The language continuum is defined by the dimensions of language ability (from language talent to language disorder) and bilingual language proficiency (from monolingual to multilingual) in this chapter. Although the terms “language ability” and “proficiency” are often used interchangeably in the literature, we systematically differentiate these two dimensions in order to explain variations in speakers from different linguistic backgrounds. Cross-linguistic data are presented to strengthen this argument. The differentiation of these two language dimensions is important for professionals to prevent the over- and underdiagnosis of children who come from language minority groups or exhibit bilingual language disorder. A discussion of similarities in language acquisition between typically developing monolingual and bilingual first language speakers and between monolingual and bilingual children with developmental language disorder is included to highlight common features along the language dimensions. Within-subject approaches and different measures of assessment are described to support the classification of children from diverse linguistic environments.

Early language exposure is crucial for acquiring native mastery of phonology, and multilingual exposure results in enhanced phonetic/phonological learning ability in adulthood. It remains unclear, however, whether early language exposure has lasting benefits when the quantity and quality of speaking drop dramatically after childhood. We investigate the production and perception of Arabic in fifteen early-interrupted exposure (i.e., childhood) speakers and fifteen late-exposure (i.e., novice) speakers. We compare the production of both groups to that of a control group of fifteen early uninterrupted exposure (i.e., native monolingual) speakers. The experiment included tasks addressing language proficiency, word production, and speech perception. Early-interrupted exposure speakers outperformed late-exposure speakers on all tasks of the language proficiency diagnostic, while also displaying more native-like perception and production. Our study adds further support to the body of work on the measurable long-term benefits of early language experience for an individual’s phonetic and phonological skills, even when language experience diminishes over time.

Differential Object Marking (DOM) is vulnerable to change in heritage speakers of Spanish and heritage speakers of Hindi. DOM is also vulnerable to L1 attrition in Spanish-speaking first-generation immigrants but not in Hindi immigrants. This chapter examines DOM vulnerability in Romanian. The chapter describes the sociolinguistic characteristics of the Romanian-speaking population in the United, followed by a summary of the overall results of the linguistic background questionnaire and the linguistic tasks. The overall results show that, compared to the Spanish and Hindi-speaking populations, the Romanian-speaking population in the United States is far less numerous, yet their Romanian language skills remain relatively strong compared to the other two groups. The accuracy with DOM of the first-generation Romanian immigrants on all linguistic measures did not differ from those of the Romanian speakers in Romania. Just like in the Hindi study, there appears to be no evidence of language change in the homeland nor signs of attrition of this phenomenon in the first-generation adult immigrants sampled in this study. Yet, DOM and accusative clitic doubling (CD) were found to be somewhat vulnerable to omission in heritage speakers, especially in those exposed to English since birth or very early in life (the simultaneous bilinguals).

This chapter asks whether DOM—which is a vulnerable grammatical area in Spanish in the United States—is also vulnerable in Hindi as a heritage language. The results of the study presented in this chapter show that some Hindi heritage speakers also display omission of DOM in all tasks. But unlike what was found for the Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants in the Spanish study discussed in the previous chapter, there is no indication of ongoing language change in the Hindi spoken in the homeland nor apparent signs of attrition of DOM in the Hindi-speaking adult immigrant group. The sociolinguistic characteristics of the Hindi/Urdu-speaking population in the United States is discussed. The results of the linguistic background questionnaire and the linguistic tasks (oral narrative task, elicited production task, written task, bimodal acceptability judgment task, auditory/written comprehension task) are presented and discussed.

The acquisition of DOM in Spanish monolingual children and Spanish-speaking bilinguals has been intensely investigated in the last two decades. One of the main objectives of the in-depth study of DOM conducted for this project was to confirm and evaluate the strength of previous findings of DOM omission in Spanish-English bilingual children and in young adult heritage speakers. If erosion of DOM in Spanish as a heritage language is indeed a robust phenomenon, it should be documented in other groups of heritage speakers. Although hypotheses about the potential role of the parental generation in contributing to heritage language grammars abound, at the time the Spanish study reported in this book was conceived, there were no studies of potential attrition of DOM in adult immigrants. Therefore, the first-generation immigrant group was included to put the language transmission hypothesis to the test. This chapter presents a brief overview of Spanish in the United States before summarizing the main results of the language background questionnaire, and of the production, comprehension and judgment tasks described in Chapter 5.

Over the last two decades, second-language pragmatics brought to the fore commonalities and conventions shared by speakers and hearers, those which create a common ground for communication, as well as culture varieties in language use, and those which cause communication breakdowns in real-life contexts. But, of course, meaning which is to be understood entirely under the influence of social interaction and cognitive change cannot capture the modalities or channels speakers use to convey a certain content of an utterance. Typically, natural behaviors, in the form of emotive effects, are integrated somehow into the interpretation of utterances in everyday life situations, a point generally missed in the literature on how utterances are understood in a second language. In the light of the above observations, an original feature of this chapter is its discussion of cases where "natural," i.e. affective, and linguistic communication interact in the interpretation of utterances. The task of describing and explaining what is conveyed by nonpropositional types of meaning, those "affective aspects of learning," such as feelings, attitudes, or preferences, falls squarely within the domain of L2 pragmatics, and the central aim of this chapter is to redress the balance.

Chapter 27 stresses the importance of connecting assessment with learning and of assessment prior to implementation of instructional design based on the backward design principle (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Backward design contrasts sharply with the traditional approach of planning instructional activities first and designing assessment later in the general instructional process. It also urges teachers to set clear learning objectives as the first step of curriculum design. After offering a short overview of key assessment types for different purposes, it presents Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA: Adair-Hauck, Glisan & Troyan, 2013) model by discussing how language proficiency and skills in real use of grammar and vocabulary can be measured in actual performance assessment. Actual students’ outcomes after implementation of IPA in an Advanced Korean class are collected and analyzed based on rubrics that can be used as standards for scoring. The chapter also analyzes whether there are correlations between IPA results and Proficiency outcomes.

This chapter explores the dynamic relationship between working memory (WM) and grammar development across adult L2 learning. For over twenty years, WM has received considerable attention in research on adult second language (L2) development. One reason for this is that L2 learning requires both processing and storage to comprehend input and to extract intake for acquisition, so differences in WM capacity may explain differences in developmental rates. Most studies on WM and morphosyntactic development in adults support the “more is better” hypothesis (Miyake & Friedman, 1998); yet others did not yield evidence in its support (e.g., Foote, 2011; Grey, Cox et al., 2015). While linguistic targets and methods may explain many discrepancies, recent research (e.g., Serafini & Sanz, 2016) may also help us understand these differences as a reflection of changes in what constitutes a cognitively demanding task (i.e., what tasks recruit WM resources) across L2 learning

Phan le Ha ’s childhood in Hanoi, Vietnam, brought her in contact with words, expressions and songs in Russian, French, Chinese and English in turn:  languages that were designated as the enemy's language, "alongside her mother tongue Vietnamese." In a duet with Bao Dat, they venture into a reflection on the hybridity and intertextuality of memories and languages rejecting colonial categorizations anchored in discourses of self and others.

Nikolay Slavkov experienced learning the languages of the Soviet bloc in Bulgaria. Beyond the Iron Curtain of the Cold War, he developed a passion for English and immigrated to China and then to Canada. Initially reticent about plurilingualism and translanguaging, he slowly opened up to multilingual classes and his own plurilingual children to propose a reflection on the destigmatization of bilingual and multilingual practices.

This chapter reviews the quantitative corpus linguistic literature on development of cohesion in first- and second-language writing. It first provides a theoretical and methodological context for such work by discussing the two main frameworks within which cohesion has been researched. It then critically reviews an extensive body of literature to establish what substantive conclusions can be drawn and what might constitute productive foci for future research. Interest in cohesion as a correlate of development has been less intense than that seen for grammar, vocabulary, and formulaic language, and few consistent patterns have emerged. While there is some indication that a small number of measures are associated with development, evidence on these is too sparse for any confident conclusions to be drawn. Moreover, quantitative measures of cohesion appear to be highly contextually specific, depending crucially on the nature of the text and on the writer's estimation of their audience's topic knowledge.

This chapter reviews the quantitative corpus linguistic literature on formulaic language development in writing. It first provides a theoretical and methodological context by discussing the construct of formulaic language and the various ways in which it has been operationalised in studies of writing development. It then critically reviews the literature to establish what substantive conclusions can be drawn and what might constitute productive foci for future research. The review highlights a lack of interest in first-language studies. However, second-language studies have seen a rapid expansion of interest over the last decades, which has yielded a number of consistent patterns. In particular, writing quality is positively associated with the percentage of n-grams attested in a reference corpus, the mean strength of association between collocates (again as attested in a reference corpus), and the prevalence of sequences which analysts subjectively identify as formulaic. It is also negatively associated with use of formulas copied from source materials. Key areas in which further methodological development is needed include: understanding how analysts identify sequences as formulaic; increasing the size and rigour of studies looking at discourse functions of lexical bundles; understanding the impact of reference corpus on findings; developing corpora representative of learner input.

This chapter establishes a theoretical and methodological foundation for the quantitative corpus linguistic study of writing development. First, it defines and discusses the central constructs of writing, writing proficiency, development, and quantitative corpus linguistics. Second, it sets out four assumptions on which, we argue, quantitative corpus approaches rest and discusses in detail both the strengths of these approaches and the methodological challenges they need to confront. Third, it gives a detailed discussion of specific methodological issues related to defining and measuring key variables of development and context and of establishing the status of particular measures of language use. Finally, the chapter reviews one particular quantitative corpus linguistic approach (multidimensional analysis) which raises important questions about quantitative corpus linguistic methodology as a whole.

This chapter brings together discussions and evidence from the preceding chapters to draw conclusions about first- and second-language writing development and about quantitative corpus linguistics as a methodology. It first summarises the key patterns of development in terms of grammar, vocabulary, formulaic language, and cohesion. It then discusses implications of these findings for the key constructs of time- and quality-related development and draws methodological conclusions with regard to how quantitative measures of development have been, and in the future could be, theorised and operationalised and the types of text samples on which studies have been, and could be, built. The chapter ends by setting out a number of key priorities for future research, grouped under the headings of theorisation, broadening attention to contexts, and integration with other methods.