Linguistic analyses suggest that the nongeneric use of the English definite article the falls into four major categories: cultural, situation, structural, and textual. This study aims to determine whether these uses present different levels of difficulty for ESL students and whether they are acquired at the same time. The instrument consisted of 91 sentences containing 60 deleted obligatory uses of the (15 per category) and, as control items, 40 zero articles (10 per category) where the is not allowed. The participants (41 low-, 49intermediate-, and 38 advanced-level students) were instructed to read the sentences and insert the wherever they deemed necessary. Statistical analyses of the participants'performance indicate the following: (a) The four nongeneric uses pose different levels ofdifficulty, which suggests that ESL acquisition of the is use dependent and follows anatural order; (b) The participants' performance on the suppliance of the inobligatory contexts for all four uses improved significantly with proficiency level, whereas theoveruse of the followed a different pattern: an initial worsening followed by animprovement as the subjects' proficiency level increased. Pedagogical implications,including instructional sequence and strategies for the various uses of the, arediscussed.

This study explores the developmental pattern observed when Japanese adult learners acquirethe locality condition on English reflexives. Experimental tasks were designed specifically to dealwith the methodological problems of earlier research and then administered to Japanese learnersof English at five proficiency levels (n = 411) as well as English and Japanese controlgroups (n = 40). Results from the learner groups indicate that the locality condition isacquired significantly better with sentences containing embedded that-clauses (typeE-1) than with sentences containing embedded infinitival clauses (type E-2). This asymmetryexists even at beginning stages of learning and persists through later stages. For type E-2 clauses,there is an appreciable percentage of advanced learners (about 35% in this study) who failed toacquire the locality condition, which, I argue, is extremely difficult to account for within the UGmodels proposed thus far.

The present study examines the processing of Spanish future tense morphology incidentallywhile reading in a second language. Previous L1 and L2 reading research has demonstrated thatreaders can acquire new vocabulary as a result of reading, but can they also acquire formalproperties of the second language grammatical system? The participants in the present study hadno previous knowledge of future tense morphology such that, as they read the passage used in thestudy, they encountered the target form for the first time, which is an accented á on the end of an infinitive—for example, dependerá “he, she, or it will depend.” Several variables were manipulated: (a) the frequency with which the target form appeared in the input passages (6, 10, or 16 exposures); (b) thelearner-readers' orientation to the task (neutral, meaning oriented, or form oriented); and(c) cues to meaning (the presence or absence of future-oriented adverbials). The effects of thesevariables were measured on both comprehension and input processing immediately after reading,2 weeks later, and 1 month later. Comprehension was measured with a free-written recall and amultiple-choice comprehension test. Input processing was measured with a multiple-choice formrecognition test and a modified cloze-form production test. The results indicate that all threevariables have some effect on comprehension and input processing.

This experimental study investigates the differential effects of three conditions (nonnegotiatedpremodified input, negotiation without “pushed output” [Swain, 1985],and negotiation plus pushed output) on L2 learners' vocabulary comprehension andacquisition (receptive and productive). Analyses of variance performed on the data indicated that:(a) negotiated interaction had a positive effect on the comprehension of L2 words; (b) onlynegotiated interaction that incorporated pushed output appeared to have promoted both receptiveand productive acquisition of words as well as an increase in productive word retention; and (c)negotiated interaction plus output did not promote receptive acquisition more than negotiationwithout output, but it was more effective in promoting productive acquisition. The findings of thisstudy provide empirical evidence for the important role of negotiation in facilitating thecomprehension and acquisition of L2 vocabulary, which suggests that output plays a key rolewithin the negotiation process for productive lexical acquisition.

Simard and Wong (2001) raise serious concerns about the theoretical and empirical (Leow,1998b) aspects of Tomlin and Villa's (1994) model, which postulates a fine-grained analysisof attention for SLA and the prediction that awareness at the level of detection is not crucial forfurther processing of second or foreign language (L2) data. According to Simard and Wong,Tomlin and Villa's frequently cited model has provided the “theoretical motivationfor recent studies of input enhancement and especially of textual enhancement in SLA” (p.104), an impact that needs to be viewed with caution (p. 105). To motivate their critique ofTomlin and Villa's model, the authors repeatedly question the validity of basing their modelon “findings from the research contexts of psychology and neuroscience” (p. 105)and, in turn, put forward suggestions for a model of attention that they claim would better reflectthe complex nature of SLA as well as suggestions for “new” research orientationsrelating to attention and awareness in SLA.

Foreign language and mother tongue presents Kecskes and Papp'scognitive-pragmatic theory of language acquisition in bilinguals and multilinguals. The uniqueaspects of this theory are that it examines the positive effects of learning a second language on thefirst language and that it uses multicompetence rather than monocompetence as its starting point.The authors argue that “people who know more than one language have differentknowledge of their first language L1 than do monolingual people, and this difference can be dueto the effect of subsequent languages on the development and use of L1 skills” (p. ix).This is essentially their first hypothesis. Their second is that the more conscious, analytic,bottom-up approach to L2 learning can have a positive effect on the L1, which was learned usinga more subconscious, synthetic, and top-down approach. Their third hypothesis is that because ofa so-called common underlying conceptual base, new knowledge and behaviors obtained throughthe L2 can enhance the real-world knowledge and linguistic skills of learners in their L1 as well asin their L2.

Language policy and pedagogy, as its subtitle suggests, is dedicated to A. RonaldWalton, who died quite young in 1996. Walton had served as the deputy director of the NationalForeign Language Center (NFLC) in Washington, D.C., since its founding in 1986, and thecontributors to this volume all have had direct or indirect connections to the NFLC. Further, theessays in this volume are all related to issues and areas that were of concern to Walton during thecourse of his career. All of that having been said, this work is considerably more than a typical Festschrift; it is in fact a timely and important contribution to the growing literaturedealing with both language policy and planning studies and contemporary issues in U.S. foreignlanguage education policy and practice.

Editor Michel DeGraff provides us with a thought-provoking collection of studies thataddress topics involving language acquisition, creole formation, language change, and theconnections between the three phenomena. One of the main goals of the volume is to arrive at abetter understanding of the interaction between the “extraordinary external factors”surrounding the formation of pidgins and creoles and the “ordinary internal factors”involving U(niversal) G(rammar)–constrained language invention (p. 11), a UG-typerepackaging of Thomason's ordinary-processes–extraordinary-results take onlanguage mixture. The underlying theme DeGraff uses to connect the varied contributions is, infact, UG: “This volume is seeking the right ‘version of universalist influenceinterpreted as constraints on the formal structure of creoles, in fact of naturallanguage'” (p. 17). In characterizing the processes of pidginization and creolization,DeGraff chooses a narrow definition, that of the plantation situation (p. 2), thus disregardinginterethnic pidgins and creoles (e.g., Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea) and fortcreoles (e.g., many of the Portuguese-based creoles). Although DeGraff does not point this out,he does mention other biases of the book: (a) it focuses only on morphosyntax from a generativeUG-like focus; (b) it largely neglects variationist and quantitative approaches; (c) it does notexplore the connection between UG and all-purpose cognitive structures (except Newport; seebelow); and (d) it considers only a subset of creoles that emerged from contact with Europeancolonizers.

This edited volume was inspired by Rosenthal's belief that it is becoming increasinglymore important for American students to know more than one language and that greatercollaboration among educators at colleges and universities will not only be beneficial for theprograms and their students but will also “promote a more language-competentsociety” (p. ix). Unfortunately, because of institutional or disciplinary boundaries, manyeducators involved in a particular type of second language program may be unaware of colleagueswith similar concerns. This book attempts to bridge this gap by showcasing a wide variety ofundergraduate programs that share the aim of promoting bilingualism among their students.

The need to recognize the presence and significance of language diversity in educationalsettings in the United States has become increasingly apparent to educators and educational policymakers in recent years. Among the more contentious debates about public education that we have witnessed have been those concerned directly with language and linguisticmatters, not the least of which have been those dealing with the education of minority-languagestudents in general and bilingual education programs in particular. Also, frequent touchstones foreducational debate have been efforts to “recognize” African American VernacularEnglish as many children's first and dominant language variety—a matter of nolinguistic controversy at all but one of immense political and educational controversy, as events inOakland, California, made quite clear. Although of increasing significance and relevance, it isinteresting that relatively few works have sought to target one of the more important audiencesconcerned with such debates: future classroom teachers. Issues of language and languagediversity are largely absent from the teacher education literature, and preservice teachers arerelatively unlikely to be exposed in any significant or in-depth way to such matters in their formalpreparation (see Reagan, 1997). As David Corson notes in Language diversity and education, “A major challenge for beginning teachers is to understand how languagedifferences construct and reflect ideologies and power relations, especially through the work thatteachers do themselves” (p. 96). Fortunately, the two books under review here provide anexcellent start for helping new and future teachers to develop the type of critical languageawareness necessary if they are to meet the needs of their students more adequately.

This book, which appears in a series called Langues en Péril“languages in peril,” is an accessible and well-written panoramic view of the French-based creoles spoken in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. In her introductory remarks, author Marie-Christine Hazaël-Massieux addresses the confusions regarding the notions of language and dialect, presenting clearly and concisely how a linguistic system can be a language without being written or prestigious or belonging to any given geographical region. She touches on why some of the French-based creoles, such as Louisiana Creole French, may be endangered and extends the definition of an endangered language to include cases in which a creole can lose its “creoleness” through decreolization. This allows her also to discuss the question of diversity among French-based creoles, although, as she points out, this rich diversity is often overlooked for ideological or other reasons.

This collection originated from a conference held in Braunschweig, Germany, in June 1998 atwhich participants were invited to analyze the role of English as a global language and to developresearch perspectives for its teaching and learning. Written by nonnative as well as native speakersof English (working in English-speaking countries where English is not a native language), thearticles provide a basis for consideration of whether “the concept of English as a globallanguage is assessed differently by experts depending upon whether they are native or non-nativespeakers of English and if so, to what extent” (Introduction).

This book is a ten-chapter ethnolinguistic study of the language and social behavior of agroup of 3-year-old third-generation British children schooled in the northeast of England. Theirfamilies are settled migrants who speak languages other than English at home and in theircommunity. The study uses audiotaped recordings of the children's language, together withthick contextual description, to provide insights into ways in which young children learn to becommunicatively competent in their new environment.

Charlene Sato, a noted scholar in SLA and creole studies, is honored by this text. Manychapters analyze Hawai‘ian Creole English (HCE), which Sato promoted as a livinglanguage, and it is in that spirit that the editors have included short stories in HCE.