This study examines the role of task-based conversation in second language (L2) grammatical development, focusing on the short-term effects of both negative feedback and positive evidence on the acquisition of two Japanese structures. The data are drawn from 55 L2 learners of Japanese at a beginning level of proficiency in an Australian tertiary institution. Five different types of interactional moves made by native speaker interlocutors during task-based interaction were identified, by way of which learners received implicit negative feedback and positive evidence about the two target structures. The relative frequency of each interactional move type was calculated, and associated changes in the learners' performance on immediate and delayed posttests were examined. It was found that, although native speaker interactional moves containing positive evidence about the two target structures were 10 times more frequent during task-based language learning than those containing implicit negative feedback, only learners who had an above-average score on the pretest benefited from the positive evidence provided. Implicit negative feedback, on the other hand, had beneficial effects on short-term development of the grammatical targets regardless of the learner's current mastery of the target structures. Moreover, recasts were found to have a larger impact than other conversational moves on short-term L2 grammatical development.

Recasts have figured prominently in recent SLA research, with studies documenting significant advantages for learners exposed to this type of negative feedback. Although some researchers have suggested that such findings imply a beneficial role for negative evidence (i.e., information regarding the impossibility of certain utterances in the language being learned), the source of these benefits has not been explored directly, as multiple variables are conflated in recasts. Specifically, recasts not only offer implicit negative evidence, but they also provide positive evidence. Moreover, recasts are believed to make this positive evidence especially salient. In the present study, 74 learners of L2 Spanish engaged in communicative interaction with the researcher in one of the following conditions: (a) recasts (i.e., negative evidence and enhanced salience of positive evidence), (b) negative evidence, (c) enhanced salience of positive evidence, and (d) unenhanced positive evidence (control). Only the recast and enhanced-salience groups performed significantly better than the control group on posttreatment measures, which suggests that the utility of recasts is derived at least in part from enhanced salience of positive evidence and that the implicit negative evidence they seem to provide may not be a crucial factor.

This paper examines the nature of finite and nonfinite main declarative sentences produced by L2 child learners. It claims that two of the main proposals on the root infinitive (RI) phenomenon, the Truncation Hypothesis (TH) and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH), are not mutually exclusive in child SLA because they are hypotheses on completely different issues. According to the TH, different roots are involved: RIs are VPs underlyingly, whereas finite clauses are IPs or CPs. The MSIH claims that L2 learners have difficulties using the exact inflectional morphology, which leads them to produce verbs with an infinitival marker or no inflection at all. These so-called default forms are finite. In principle, then, an L2 learner could project truncated structure and produce default finite forms at the same time. This possibility is investigated in longitudinal data from an English-speaking child learning German. Two complementary sets of data can be accounted for by the hypotheses. Verbs bearing a nonfinite marker are restricted to nonfinite positions, which is consistent with the TH. Bare (uninflected) forms occur in the same (finite) positions as verbs inflected for person and number, which suggests that they are finite. This finding is consistent with the MSIH.

Interaction has been argued to promote noticing of L2 form in a context crucial to learning—when there is a mismatch between the input and the learner's interlanguage (IL) grammar (Gass & Varonis, 1994; Long, 1996; Pica, 1994). This paper investigates the extent to which learners may notice native speakers' reformulations of their IL grammar in the context of dyadic interaction. Thirty-three adult ESL learners worked on oral communication tasks in NS-NNS pairs. During each of the five sessions of dyadic task-based interaction, learners received recasts of their nontargetlike question forms. Accurate immediate recall of recasts was taken as evidence of noticing of recasts by learners. Results indicate that learners noticed over 60–70% of recasts. However, accurate recall was constrained by the level of the learner and by the length and number of changes in the recast. The effect of these variables on noticing is discussed in terms of processing biases. It is suggested that attentional resources and processing biases of the learner may modulate the extent to which learners “notice the gap” between their nontargetlike utterances and recasts.

This paper synthesizes research on the acquisition of linguistic variation by learners of French as a second language—an overview that, to our knowledge, is the first of its kind. It also presents a case study on French immersion students' acquisition of the pronouns nous and on “we,” an alternation in many varieties of spoken French. The study shows that the students use the mildly marked variant on slightly more often than the formal variant nous but much less often than native speakers (who use it almost categorically) and immersion teachers (who strongly favor it). Female and middle-class students favor nous, students with greater extracurricular French language exposure favor on, and students who speak a Romance language at home favor nous. Various explanations are proposed for these correlations. Finally, the students, like L1 Francophones, favor on in linguistic contexts in which the referent is both nonspecific and unrestricted.

There are still people, including some who should know better, who believe that American Sign Language is in some sense not a “real” language. Such a position, though perhaps at least debatable 40 years ago, is simply no longer credible. There has been a vast amount of very sophisticated and competent linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic research conducted on American Sign Language since the publication of William Stokoe's landmark book, Sign language structure (1960/1992). Although there are many areas of debate about specific features of the phonology, morphology, syntax, and so on of American Sign Language, as indeed is the case with every language, its fundamental status as a fully developed human language is now well beyond reasonable doubt. Since its first edition appeared in 1992, Valli and Lucas's Linguistics of American Sign Language: An introduction has been the premier work for students of the structure of American Sign Language. Written for students of linguistics who already have at least some knowledge of American Sign Language, this third edition includes sections introducing students to basic linguistic concepts, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics as well as issues related to language change, language variation, bilingualism, discourse, language contact, and “language as art.” Each section is designed to provide students with a general introduction to the linguistic concepts and then to the specific case of American Sign Language, including exercises focusing on American Sign Language. Finally, more than half of the volume is devoted to both classic and recent seminal articles about different aspects of the linguistics of American Sign Language. As has been true of both of the earlier editions, this third edition is accompanied by a well-made videotape providing additional support for the written text.

Research in the acquisition of perfective and imperfective morphology has been expanding in SLA from morpheme studies to semantic, syntactic, and textual research. This volume contributes to the growing literature on the acquisition of aspect by investigating the acquisition of telicity (i.e., predicates with and without endpoints, such as Claire ate an apple vs. Clare ate apples) from a UG perspective. The hypotheses that are examined are: (a) to what extent learners transfer L1 values onto their L2, (b) whether L2 learners are capable of resetting parameters, (c) whether the acquisition of telicity co-occurs or is subsequent to the acquisition of other constructions (e.g., particles, resultatives, and double objects), and (d) whether the acquisition of these related constructions clusters with the acquisition of telicity.

In this short volume, Benesch makes a timely and useful contribution to emerging debates about future directions for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and for ESL classes in university settings. The book is divided into two parts. The first, consisting of the opening four chapters, deals with historical, theoretical, and political issues; the second, entitled “Practice,” offers four case studies of Benesch's attempts to develop a critical EAP pedagogy in the New York area, followed by a closing “Implications” chapter.

In some ways the preface to this volume, by Chris Candlin, preempts this review. He makes some insightful points that a dutiful reviewer would otherwise have made. This volume of original chapters reflects Breen's concern for the learner as a cognitive, human, and social being. As Candlin rightly points out, the volume provides a positive and creative accommodation of research paradigms that come from both cognitive and social traditions such that the volume constitutes a so-called sociocognitive position: “the interplay between communication as both a socially and a cognitively strategic act” (p. xix).

This book is a revised and updated version of the author's 1997 Cornell University dissertation, which investigated the acquisition of Spanish past-tense morphology by classroom learners whose L1 was English. Based on three main studies, the author argues against the Aspect Hypothesis (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig, 2000), the dominant view in SLA research, which predicts strong associations between lexical aspect and tense-aspect morphology at the early stages of acquisition.

Although the primary focus of this introduction is the Atlantic pidgins and creoles, it contains considerable information on many other pidgins and creoles as well. Chapter 1 includes the definitions of terms, which are clear and concise with the exception of the notions of semi-creole and creoloid, which are somewhat vague, and the notion of interlanguage, which is not necessarily characterizable as unstable, especially if it fossilizes. Chapter 2 largely mirrors its comprehensive counterpart, Holm (1988). New in this volume is the mention of the earliest known attestation of a creole language (Martinique creole in 1671), the shortening, partial rewriting, or both of the monogenesis sections, and the identification of other trends. Chapter 3 succinctly underscores the importance of social factors in the creation and characterization of pidgins and creoles, without which, according to Holm, they cannot be defined. It also includes sociohistorical synopses of seven languages (i.e., Angolar Creole Portuguese, Papiamentu Creole Spanish, Negerhollands Creole Dutch, Haitian Creole French, Jamaican Creole English, Tok Pisin, and Nubi Creole Arabic).

Since 1992 the Pacific Second Language Research Forum (PacSLRF) has hosted biannual conferences on SLA issues and invited speakers predominantly from within the Pacific and South East Asian region. The proceedings from the Forum's third conference (held at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, in March 1998), collected in this volume, will prove interesting and useful for researchers and teachers in the field.

When asked by a group of toying aristocrats whether he has an opinion about certain events in world politics, Stevens, the British butler of Kazuo Ishiguro's award-winning novel, The remains of the day, replies to one of the gentlemen in the group, “I'm very sorry, sir; but I am unable to be of assistance on this matter” (p. 195). It is the kind of indirect apology that Rosina Marquez Reiter would find delicious and perfect proof of her working thesis that British speakers (especially when compared with Uruguayan speakers) try to maintain “face” as much as possible while at the same time trying to mitigate potential threats that might arise between speakers.