Given that there are neural markers for the acquisition of a non-verbal skill, we review evidence of neural markers for the acquisition of vocabulary. Acquiring vocabulary is critical to learning one's native language and to learning other languages. Acquisition requires the ability to link an object concept (meaning) to sound. Is there a region sensitive to vocabulary knowledge? For monolingual English speakers, increased vocabulary knowledge correlates with increased grey matter density in a region of the parietal cortex that is well-located to mediate an association between meaning and sound (the posterior supramarginal gyrus). Further this region also shows sensitivity to acquiring a second language. Relative to monolingual English speakers, Italian–English bilinguals show increased grey matter density in the same region. Differences as well as commonalities might exist in the neural markers for vocabulary where lexical distinctions are also signalled by tone. Relative to monolingual English, Chinese multilingual speakers, like European multilinguals, show increased grey matter density in the parietal region observed previously. However, irrespective of ethnicity, Chinese speakers (both Asian and European) also show highly significant increased grey matter density in two right hemisphere regions (the superior temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal gyrus). They also show increased grey matter density in two left hemisphere regions (middle temporal and superior temporal gyrus). Such increases may reflect additional resources required to process tonal distinctions for lexical purposes or to store tonal differences in order to distinguish lexical items. We conclude with a discussion of future lines of enquiry.

This study reports on the use of (c)overt subjects and subject–verb agreement in Hebrew in the spontaneous speech of a child, EK, acquiring Hebrew and English simultaneously from birth and of five slightly younger Hebrew monolingual controls. Analysis shows that EK's production of pragmatically inappropriate overt subjects is more than three times that of the controls, while she resembles the controls in terms of subject–verb agreement, a purely syntactic phenomenon. These results strongly suggest that influence from English is restricted to phenomena that involve the syntax/pragmatics interface, supporting Hulk and Müller's (2000) hypothesis that crosslinguistic influence in early bilingual acquisition is a predictable and systematic phenomenon.

Cognitive neuropsychological studies of bilingual patients with aphasia have contributed to our understanding of how the brain processes different languages. The question we asked is whether differences in script have any impact on language processing in bilingual aphasic patients who speak languages with different writing systems: Chinese and Mongolian. We observed a pattern of greater impairment to written word comprehension and oral reading in L2 (Chinese) than in L1 (Mongolian) for two patients. We argue that differences in script have only a minimal effect on written word processing in bilingual aphasia when the age of acquisition, word frequency and imageability of lexical items is controlled. Our conclusion is that reading of familiar words in Mongolian and Chinese might not require independent cognitive systems or brain regions.

It is important that there be different approaches to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research, some of which will be contrasting and some complementary. In the former case, the contrast may lead to a review of assumptions which will result in mutual or unilateral enrichment. In the latter case, it is obvious that we are to aim at achieving a comprehensive view of SLA. In this respect, in the paper by De Bot, Lowie and Werspoor, “A Dynamic Systems Theory approach to second language acquisition”, while there is some room for a complementary approach, what stands out is a view contrasting with the Universal Grammar (UG) view. For instance, the authors mention Larsen-Freeman (2002) – one of the pioneers of the application of the Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) to SLA research – as suggesting that a UG approach and the DST may be two complementary perspectives, but they emphasize that Larsen-Freeman is very much on the side of emergentist (non-nativist) views. Furthermore, they make it clear that leading DST researchers “leave little room for nativist ideas on language acquisition” (p. 10). However, while the authors put the DST forward as the approach that can avoid the shortcomings of a partial model which only deals with cognitive aspects of language development, they fail to recognize that the cognitive approach has never claimed to have all the answers to the SLA phenomenon, and neither do they. In fact, what we would like to show in this commentary is that the “linguistic” or “cognitive” approach to SLA research can account (and even explain) why native (L1) and non-native (L2) grammars are different. In order to show this, we will address two issues that De Bot, Lowie and Werspoor use as evidence against the nativist approach: Newport's (1991) “less is more” hypothesis and the authors' review of the “variation and morpheme order studies”. We will be discussing their views from the UG approach perspective which we refer to as the “Linguistic Approach” and which has its foundation in the nativist Chomskian tradition which, in the case of SLA research, is represented in volumes such as Liceras (1986), White (1989, 2003), Strozer (1994) and Hawkins (2001), among many others.

In their paper De Bot, Lowie and Verspoor (henceforth DBL&V) attempt to recast SLA research from a non-modular and psychometric position that is based on the assumption that “all variables are interrelated and therefore changes in one variable will have an impact on all other variables that are part of the system” (p. 8). In such grand endeavour their paper naturally raises a large number of issues in SLA research.

The Editors and members of the Editorial Board wish to thank the following guest consultants for having reviewed manuscripts submitted to the journal this past year.

In this rich and provocative article, De Bot, Lowie and Verspoor provide a clear and informative description of the central tenets of dynamic systems theory and apply this to a number of theoretical and empirical issues in second language acquisition. The authors see dynamic systems theory as a promise for the future, an overarching theory in second language acquisition that takes into account the interconnectedness that is so characteristic of complex, developing systems, including the cognitive and social factors that help shape the process of second language acquisition. Having pioneered in dynamic systems for quite some time now (see Van Geert and Steenbeek, 2005, for a recent overview), I cannot be but supportive of their vision and their hope that this particular approach will lead to a fuller understanding of second language acquisition that is not only of theoretical but also of applied importance. However, the authors' remark about “some unresolved issues” in Dynamic Systems Theory may be somewhat over-optimistic. Nevertheless, I consider the dynamic systems approach as the quintessential future approach to human action, cognition and behavior, including language. All these phenomena are about change, about process in time. And this is exactly what dynamic systems approaches provide: an explicit model of change of some phenomenon of interest.

Theory building is a dynamic process. Theories develop and grow, they are dependent on initial conditions, social interactions, variation, and they are stable for some time only to move on to the next phase. They can develop gradually, but a non-linear pattern is more common. Most importantly, theories develop over time. Theories are typically based on shared cognitions and they are situated. Written descriptions by definition reflect versions of the theory that are outdated the moment they are in print, though some of the core assumptions may be more stable than other, more peripheral ones. All of this very much applies to the present discussion of our paper on a DST approach to SLA. Inevitably, we, and probably most of the commentators, will already have moved on in our thinking about DST and SLA by the time this comes into print. In particular with new approaches, we will see a great deal of variability: wild ideas flourish and the links between grand theoretical notions and empirical database to support them tend to be out of balance. That may be seen as a weakness, but it probably is an inevitable developmental stage in building a new theory, or, as in this case, the application from a theory developed in other fields to SLA.

This study addresses the question of whether language dominance and cross-linguistic influence are related by investigating the acquisition of determiner omission in four bilingual German–Italian children. The study begins by showing that monolingual Italian learners omit determiners less extensively than monolingual German learners. If bilingual children had two autonomous grammatical systems, this contrast should be mirrored in their language acquisition. The analysis suggests the contrary. The bilingual children are compared in terms of language balance and language influence in determiner use. Based on the analysis, I argue that influence is not dependent on language dominance alone. Rather, both language dominance and the properties of the target languages must be taken into account when predicting cross-linguistic influence.

The point of departure of this study is the well-known hypothesis according to which structures that involve the syntax–pragmatics interface and instantiate a surface overlap between two languages are more vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence than purely syntactic domains (e.g. Müller and Hulk, 2001). In exploring the validity of this hypothesis for later stages of bilingual acquisition, the study aims to establish whether crosslinguistic influence occu only in one direction, i.e. from English to Greek, which structural factors can account for the directionality of crosslinguistic effects, and whether language dominance plays a role in determining the occurrence and the strength of these effects in older bilingual children. Experimental data are presented from 32 English–Greek eight-year-old simultaneous bilinguals – 16 Greek-dominant living in Greece and 16 English-dominant living in the UK – and monolingual control groups. A number of syntax–pragmatics interface and narrow syntax structures were investigated and the results showed that both types of structures were found to be selectively vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence in the predicted direction, but only in the grammar of the English-dominant bilinguals.

An eye tracking experiment examined how exposure to a second language (L2) influences sentence parsing in the first language. Forty-four monolingual Spanish speakers, 24 proficient Spanish–English bilinguals with limited immersion experience in the L2 environment and 20 proficient Spanish–English bilinguals with extensive L2 immersion experience read temporarily ambiguous constructions. The ambiguity concerned whether a relative clause (RC) that appeared after a complex noun phrase (NP) was interpreted as modifying the first or the second noun in the complex NP (El policía arrestó a la hermana del criado que estaba enferma desde hacía tiempo). The results showed that whereas the Spanish monolingual speakers and the Spanish–English bilinguals with limited exposure reliably attached the relative clause to the first noun, the Spanish–English bilingual with extensive exposure attached the relative to the second noun. Results are discussed in terms of models of sentence parsing most consistent with the findings.