The latest title in the Cognitive Science and Second Language Acquisition Series presents a comprehensive review of connectionist research in second language acquisition (SLA). Second language researchers and the cognitive science community will find accessible discussions of the relevance of connectionist research to SLA. This important volume is key reading for any student or researcher interested in how second language acquisition can be better understood from a connectionist perspective.

The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition presents an integrated discussion of key, and sometimes controversial, issues in second language acquisition research. Discusses the biological and cognitive underpinnings of SLA, mechanisms, processes, and constraints on SLA, the level of ultimate attainment, research methods, and the status of SLA as a cognitive science. Includes contributions from twenty-seven of the world's leading scholars. Provides an invaluable resource for all students and scholars of human cognition, including those in linguistics, psychology, applied linguistics, ESL, foreign languages, and cognitive science.

This book explores the contributions that cognitive linguistics and psychology, including neuropsychology, have made to the understanding of the way that second languages are processed and learnt. It examines areas of phonology, word recognition and semantics, examining 'bottom-up' decoding processes as compared with 'top-down' processes as they affect memory. It also discusses second language learning from the acquisition/learning and nativist/connectionist perspectives. These ideas are then related to the methods that are used to teach second languages, primarily English, in formal classroom situations. This examination involves both 'mainstream' communicative approaches, and more traditional methods widely used to teach EFL throughout the world. The book is intended to act both as a textbook for students who are studying second language teaching and as an exploration of issues for the interested teacher who would like to further extend their understanding of the cognitive processes underlying their teaching.Mick Randall is currently Senior Lecturer in TESOL and Head of the Institute of Education at the British University in Dubai. He has taught courses in second language learning and teaching, applied linguistics and psychology in a number of different contexts. He has a special interest in the cognitive processing of language and in the psycholinguistics of word recognition, spelling and reading.

What is language and how can we investigate its acquisition by children or adults? What perspectives exist from which to view acquisition? What internal constraints and external factors shape acquisition? What are the properties of interlanguage systems? This comprehensive 31-chapter handbook is an authoritative survey of second language acquisition (SLA). Its multi-perspective synopsis on recent developments in SLA research provides significant contributions by established experts and widely recognized younger talent. It covers cutting edge and emerging areas of enquiry not treated elsewhere in a single handbook, including third language acquisition, electronic communication, incomplete first language acquisition, alphabetic literacy and SLA, affect and the brain, discourse and identity. Written to be accessible to newcomers as well as experienced scholars of SLA, the Handbook is organised into six thematic sections, each with an editor-written introduction.

Rethinking Innateness asks the question, "What does it really mean to say that a behavior is innate?" The authors describe a new framework in which interactions, occurring at all levels, give rise to emergent forms and behaviors. These outcomes often may be highly constrained and universal, yet are not themselves directly contained in the genes in any domain-specific way. One of the key contributions of Rethinking Innateness is a taxonomy of ways in which a behavior can be innate. These include constraints at the level of representation, architecture, and timing; typically, behaviors arise through the interaction of constraints at several of these levels.The ideas are explored through dynamic models inspired by a new kind of "developmental connectionism," a marriage of connectionist models and developmental neurobiology, forming a new theoretical framework for the study of behavioral development. While relying heavily on the conceptual and computational tools provided by connectionism, Rethinking Innateness also identifies ways in which these tools need to be enriched by closer attention to biology.

The past fifteen years have witnessed an increasing interest in the cognitive study of the bilingual. A major reason why psychologists, psycholinguists, applied linguists, neuropsychologists, and educators have pursued this topic at an accelerating pace presumably is the acknowledgment by increasingly large numbers of language researchers that the incidence of monolingualism in individual language users may be lower than that of bilingualism. This alleged numerical imbalance between monolinguals and bilinguals may be expected to become larger due to increasing international travel through, for instance, tourism and trade, to the growing use of international communication networks, and to the fact that in some parts of the world (i.e., Europe), the borders between countries are effectively disappearing. In addition to the growing awareness that bilinguals are very common and may even outnumber monolinguals, there is the dawning understanding that the bilingual mind is not simply the sum of the cognitive processes associated with each of the two monolingual modes, and that the two languages of bilingual may interact with one another in complicated ways. To gain a genuinely universal account of human cognition will therefore require a detailed understanding of language use by both pure monolinguals as well as bilinguals, unbalanced and balanced, and of the representations and processes involved. These two insights, that bilingualism is a common human condition and that it may influence cognition, were presumably instrumental in putting bilingualism on the agendas of many researchers of cognition and language in recent years. But other reasons may have played a role too: The study of bilingualism also provides a unique opportunity to study the relation between language and thought. A final reason for the growing interest in this area of research is the awareness that bilingualism may confer the benefit of broadening one's scope beyond the limits of one's own country and culture. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the important topics in the psycholinguistic study of bilingualism. The chapters represent a comprehensive and interrelated set of topics that form the core of contemporary research on the psycholinguistics of bilingualism. The issues raised within this perspective not only increase our understanding of the nature of language and thought in bilinguals but also of the basic nature of the mental architecture that supports the ability to use more than one language.

Written for students encountering the topic for the first time, this is a clear and practical introduction to second language acquisition (SLA). It explains in non-technical language how a second language is acquired; what the second language learner needs to know; and why some learners are more successful than others. The textbook introduces in a step-by-step fashion a range of fundamental concepts – such as SLA in adults and children, in formal and informal learning contexts, and in diverse socio-cultural settings – and takes an interdisciplinary approach, encouraging students to consider SLA from linguistic, psychological and social perspectives. Each chapter contains a list of key terms, a summary, and a range of graded exercises suitable for self-testing or class discussion. Providing a solid foundation in SLA, this book is set to become the leading introduction to the field for students of linguistics, psychology, and education, and trainee language teachers.