The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition

The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics)
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.

Table of Contents

Part I Theory and practice
1 Theories of language from a critical perspective
2 History of the study of second language acquisition
3 Theoretical approaches
4 Scope and research methodologies

Part II Internal ingredients
5 The role of the native language
6 Learning mechanisms and automatization
7 Generative approaches and the poverty of the stimulus
8 Learner-internal psychological factors
9 Alphabetic literacy and adult SLA

Part III External ingredients
10 Negotiated input and output/interaction
11 Second language identity construction
12 Socialization
13 Variation
14 Electronic interaction and resources

Part IV Biological factors
15 Age-related effects
16 Childhood second language acquisition
17 Incomplete L1 acquisition
18 Third language acquisition
19 Language processing
20 Affect and the brain

Part V Properties of interlanguage systems
21 The lexicon
22 Semantics
23 Discourse and pragmatics
24 Morphosyntax
25 Phonology and speech

Part VI Models of development
26 Explaining change in transition grammars
27 Stagelike development and Organic Grammar
28 Emergentism, connectionism and complexity
29 Input, input processing and focus on form
30 Sociocultural theory and the zone of proximal development
31 Nativelike and non-nativelike attainment

Appendix Examples of structured input activities