The series to which this volume belongs was designed to provide, “. . . a large scaleview . . . of language study” (p. ix), with the goal of the present volume being tointroduce the reader to the “comprehensive discipline” of psycholinguistics. Thevolume begins with a survey of the topic in four chapters: introduction, language acquisition,language competence (comprehension and production), and language dissolution. Section 2contains abstracts of selected readings followed by study questions, and section 3 lists annotatedreferences. Both of these sections are organized by topic area in order to guide further study. Thefourth section is a succinct glossary. The author has accomplished the goal for this volume,producing a text that is comprehensive, scholarly, and easily readable.

This collection includes 19 of the 27 papers presented at the Generative Approaches toSecond Language Acquisition Conference held at McGill University in 1997. Also included arethe plenary presentations by Margaret Thomas and Claire Lefebvre. After a short preface, thepapers are presented in alphabetical order, each preceded by an abstract. French translations ofthe abstracts are given at the end of the volume.

Written in French, this work reports the results of a longitudinal study of past-time referencein the interlanguages of four Swedish learners of French. Unlike most previous studies of L2acquisition of temporal expression, which have focused on early interlanguage, Kihlstedt shiftsthe focus of inquiry in this study to the oral production of advanced L2 learners. Kihlstedtdiscusses evidence supporting a modified interpretation of Andersen's (1991)developmental stages in past temporal expression and proposes an ordering of aspectual valueassignment to the passé composé andimparfait constructions in Swedish-French interlanguage.

This book is designed as a textbook to introduce students to language typology and languagephenomena. Although not intended to be an introduction to linguistics or a reference book, thewealth of information it contains will provide interesting and rewarding reading for languageprofessionals and students alike.

This book explores and aims to elucidate the process of Japanese language acquisition byEnglish-speaking students. More specifically, it examines the effects of various types ofteachers' language on comprehension among American university students studyingintermediate Japanese.

Well known for their work in first language (L1) acquisition, Crain and Thornton (henceforthC&T) have produced with their Investigations in Universal Grammar a thoroughreview of the innovative experimental techniques they developed to investigate the acquisition ofsyntax. In this sense, the volume would appear to be a kind of research-methods book. Thevolume is a great deal more, however. Indeed, in the volume's three main sections (16, 8,and 16 chapters, respectively), C&T present examinations not only of the nature ofhuman-language grammars but also of the factors that conspire to result in linguisticperformance. What makes the C&T volume superior is that they integrate theoreticalframework with methodological practice so seamlessly.