This article seeks to illuminate the degree of position-based variation observed in the acquisition of new segments in a second language and to explain such variability as the consequence of phonetic constraints; this approach contrasts with much previous research that has used typological markedness to the same end. Specifically, it is proposed that learners will have the least difficulty acquiring sounds that involve novel combinations of voicing and manner in positions that favor the phonetic implementation of these sounds. Moreover, on the assumption that not all parameters can be mastered simultaneously, it is predicted that learners will first acquire aspects of a segment's articulation that are perceptually salient and articulatorily easier. The data come from a study of the acquisition of French by 20 intermediate- and advanced-proficiency English-speaking learners of French. Acoustic analysis of the data reveals asymmetries that favor accuracy with manner in onsets versus more targetlike realization of voicing in codas, in which devoicing exists in the input. Beyond demonstrating the role of phonetic principles in determining position-based variation, the findings contribute to our understanding of the acquisition of new consonantal contrasts by providing empirical evidence from a non-Germanic language to bear on this line of inquiry.

This study investigates whether second language (L2) phonological learning can be characterized as a gradual and systematically patterned replacement of nonnative segments by native segments in learners' speech, conforming to a two-stage implicational scale. We adopt a dynamic approach to language variation based on Gatbonton's (1975, 1978) gradual diffusion framework. Participants were 40 Quebec Francophones of different English proficiency levels who produced 80 tokens of English in eight phonetic contexts. In Analysis 1, production accuracy data are subjected to implicational scaling, with phonetic contexts ordered solely by a linguistic criterion—sonority hierarchy. In Analysis 2, the production accuracy data are similarly analyzed but with phonetic context ordering determined by psycholinguistic (processing) criteria—cross-language perceptual similarity and corpus-based estimates of lexical frequency. Results support and extend Gatbonton's framework, which indicates that L2 phonological learning progresses gradually, conforming to an implicational scale, and that perceived cross-language similarity and lexical frequency determine its course.This research was made possible through grants to Pavel Trofimovich, Norman Segalowitz, and Elizabeth Gatbonton from the Social Sciences and the Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and support from the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance at Concordia University. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Melanie Barrière and Randall Halter in all aspects of data collection and analysis. Many thanks are extended to Dawn Cleary, Winnie Grady, Eva Karchava, Nootan Kumar, Magnolia Negrete Cetina, and Alin Zdrite for their help in various stages of this study. The authors wish to thank Tracey Derwing and Murray Munro for sharing their speech elicitation materials. Sarita Kennedy, Randall Halter, and five anonymous SSLA reviewers provided helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

In a paired-associate learning (PAL) task, Dutch university students (n = 129) learned 20 English second language (L2) idioms either receptively or productively (i.e., L2-first language [L1] or L1-L2) and were tested in two directions (i.e., recognition or production) immediately after learning and 3 weeks later. Receptive and productive performance was affected by direction of learning. This finding parallels findings from PAL experiments on L2 individual-word learning. On a productive test, productive learners had a sizable advantage over receptive learners, whereas on recognition, receptive learners outperformed productive learners. Two idiom characteristics, imageability (capacity to evoke a mental image) and transparency (overlap between literal and figurative meaning), as assessed in a norming study by an independent sample (n = 80), qualified these findings. Indicating the importance of dual coding in idiom learning, imageability predicted performance, and receptive learning was particularly inefficient for low imageable idioms. Transparency was a weaker predictor of performance and only affected recognition.This study is based on the first author's MA research. We would like to thank the four anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful comments on this manuscript. Any errors or omissions remain our own.

LANGUAGES IN CONTACT: THE PARTIAL RESTRUCTURING OF VERNACULARS. John Holm. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xx + 175. $65.00 cloth.

Second language acquisition scholars have long looked to pidgin and creole studies for insights into the nature of interlanguage. For example, Andersen (1983) discussed the psychological processes of pidginization and creolization. Pidginization is SLA under conditions of severely restricted input and results in a variety (an incipient pidgin language or the beginning stages of an interlanguage) with a small set of lexical items, analytic and highly variable syntax, and minimal stylistic alternatives. Creolization is first language acquisition where a pidgin language serves as the input. In these circumstances, children create new form-meaning relationships that are not present in the pidgin, relying on the innate language-making capacity that Bickerton (1984) called the bioprogram. Thus, a creole language is a fully complex language that involves a radical restructuring of the lexifier language. Andersen (1983) coined the term nativization to include both processes, which, he noted, represent movement toward an internal norm. When pidgin and creole speakers come into greater contact with speakers of the superstrate, input is increased and the contact varieties are restructured in the direction of the standard language, a process Andersen called denativization.

TESTING THE SPOKEN ENGLISH OF YOUNG NORWEGIANS: A STUDY OF TEST VALIDITY AND THE ROLE OF ‘SMALLWORDS’ IN CONTRIBUTING TO PUPILS' FLUENCY.Angela Hasselgreen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. v + 304. $36.00 paper.

This volume is an impressive demonstration of what is suggested by language testers' and teachers' discussions of test validity but is seldom undertaken. Hasselgreen's book represents a monumental and painstaking study that began with the pilot of the speaking portion of the evaluation of English as a school subject (EVA) in the spring of 1995 and, we can assume, has continued even after the publication of this book in 2004.

INTRODUCING SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.Muriel Saville-Troike. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. viii + 206. $29.99 paper.

Has this ever happened to you? Summer vacation has started, you've just settled in to your cabin on the lake, when suddenly you remember: You have a contract to write an introduction to SLA, and the manuscript is due next week. What do you do?

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND THE STUDY OF CLASSROOM LANGUAGE AND LITERACY EVENTS.David Bloome, Stephanie Power Carter, Beth Morton Christian, Sheila Otto, and Nora Shuart-Faris. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. v + 263. $34.50 paper.

The authors of this volume explore a microethnographic approach to the study of classroom literacy events and provide useful models for analyzing classroom discourse. The heart of the book centers upon close analysis of transcripts of literacy events unfolding in various classrooms. These data reveal three methodological “issues in research on classroom literacy events: (a) classroom literacy events as cultural actions, (b) the social construction of identity, and (c) power relations in and through classroom literacy events” (p. xx). The final chapter attempts to locate this microethnographic approach within new literacy studies, “a broader intellectual movement concerned with people's everyday lives” (p. xxii). Readers will find useful models for how researchers might go about doing the kinds of analysis that lead to connections between local classrooms and larger social and cultural contexts.

DIALOGUE WITH BAKHTIN ON SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING: NEW PERSPECTIVES.Joan Kelly Hall, Gergana Vitanova, and Ludmila Marchenkova (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. v + 241. $75.00 cloth.

This book is the first to explore the relevance of the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas for the field of SLA research and pedagogy. Each chapter in this edited volume is framed within a Bakhtinian perspective and uses his conceptual apparatus to address some aspect of second and foreign language learning. The authors' collective aim is to challenge traditional, formalist approaches to language and demonstrate how Bakhtin's insights can enrich our understanding of second language learning and teaching.

CONFLICTING PARADIGMS IN ADULT LITERACY EDUCATION: IN QUEST OF A U.S. DEMOCRATIC POLITICS OF LITERACY.George Demetrion. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xiv + 320. $36.00 paper.

Adult literacy in the United States is a contested field, lacking a working consensus on the definition and purpose of adult literacy education. Demetrion's volume contributes to the field by presenting a historical overview of adult literacy from the mid-1980s to the present and by addressing the most hotly debated issues. These include the nature of adult literacy education, pedagogical practices, and assessment and accountability. Recognizing the importance of a coherent philosophical approach to adult literacy, this volume also proposes a mediating theoretical framework for the field.

THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES BY HUNGARIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH.Judit Kiss-Gulyás. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2004. Pp. 169. $26.00 paper.

This volume presents a study on the acquisition of English restrictive relative clauses (RRCs) by Hungarian speakers through an investigation of two universal principles—subjacency and the empty category principle (ECP)—and consideration of how the different instantiation of these two principles and the different parametric settings of the languages play a role in the interlanguage development of first language (L1) Hungarian learners of English as a second language (L2). Assuming the generative theory of Universal Grammar (UG), the objective of the study is to investigate whether Hungarian learners of English provide particular evidence for the partial availability of UG in their interlanguage grammar—also known as the partial access view of UG—or provide evidence for other views, such as the no access or the full access view, considering both the weak and strong versions.

THE STRUGGLE TO TEACH ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE.Adrian Holliday. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. ix + 193. $25.95 paper.

Curriculum settings, the relationship among language, culture, and discourse, and the change in the ownership of English are the main topics addressed in this volume. Holliday discusses social and political issues in English language education in diverse international locations. He focuses on the injustices created by the desire to change the cultures of nonnative-speaker students and teachers and proposes suggestions on how to overcome this situation. Working with English as an international language brings up some conflicts among TESOL educators and researchers, who face cultural and political interfaces created by the native-speakerist attitude. The balance of power in the classroom is central to Holliday's proposal of cultural continuity and enriching encounters.

TEACHING ENGLISH TO THE WORLD: HISTORY, CURRICULUM AND PRACTICE.George Braine (Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xx + 169. $22.50 paper.

This volume, edited by Braine, has some links to a volume he edited 6 years earlier (Braine, 1999). The major purpose of the earlier work was to provide personal narratives of a number of nonnative English language teachers from various world settings. This volume relies on nonnative teachers to present information on the history of English language teaching and the most prominent curricula for this teaching in their respective countries, followed by their autobiographies. The issue of nonnative teachers of English has gained increasing prominence in recent years, as witnessed by the growing number of conference colloquia, formation of new interest sections within professional associations, and publications devoted to this topic. This volume contributes to that topic and movement but goes even further by adding information on what English language teaching has meant in key countries around the world.

LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN STUDY ABROAD CONTEXTS.Margaret A. DuFon and Eton Churchill (Eds.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2006. Pp. xiii + 329. $43.96 paper.

The goal of this volume is to assess research since Freed (1995) on the effectiveness of study abroad programs on second language learning. An introductory chapter by the editors gives an overview of study abroad research since 1995. This is followed by 10 chapters divided among four sections that focus on pragmatic development, dinner table interaction, a section titled “From Home to School,” and individual and program variables.

SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING SYSTEMS.Vivian Cook and Benedetta Bassetti (Eds.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2005. Pp. xi + 448. $69.95 cloth.

This wide-ranging collection explores the oft-neglected question of how writing systems impact the learning of second language (L2) reading and writing. The excitement with which I greeted this volume was sustained by the introductory chapter in which the two editors, both linguists at University of Essex, United Kingdom, present an overview of research in L2 writing systems.

LANGUAGE MINORITY STUDENTS IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS: AN EDUCATION IN ENGLISH.H. Douglas Adamson. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. vii + 294. $34.50 paper.

In this theoretical-empirical textbook, Adamson presents an authoritative and critical overview of the application of behavioral and cognitive, psycholinguistic, and linguistic paradigms to the particular educational and linguistic needs of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S. schools. Each paradigm alone fails to fully account for the complexities of ELL instruction. To solve this shortcoming, Adamson applies the Vygotskian sociocultural model of learning and cognitive development, a model that integrates external behavioral and internal cognitive factors. Adamson's balanced writing includes the nation's social and political views of ELL education as well as the arguments of critics of ELL instruction, arguments he does not leave uncontested. A noteworthy dimension of this work is how the author strengthens his argument with his extensive English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language teaching experience in the United States and abroad as well as his research in the field, including the report of a year-long case study of ELLs enrolled in a middle school in Arizona. The discussions of the vignettes and of the case-study results afford readers the opportunity to learn about the variables and complexities of ELL instruction through the lens of a constructivist researcher.