This paper reports on a study designed to investigate psychological factors that affect access to metalinguistic knowledge in second language (L2) production. Based on previous cognitive and psycholinguistic research, it was hypothesized that real-time access to metalinguistic knowledge would be largely determined by three interacting factors: attention to form, processing automaticity, and linguistic prototypicality (i.e., whether a rule concerns a central or peripheral use of a target structure). The subjects were 64 adult Chinese learners of English. A verbalization task was used to assess their metalinguistic knowledge about 12 target uses, and a judgment test was administered to determine the relative prototypicality of these uses. Attention to form was operationalized by two consciousness-raising tasks and by time pressure. Analyses of the subjects' output on writing and error-correction tasks revealed significantly greater grammatical accuracy for more prototypical uses and on tasks that allowed more attention to form. There was also a significant interaction between prototypicality and attention to form, suggesting the influence of processing automaticity. These results are taken as evidence that there are major psychological constraints on the utility of metalinguistic knowledge in L2 performance.

Much of the research on L2 article acquisition has investigated the effects of semantic, syntactic, and discourse universals on the systematicity and variability of learners' article use. The present paper looks at systematicity from the combined perspective of two putative discourse universals related to topic continuity (e.g., Givón, 1983) that have been addressed only separately in past studies of article acquisition: the tendency to mark the distinction between topics and comments (e.g., Huebner, 1983) and the tendency to mark the distinction between new, continuous, and reintroduced NP referents (e.g., Chaudron & Parker, 1990). The present study examines how well these discourse universals account for the patterns of article use and nonuse found in narratives written by 199 Finnish-speaking and 145 Swedish-speaking adolescent learners of English. The quantitative results of the study cast some doubt on learners' sensitivity to the topic-comment distinction and also suggest that learners' tendency to mark distinctions between new, continuous, and reintroduced NP referents is influenced by the prominence of such distinctions in the L1. The quantitative results are supported by a qualitative analysis of a subset of the data that suggests numerous other elements that are needed to characterize the systematicity of individual learners' interlanguage article systems.

This paper argues that crossing the boundaries between sociolinguistics and second language acquisition (SLA) is essential to both fields of study (Giacalone Ramat, 1995; Preston, 1993). Specifically, data collected in an investigation of the SLA of copula choice by 77 English-speaking learners of Spanish are examined in terms of similarities to data collected in studies of language change (Gutiérrez, 1992; Silva-Corvalán, 1994). The variables used to analyze these data, Frame of Reference and Susceptibility to Change, have been shown to be useful for examining the process of the extension of estar to new [copula + adjective] contexts from a sociolinguistic perspective. The application of these variables to SLA data allows an investigation of the mirror-image relationship predicted to exist between the process of language loss and the process of language acquisition.

Although it is well known that many second language (L2) learners have trouble using articles “properly,” the primary causes of their difficulties remain unclear. This study addresses this problem by examining the metalinguistic knowledge of the English article system that learners employ when selecting articles in a given situation. By doing this, the present study attempts to better understand the process of “making sense” of the English article system by learners who are at different stages in their interlanguage development. Eighty Japanese college students with varying levels of English proficiency participated in this study. Immediately after completing a fill-in-the-article test, a structured interview was conducted to investigate the reasons for their article choices. The quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal a number of conceptual differences with regard to their considerations of the hearer's knowledge, specific reference, and countability, which may account for learners' errors in article use across different proficiency groups.

DeKeyser (2000) reports a study in which he examines three hypotheses concerning the existence of a critical period for second language acquisition. He concludes that his data support all three predictions and that the notion of a critical period is the best account of the data. However, there are problems in both his interpretation of the data and the issues raised in his discussion that undermine that conclusion. The present paper examines the evidence for the three hypotheses proposed by DeKeyser and argues that the data do not provide the necessary support for the interpretation that a critical period has influenced the results.

Introduction to Linguistics 2.0 (henceforth IL2.0) is an attempt to provide an introduction to linguistics in the form of an interactive CD-ROM. According to the CD booklet, it can be used as “an autonomous learning environment,” offering “a valuable alternative to conventional methods when it comes to presenting linguistic phenomena in a lively and exciting way” (p. 2). Although I am very sympathetic to the authors' intentions, I did not find that the goals were attained in an optimal way. At most, IL2.0 can be used for introducing a unit in a class or for users who want to know whether they should take a linguistics course. In a sense, it is like a demo tape. Its content is extremely weak, especially when we compare it with recent introductory linguistics textbooks (e.g., Fromkin, 2000; Radford, Atkinson, Britain, Clahsen, & Spencer, 1999).

Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, edited by James Lantolf, contains nine research reports and two theoretical papers that introduce the sociocultural tradition to the wider field of second language acquisition (SLA) and provide specific examples of questions and methodologies that emerge from the sociocultural framework. Sociocultural theory expands the types of inquiry addressed by the field of SLA research by suggesting a participation metaphor of language learning as an alternative to, or an expansion of, the more widespread input-output or computational metaphor. Although the book is designed primarily for researchers, most chapters also explore ways that sociocultural theory and research can inform language pedagogy.

This volume consists of a collection of 18 chapters of previously published articles, mostly classic works on bilingualism (all but five were published before 1990). The majority of the authors are very well known and well respected scholars in the field: Auer, Blom, Ching, Clyne, de Bot, Ferguson, Fishman, Galloway, Genesee, Green, Grosjean, Gumperz, Jake, Mackey, Meisel, Milroy, Myers-Scotten, Obler, Paradis, Poplack, Vaid, Wei, and Zatorre. Wei's motivation for this reader is that it serve the dual purpose of compiling many of the important articles on bilingualism, which in many parts of the world are unavailable because of inadequate library facilities, and encourage researchers to read the original works rather than commentaries on them. As Wei put it, “I am nevertheless concerned that a new generation of ‘scholars' might be emerging out of a ‘hear-say' tradition” (p. ix).

This book is intended as an introduction both to the principles and parameters framework (Chomsky, 1981) and to the second language (L2) acquisition of syntactic representations. Hawkins's basic aim is to present evidence for the view that L2 learners progressively build subconscious mental grammars (i.e., a syntactic system) guided by Universal Grammar—an innate, language-specific system. However, this volume is not just an introductory textbook presenting and summarizing the work of other researchers in this particular field. Indeed, the book has another major aim: Within the context of the most current debates on the L2 acquisition of syntactic knowledge, Hawkins introduces his own theory of L2 development, which he terms Modulated Structure Building.

Language Ideologies is a two-volume anthology, published in conjunction with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and “designed for educators, administrators, ESL experts, scholars, and all those who are concerned about language as a source and product of discrimination in our schools and society” (Vol. 1, p. xliii)—not that a reader will learn very much about language ideologies, a topic that has surfaced in the 1990s (see Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994; Schieffelin, Woolard, & Kroskrity, 1998). The ideology here refers solely to the ideas and beliefs used by the Official English Movement and English Only to legitimate their interests, “specifically by distortion and dissimulation” (see Eagleton, 1990, p. 30). This ideology is mostly not analyzed but rather labeled with assertions of “hegemony of the dominant culture” and the like, whereas the ideology that motivates this publication is never problematized and barely acknowledged (but see James Cummins's intelligent Foreword to Vol. 1). The result is a curious sense of English Only bashing at the same level as H. L. Mencken's “If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you.”

In this volume of the Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities series, Metzger has edited 11 diverse topics addressing two themes: the perception of Deaf people and Deaf communities, and bilingualism. Deaf people's perception of themselves and their community is explored by authors who discuss an excellent array of topics, ranging from “miracle cures” for Deaf children in Mexico to the nature of name signs in the New Zealand Deaf community; from the linguistic rights of Deaf people in the European Union to a search for the roots of the Nicaraguan Deaf community; from a semiotic analysis of Argentine Sign Language to an analysis of how a Deaf child (American Sign Language) and his hearing family (English) make sense of each other's world views.

The main purpose of this volume is to offer evidence of the contributions made by teachers, students, researchers, and administrators to classroom research and to the overall educational process. To this end, the editors explore four major themes: (a) research carried out by teachers and teacher educators of direct benefit to teachers; (b) professional development based on the analysis of diverse classroom phenomena; (c) collaboration of learners with teachers, teachers with teachers, and teachers with teacher educators; and (d) different language education contexts (research sites in seven countries on three continents), from which the editors seek common features in the traditional distinction between so-called foreign, second, and modern language education.

In this book, Slavin and Calderón demonstrate that school-age Hispanic students in the United States can realize their academic expectations and in the process become capable members of society when they are trained in quality educational programs. The authors' educational research expertise presents readers with a selection of recent studies of elementary and secondary instructional programs targeting Latino students. The book's 10 chapters advance a commanding body of performance data that illustrate how Latino students, like any other students, can be successfully educated and empowered and can even excel in an antagonistic American educational culture. The programs researched include numerous educational models specific to Hispanic students as well as adaptations of other national programs.