Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2004
INPUT AND EVIDENCE: THE RAW MATERIAL OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. Susanne E. Carroll. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2001. Pp. xviii + 462. $114.00 cloth.
The ambitious goal of this book is the exposition of “a truly explanatory theory of SLA” (back cover). Such a theory is bound to be multifaceted and complex, and indeed, Carroll draws from a variety of theoretical frameworks in exploring the relationship between input—or more precisely, the nature of the mechanisms brought to bear in processing language stimuli—and the nature of the language knowledge that (adult) second language (L2) learners ultimately acquire. In other words, a theory of acquisition must be integrated with a theory of speech processing to explain how language stimuli are transformed into abstract mental representations; this book represents Carroll's attempt to construct just such a model.