This book looks at changes in the first language of people who know a second language, thus seeing L2 users as people in their own right differing from the monolingual in both first and second languages. It presents theories and research that investigate the first language of second language users from a variety of perspectives including vocabulary, pragmatics, cognition, and syntax and using a variety of linguistic and psychological models.
This study examines changes in the first language of people who know a second language. It presents theories and research that investigate the first language of second language users from a variety of perspectives including vocabulary, pragmatics, cognition and syntax.
How does a human acquire, comprehend, produce and control multiple languages with just the power of one mind? What are the cognitive consequences of being a bilingual? These are just a few of the intriguing questions at the core of studying bilingualism from psycholinguistic and neurocognitive perspectives. Bringing together some of the world's leading experts in bilingualism, cognitive psychology and language acquisition, The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Processing explores these questions by presenting a clear overview of current theories and findings in bilingual processing. This comprehensive handbook is organized around overarching thematic areas including theories and methodologies, acquisition and development, comprehension and representation, production, control, and the cognitive consequences of bilingualism. The handbook serves as an informative overview for researchers interested in cognitive bilingualism and the logic of theoretical and experimental approaches to language science. It also functions as an instrumental source of readings for anyone interested in bilingual processing.
This monograph is a theoretical and empirical investigation into the mechanisms and causes of successful and unsuccessful adult second language acquisition. Couched within a generative framework, the study explores how a learner's first language and the age at which they acquire their second language may contribute to the L2 knowledge that they can ultimately attain. The empirical study focuses on a group of very advanced L2 speakers, and through a series of tests aims to discover what underpins their near mastery of grammatical gender and other grammatical properties. The book explores an account of persistent selective divergence based on the idea that child and adult learners are fundamentally similar, except that in adults the L1 plays the role of a fairly rigid filter of the linguistic input. The impossibility of representing the new target language other than by using the building blocks of the previously established L1 is argued to be the main reason why near but not totally native like language representations are formed and become established in adult L2 learners.
This volume offers fresh perspectives on a controversial issue in applied linguistics and language teaching by focusing on the use of the first language in communicative or immersion-type classrooms. It includes new work by both new and established scholars in educational scholarship, second language acquisition, and sociolinguistics, as well as in a variety of languages, countries, and educational contexts. Through its focus at the intersection of theory, practice, curriculum and policy, the book demands a reconceptualization of code-switching as something that both proficient and aspiring bilinguals do naturally, and as a practice that is inherently linked with bilingual code-switching.
"Portraits of the L2 User treats second language users in their own right rather than as failed native speakers. It describes a range of psychological and linguistic approaches to diverse topics about L2 users. It thus provides an overview of current second language acquisition theories, results and methods, seen from a common perspective."--Jacket.
Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis is the only book on the market to provide a diverse collection of perspectives, from experienced researchers, on the role of the Critical Period Hypothesis in second language acquisition. It is widely believed that age effects in both first and second language acquisition are developmental in nature, with native levels of attainment in both to be though possible only if learning began before the closure of a "window of opportunity" – a critical or sensitive period. These seven chapters explore this idea at length, with each contribution acting as an authoritative look at various domains of inquiry in second language acquisition, including syntax, morphology, phonetics/phonology, Universal Grammar, and neurofunctional factors. By presenting readers with an evenly-balanced take on the topic with viewpoints both for and against the Critical Period Hypothesis, this book is the ideal guide to understanding this critical body of research in SLA, for students and researchers in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition.
This book focuses on a particular type of formulaic expressions called Situation-Bound Utterances (SBUs). Since the meaning of these pragmatic units is shaped by the interplay of linguistic and extralinguistic factors they can be best accounted for in a theoretical framework which represents a knowledge-for-use conception. A unique feature of the book is that it examines the development and use of a particular type of formulae from new perspectives. The comparison of a monolingual and multilingual approach, and the application of the graded salience hypothesis to SBUs within a cognitive-pragmatic theoretical framework reveal that issues such as the role of context in shaping situational meaning, and the existence of common or similar cognitive mechanisms and knowledge structures responsible for cognitive functions and speech behavior in different languages need revision. As a consequence, the book seeks answer to two main questions: 1) origin and extent of context-sensitiveness, and 2) the development of the particular situational functions of SBUs. On the basis of recent research it is argued that context affects comprehension only after highly salient information has been accessed. Search for the appropriate meaning stops if the information accessed initially is compatible with the context, and it continues, if it is not. This approach puts the issue of context-sensitiveness of SBUs into an entirely different perspective. It is also discussed that why exactly these utterances started to be used to express those pragmatic functions and not others. SBUs demonstrate better than any other linguistic unit that there is a strong cognitive-linguistic interdependency. The development of certain SBUs can be accounted for through cognitive mechanisms, and vice versa: learning an SBU for a culturally important category can linguistically reinforce the learning of the category itself. The book uses a cross-linguistic perspective and illustrative examples from several languages which makes its arguments and claims convincing.
