Now in its second edition, this handbook is a current overview of second language (L2) research, providing state-of-the-art synopses of recent developments in each subarea of the field and bringing together contributions by emerging scholars and experts in second language acquisition (SLA). Since the first edition, broad sociopolitical movements, alternative views of bilingualism, emergence of global markets, vast expansion of electronic resources, the development of social media and the availability of big data have transformed the discipline, and this edition has been thoroughly updated to address these changes. It is divided into six main parts: Part I situates SLA in terms of research and practice; Part II explores individual cognitive, age-related and neurolinguistic similarities and differences; Part III outlines external, sociocultural and interactive factors; Part IV presents profiles of bilinguals who take differing paths of acquisition; Part V describes interlanguage properties; and Part VI comprises clear models of L2 development.

This chapter provides an overview of major theoretical approaches to morphosyntax in second language acquisition. The chapter starts with an overview of major data collection measures that are used to study morphosyntactic phenomena, including production data, judgment data, and online tasks, self-paced reading in particular. The applications and limitations of the different data collection measures are addressed. The chapter subsequently considers the debate between representational deficit approaches vs. missing surface inflection approaches to difficulties with inflectional morphology in the second language, examining these approaches in the domain of verbal inflection. The chapter then moves on to approaches that consider feature reassembly and morphological (in)congruency and discusses studies in these two frameworks in the domain of number marking on nominals. The chapter concludes with a summary and suggestions for future research.

The poverty of the stimulus in the domain of language refers to the gap between the knowledge of grammar attained and the knowledge that could be deduced on the basis of the available linguistic input. Within the Generative Enterprise, the notion of the poverty of the stimulus plays a critical role in the motivation for positing Universal Grammar, a set of innate cognitive principles restricting the range of possible human grammars. This chapter first considers the poverty of the stimulus in the acquisition of native language and then turns to the poverty of the stimulus in the acquisition of nonnative language; both sections review a number of empirical studies documenting language acquisition under conditions of a poverty of the stimulus. For nonnative language, examples are drawn from research on morphosyntax, the syntax-semantics interface, and phonology. These studies reveal that nonnative learners (can) come to acquire subtle linguistic properties which could not be deduced (i) from their native-language grammar, (ii) from the Target Language input available to them or (iii) from classroom instruction.

The case of bilingualism is a challenge for psycholinguists who aim to understand how the two (or more) languages of a bilingual are represented in the brain, whether they are organized similarly and how bilinguals manage to keep their languages apart. We first review studies that investigate the organization of the two languages in the brain and whether they interfere with each other during access to the lexicon and syntactic representations. In the second part of the chapter, we report neurolinguistic studies that examine cognitive processes and neural perspectives in monolinguals and bilinguals, with a special focus on factors that may influence bilingual language processing such as proficiency and age of acquisition. Finally, in the third part of the chapter we present theories on L2 processing and discuss the studies presented earlier in relation to these theories. In addition, we have extended the sections on lexical access in sentence context and syntactic processing by including recent studies that reflect the flourishing interest for bilinguals’ ability to predict upcoming words online during sentence comprehension.

Before we can talk about how we learn, use, and lose language, we need to define what it is, and what it isn’t. Over the centuries, many people have attempted to describe language. In this chapter was ask: what is language? This is a simple enough question although the answer is much more complicated, and intriguing, than it seems at first. The question of “what is language?” isn’t something we can just sum up in a single pithy sentence. Language is a system of communication, but it’s so much more than that. Language is multi-faceted. It involves signs and symbols, smaller and bigger segments, dialects and accents, and also writing and signing. This chapter serves as a primer to introduce us to the basic underlying principles of language sceince, so we can now talk the talk.

How people learn a second language is a topic of long-standing human curiosity as well as prime educational and social importance. The mid twentieth century is the conventional starting point for recounting the history of the modern discipline of second language (L2) acquisition. However, although this chapter focuses on that interval, it recognizes that much older ideas and texts provide a context for understanding contemporary and near-contemporary treatment of the topic. To illustrate the scope of reflection on L2 acquisition, Chapter 1 narrates the historical backdrop to three themes, all of which are salient to the recent history of the field, while they have also appeared in various guises over the full-length history of Western reflection on language: (1) the role a learner’s first language plays in the acquisition of an L2; (2) capacities that are imputed to be inherent to learners, and which bear on the task of L2 acquisition; and (3) the function of the social environment in which learning takes place. These three themes provide a basis for appreciating continuities and discontinuities across the full history of L2 acquisition, a history that vastly predates the twentieth-century focus in this chapter.

How did language emerge? It has been suggested that language developed through mimicry of the sounds of nature and animals. Some propose that speech arose from grunts and groans, gestures, dance, or music. Others believe that language has more divine origins. A number of scientists speculate that language appeared spontaneously in our species, while opposing theories say that language evolved over a very long period of time. And which was the original language anyway? It makes sense that the question of how language emerged has been called “the hardest problem in science.” All of that being said, researchers don’t always agree as to what constitutes language. It’s generally accepted that communication differs from language in that the latter involves the use of symbols and syntax. For this reason, some argue that language is uniquely human. Others think our hominin relatives may have had speech as well. Animals have their own versions of communication too, while there are always quirky news stories about talking birds, signing chimpanzees, and even monkeys that use grammar. What are we to make of these claims? Let’s look at who has language and how it emerged.

This chapter provides an overview of the current state of research on the role of writing in second language (L2) learning. For many years L2 writing and second language acquisition (SLA) research developed independently. However, recent interest in the learning potential of writing and writing-related processes has led to a prolific area of research investigating L2 writing from a writing-to-learn perspective. This chapter, a novel addition to the second edition of the handbook, acknowledges this research and responds to calls for a more central role of L2 writing in SLA research agendas. Scholarly work on the learning affordances of L2 writing has examined both individual and collaborative writing, as well as the use and processing of written corrective feedback. The chapter discusses the theoretical underpinnings of research in each of these areas and provides a summary of key issues and findings. It reviews selected empirical studies, involving a range of learner populations and L2s, that have contributed to our understanding of how and why writing and writing-related processes facilitate L2 learning. The chapter concludes with a forward look, pointing out directions for future research.

A survey of the elements of word meaning. Covers the history, role, and significance of dictionaries, the Saussurian connection between form and meaning, synonymy, homonymy, polysemy, meaning features or properties, and how meanings arise.

The world is becoming increasingly bilingual/multilingual, with a large number of children starting to learn languages other than their mother tongue in early childhood. This chapter provides an overview of our current understanding of child second language learners – successive bilinguals, whose exposure to an additional language begins around age 3. While most work on child L2 acquisition in the 1990s, until the mid 2000s was guided by various theoretical accounts and largely focused on morphosyntactic properties and developmental comparisons in different child L2 populations with adult L2 learners and those with developmental language disorders, much work reviewed in this chapter builds on recent theorizing and various phenomena that have significant advances in the field concerning child-internal and child-external factors. To this end, research over the last ten years forms the basis of this chapter, with a focus on how factors such as crosslinguistic influence, age effects, the amount and quality of input and the length of exposure determine young children’s acquisition processes. The examination of all these variables is argued to provide a more integrated and comprehensive approach to child L2 acquisition.

A concluding chapter that offers additional readings and resources for the interested reader.

What does it mean to know a language? Language is our primary tool for communication, and speaking, listening, reading, and writing are integral to our everyday lives. This chapter explores how adults use and understand language, from speech to the written word. We deconstruct the processes that are involved when speakers speak and listeners listen, and when readers read, and writers write. We delve into groundbreaking (and often controversial) studies to find out what they can tell us about speech production and comprehension. We’ll also find that a big part of language use is misuse. We look at the typical language of adults and the normal mistakes we make in our speech everyday, from mondegreens and malapropisms to spoonerisms and other slips of the tongue. We discuss what these speech and hearing errors mean, and what they reveal about the way language is organized in our minds.