 years, several comprehensive volumes that relate to bilingualism have been published with the word “handbook” in their titles. Nevertheless, this volume offers new perspectives even to those who have read The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (Doughty & Long, 2003) and The Handbook of Bilingualism (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2004). Whereas the previous handbooks summarize the state-of-the-art research findings and theories in the field of SLA, this new book, edited by Kroll and de Groot, familiarizes readers with the cognitive approach to the study of bilingualism. The majority of the chapters in this volume do more than just summarize psycholinguistic issues in SLA research; many of them present research findings not yet published (e.g., Christoffels & de Groot, Pienemann et al., Sanchez-Casas & Garcia-Albea, Tamar & Galan) and extend previous models of language acquisition and production to account for more phenomena of bilingualism (e.g., La Heij, MacWhinney, Myers-Scotton).

Research on the second language (L2) acquisition of the Spanish copulas has been central to our understanding of key concepts and issues in the field of SLA such as stages of development and variability in L2s. However, this research has focused nearly exclusively on native English-speaking learners. The present study examined native Korean-speaking learners’ acquisition and use of the Spanish copulas with adjectives in oral production. Analyses of the range and frequency of copula forms produced across four levels of Spanish language study revealed an increase in ser and estar use and a decrease in developmental omission as learner level increased. Predicate type, resultant state, and Spanish grammar score significantly influenced use of estar over ser. Comparison with native English-speaking learners revealed differences between first language groups in terms of rates of form use, but similar developmental trends and predictors of estar use overall.

People are frequently concerned about the impressions they make on others (referred to as metaperceptions), but their insights are often inaccurate. Illustrating the phenomenon called the liking gap, speakers interacting in their first language (L1) and second language (L2) tend to underestimate how much they are liked by their interlocutor, and these judgments often predict their desire to engage in future interaction and collaboration. To understand the scope of this bias and its consequences, we focused on L1–L2 dyadic interaction, examining metaperception as a potential barrier to conversations between university students. We recruited 58 previously unacquainted university students to perform a 10-min academic discussion task between one L1 and one L2 speaker. Afterward, the speakers (a) assessed each other’s interpersonal liking, speaking skill, and interactional behavior; (b) provided their metaperceptions of their interlocutor’s assessments of the same dimensions; and (c) estimated their interest in future interaction with the same interlocutor. All speakers showed a reliable metaperception bias to underestimate their interpersonal liking, speaking skill, and interactional behavior. However, only L1 speakers’ desire to engage in future interaction was associated with their metaperceptions of interpersonal liking. We discuss implications of this finding for understanding and promoting academic communication.

Research on intelligibility in international encounters has long focused on issues of pronunciation to the detriment of factors such as linguistic co-text and extralinguistic context, which are comparatively well-studied variables in intelligibility research concerning L1 listeners. This paper seeks to expand the scope of international intelligibility research in this respect by reporting on a large-scale study involving 423 nonnative listeners at different proficiency levels, who transcribed words spoken with another nonnative accent under four conditions that varied in the availability of syntactic, semantic, and schematic cues. The results suggest that co-text and context as well as listening proficiency are crucial variables that ought to receive greater attention in research on international intelligibility. The pedagogical implications of these findings are addressed as well.

Careful observation of the speech of even advanced learners of English often reveals usage that deviates in some way from the target language. One area of difficulty appears to be the system of modality that includes such forms as must, have to, should, had better, can, and may, among others. Some errors are purely grammatical in nature. For example:(1) (a) In fact, they musted to return back home.

(b) Perhaps if I went to France maybe I can do it.

Others are not so much ungrammatical as inappropriate. For example,(2) (a) Should I give you the receipt for this?uttered by a bank teller should actually have been shall, since the teller was not really asking me for my advice but was trying to find out whether I wanted the receipt. In (2b),(2) (b) I should take this English class.

the student was actually trying to ascertain which section of a class to sign up for, and really needed to convey that he was required to take that particular class. In order to ascertain the possible cause for these persistent misuses of the modals, several measures of modal usage were developed and administered to groups of native and non-native speakers. The results showed that the understanding non-natives have of expressions of modality is qualitatively different from the understanding of natives. Some possible causes for this discrepancy in understanding are suggested along with possible solutions for remedying the problem.

The present study examines potential age and microparametric effects in childhood bilinguals (currently adults) in an understudied language pairing, Polish-Spanish. Specifically, a Spanish group (N = 28) and a Sequential child bilingual (N = 22) and a Simultaneous bilingual (N = 8) group living in Misiones, Argentina, completed three experimental tasks assessing their knowledge of the syntactic and syntax-semantic distribution of adjectives. Results show that, despite several semantic differences related to adjective position, both experimental groups demonstrate knowledge of interpretive constraints that fall out from underlying Spanish syntax. Differences predicted as a result of crosslinguistic influence were not evidenced, yet, contrary to Polish and Spanish, the experimental groups accepted ungrammatical postnominal intensional adjectives significantly more than Spanish speakers.

Despite the widespread use and effectiveness of the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) composite score in predicting individual differences in L2 achievement and proficiency, there has been little examination of MLAT subtests, although they have potential for illuminating components of L2 aptitude and the mechanism of prediction. Here we use regression commonality analysis to decompose the predictive variance from the MLAT into unique components for each subtest alone and for each possible combination of subtests (duos, trios, etc.) that may have shared variance. The results, from a longitudinal study of 307 U.S. secondary students during 2 years of Spanish learning, provide strong evidence for the role of literacy-related skills in all subtests and in predicting all L2 outcomes. These and other results support a view of L1 literacy and language skills leading to metalinguistic development, which in turn leads to stronger L2 aptitude and achievement.

Multilingualism in the context of academic publishing involves beliefs and actions manifested through publications in multiple languages. However, a systematic analysis of how academic journals practice multilingualism has been scant. Therefore, the present study analyzed how indexed journals of applied linguistics promote and practice multilingualism following their scopes and language policies (LPs). Initially, 67 journals underwent screening based on their “aims and scope,” resulting in 11 journals that actively promoted multilingualism. Employing a critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework, the main analysis focused on the assumptions embedded within the journals’ LPs. The findings indicated an incongruity between the journals’ stated commitment and their practices of multilingualism. Specifically, all the journals mandated submissions exclusively in English with implicit biases toward native speakerism. The study underscores the need for a collective effort within and beyond the applied linguistics community to address linguistic biases and for more equitable and inclusive academic publishing practices.

Sleep plays a role in the consolidation of various aspects of language learning. In this study, we investigated the extent to which sleep-dependent memory consolidation contributes to second language (L2) rule generalization and enhancement of L2 explicit knowledge. One hundred native English speakers were engaged in a meaning-focused training of two German grammar rules. Participants were trained either in the morning or in the evening and tested after a retention interval that was either filled with wakefulness or sleep. During the test, we used a grammaticality judgment test to measure grammatical learning and retrospective verbal reports and source attributions to measure awareness. We found that sleep consolidated learning only for learners who reported awareness of syntactic rules prior to sleep. However, performance based on explicit sources did not differ after a period of sleep and after a period of wakefulness. These findings suggest that sleep may benefit L2 rule generalization only for learners who are aware of the L2 rules before sleep but may not consolidate L2 explicit knowledge.

VOCABULARY IN A SECOND LANGUAGE: SELECTION, ACQUISITION, AND TESTING. Paul Bogaards and Batia Laufer (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. xiv + 233. $126.00 cloth, $42.95 paper.

This volume consists primarily of papers that were presented at the second language vocabulary acquisition colloquium at Leiden University in March 2002 and represents a broad scope of quantitative studies by leading scholars in the field. It is organized under three different themes: “Selection,” “Acquisition,” and “Testing.” In the introduction, the editors briefly describe the contributions and follow with several pages that illustrate how the papers diverge on the conceptualization of central issues (e.g., the basic unit under investigation; aspects of the learning process, learning conditions, and time course of measurement; definitions of the construct of word knowledge). Finally, they add their own insightful perspectives on such issues, as well as helpful suggestions for further exploration, as a stimulus for future research.

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.