FOSSILIZED SECOND LANGUAGE GRAMMARS.Florencia Franceschina. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 288. $138.00 cloth.

This monograph by Franceschina presents an empirical study of what is known as Orwell's problem: a learnability problem manifested as lack of learning in spite of exposure to abundant and unambiguous positive input evidence. The study is premised on three main assumptions: (a) Universal Grammar (UG) operates normally in all types of natural language acquisition, (b) first language (L1)-selected parameterized functional features (PFFs) are available in the acquisition of languages other than the L1, and (c) there is a critical period for the acquisition of PFFs. Following Hawkins and Chan's (1997) failed functional features hypothesis (FFFH), Franceschina hypothesizes that in adult SLA, nativelike knowledge of PFFs will be restricted to the subset instantiated in the L1. Using gender marking in second language (L2) Spanish as a test case, the study addresses the following questions: (a) Can adult learners acquire nativelike knowledge of grammatical gender in the L2? (b) In adult L2 learners, is the possibility of nativelike attainment in the area of grammatical gender determined by the learner's L1? (c) What might prevent near-natives from reaching the same endstate knowledge as L1 speakers? Two experimental groups of adult near-natives with contrasting L1s (+gen vs. −gen) relative to the target language and a control group of native speakers were formed and subsequently subjected to six experimental tasks that tapped into comprehension, production, and metalinguistic judgments. The data from each test task separately underwent quantitative analyses, and the results consistently pointed to an advantage for the +gen group and, conversely, a disadvantage for the −gen group, thereby confirming the FFFH and, hence, Franceschina's own hypothesis.