THE ACQUISITION OF TEMPORALITY IN A SECOND LANGUAGE.Rainer Dietrich, Wolfgang Klein, & Colette Noyau (Eds.). Amsterdam:Benjamins,1995. Pp. xii + 288. $59.00 cloth.

Abstract

Imagine a three-year longitudinal study of the acquisition of multiple target languages by learners of different language backgrounds. It may sound like an idealized example from a research-methods lecture, but it is the actual design of the European Science Foundation inquiry into adult second language acquisition and the latest report released by Benjamins, a substantial revision of Volume 5 of the final report on temporality (Bhardwaj, Dietrich, & Noyau, 1988). This volume reports on the acquisition of temporality in five target languages (English, German, Dutch, French, and Swedish) by 21 learners of six source languages (Punjabi, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, and Finnish) with learners from two source languages for each target language. The volume has eight chapters written by the main authors and cooperating contributors: “Introduction” (Dietrich & Perdue), “Frame of Analysis” (Klein), five chapters on the acquisition of temporality by target language—English (Klein), German (Dietrich), Dutch (Klein, Coenen, van Helvert, & Hendricks), French (Noyau, Houdaïfa, Vasseur, & Véronique), and Swedish (Noyau, Dorriots, Sjöström, & Voionmaa)—and “Conclusions” (Klein, Dietrich, & Noyau).