The study of conversational interaction among second language (L2) learners and their interlocutors has been central to the study of second language acquisition since the beginning of the 1980s. Numerous studies have shown the facilitative role of interaction for L2 acquisition and several factors that influence the process have been identified and investigated in depth. The main aim of this chapter is to provide the reader with updated information on three particular areas in which research has grown in the past decade, namely the mediating role of individual differences in the process of interaction, interaction in technology-mediated environments and child interaction in low-input (foreign language) contexts. The first two topics are of general interest for the cognitive-interactionist framework, while the third focuses on an underresearched population about which basically no studies were published in the previous decade. The major findings in those three areas will be highlighted and lines for further research identified.

The role that a first language (L1) may play in second language (L2) acquisition has influenced the development of the field and our understanding of the nature of language knowledge and use. In this chapter, we review the historical evolution of views on the role of the L1, then turn to recent research on the role of the L1 in the linguistic subfields of phonology, the lexicon, morphosyntax and syntax. Areas of current importance also include the role of age in L2 acquisition related to the role of the L1 and the role of the L1 in signed and new-modality L2 acquisition. Evidence from recent decades represents a trend toward more emphasis on abstract than on surface characteristics of the L1 playing a role in L2 acquisition. Research reviewed in this chapter points to a nuanced picture regarding the role of L1/L2 similarities and differences in L2 acquisition and also reveals that the role of the L1 does not appear to be the same at every point in development, at every level of proficiency, or with every combination of languages.

This chapter examines some core commitments of the monotheistic worldview that has dominated the Western sphere and spread to all corners of the Earth over the past 1,000 years. It also addresses the differences between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, while commenting on what sets apart the form of theism found in some Hindu traditions.

Since the publication of the first edition of the Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, 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. Recent research has contributed substantial new evidence to deepen our understanding of the acquisition of a second language (L2) and its relationship to other developmental profiles, necessitating a reconsideration of the topics to be covered in a second edition. The new edition of the handbook updates earlier topics by including the latest research, in order to provide a comprehensive and current overview that represents the state of the field of second language acquisition (SLA).

This chapter examines scientism. Its advocates maintain that there is nothing outside the domain of science, nor is there any area of human life to which science cannot successfully be applied. A scientific account of anything and everything constitutes the full story of the universe and its inhabitants.

Chapter 2 looks in detail at some of the ways in which Keats directly addresses the question of letter-writing. It proposes that a careful analysis of key letters can bring to light a Keatsian epistolary poetics. Keats is particularly alert both to the materiality and to the practical aspects of epistolarity, and his letters are characterized by frequent moments in which his interest in what letters are and how they work is foregrounded. He is specifically interested in how letters are constructed and in the tools and materials that form them, as well as more generally in the practical circumstances or contingencies by which they are determined and circumscribed. The chapter proposes that in their inventive and often playful explorations of epistolarity, Keats’s letters display an impulse to push against the generic and formal limits of the mode.

The purpose of this chapter is to better understand the challenges preliterate adults have to deal with in simultaneously learning a new, additional language and learning to read and write in that very language. The chapter gives an overview of the most important research findings on the effect of literacy on cognition and L2 learning, on adult L2 literacy acquisition and L2 literacy teaching of LESLLA learners. Research reveals that literacy triggers the development of several metalinguistic and information processing skills that often are taken for granted in mainstream SLA theories. Research on beginning reading and writing clearly indicates that literacy is not acquired spontaneously. It requires explicit and stepwise attention for the relationship between written signs and the phonological constituents of the language, because unlike a beginning reader in L1 a LESLLA learner cannot build upon already existing semantic and sound representations of words, nor, like a literate L2 learner, upon L1 literacy skills and multiple strategies. Research on teaching reveals that L2 literacy teaching and empowering LESLLA learners is an enduring task that requires careful attention for code-learning, vocabulary and adult-oriented, motivating and relevant content.

Spirit mediums were the commonest type of ritual specialist in the Mao era, and they were primarily involved in channelling spirits to drive out the demons that cause illness. But they undertook a range of activities in defence of communities. The majority were women and, unlike male shamans, did not engage in ecstatic public performances. The chapter discusses the different forms of spirit mediumship and shamanism, examines how people became mediums, different forms of possession, and the relationship of mediums to their clients. Historically, wu shamanism had had a connection with the black arts, so the chapter examines some rare cases of witchcraft, arguing that it was not as widespread as in some other cultures because there were well-established practices for dealing with demonic evil. The final section examines twists and turns of CCP policy towards spirit mediums, suspicious that they were a destabilizing element, but constrained by the fact that the majority – as poor, elderly women – represented a ‘contradiction within the people’.

Learners of a new language must acquire a new inventory of sound contrasts, new restrictions on where sounds may occur and new prosodic structures. The challenges facing researchers are to understand the characteristics of L2 speech and to explain how and why those characteristics arise. This chapter provides an overview of research on how speakers acquire the sound system of a new language, focusing on three major issues: (i) the extent to which L2 sound patterns are influenced by transfer from the first language and/or by linguistic universals; (ii) the level of representation (lexical, phonemic, phonetic, featural) at which L2 acquisition occurs; and (iii) the relationship between the perception and production of the sound system of a new language. These questions are explored with reference to the acquisition of segmental contrasts, restrictions on the occurrence of consonants in different syllabic positions and prosodic structures (tone, pitch accent, stress, and intonation). The chapter concludes with a discussion of recent advances in methodology and in grammar modeling, and outlines directions for future study.