Selected language acquisition research findings are examined in light of the language teacher's daily needs. Research results are reported that provide an empirical basis for selecting and grading materials, determining skills to be taught and their order of presentation, deciding on classroom presentation and procedures, and formulating evaluation instruments. Acquisition ordering relationships are shown to have a bearing on teaching sequence; that such a sequence should provide for a number of grammatical, semantic, and length constraints and a skills order constraint. In addition, the research provides support for a developmental model of learning, stressing the need for a variety of approaches and supporting a cognitively-based orientation for older children and adults. Other age-related variables are considered and their pedagogical consequences are reviewed.

Input Enhancement: From Theory and Research to the Classroom. Wynne Wong. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Pp. xx + 130. $43.44 paper.

This new title in the McGraw-Hill Second language professional series is a highly readable book written primarily for in-service and would-be teachers of second and foreign languages (L2) who have never studied SLA. The book addresses one of the fundamental concepts of current SLA research—input—in the context of its relationship to grammar instruction. It introduces readers to instructional techniques that help L2 learners pay attention to grammatical form while providing them with the input that they need for successful acquisition of their L2s. These techniques are called input enhancement techniques—specifically, input flood, textual enhancement, structured input, and grammar consciousness-raising tasks, which are explained in chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the book, respectively. This main part of the book is preceded by a historical overview of grammar instruction in chapter 1, a brief discussion of SLA research and its relation to classroom teaching in chapter 2, and a concise explanation focused on the concepts of input and input enhancement as used in the field of SLA in chapter 3. Chapter 8 is a concluding chapter in which the author gives caveats, suggestions, and advice for using the input enhancement techniques introduced in the book.

This study investigates how linguistic and nonlinguistic information interacts in second language (L2) sentence processing. Previous studies argued that L2 behaviors might stem from how L2 speakers rely more on one type of information over another. However, direct attempts have not been made to test the (dis)agreement of different information types. To fill this gap, the present study explored the integration of definiteness and real-world knowledge. Experiment 1 showed that both first language (L1) speakers (n = 34) and advanced L2 speakers (n = 49) could use definiteness to predict unmentioned referents, but intermediate L2 speakers could not (n = 35). After confirming that L1 and L2 speakers shared the same real-world knowledge, Experiment 2 (n (L1) = 36, n (L2) = 43) showed that the two groups’ behaviors differed when linguistic and nonlinguistic information had to be processed simultaneously. The findings suggest that L2 speakers can process linguistic information in a targetlike manner only in the absence of usable nonlinguistic information.

LANGUAGE STRATEGIES FOR BILINGUAL FAMILIES: THE ONE-PARENT–ONE-LANGUAGE APPROACH. Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2004. Pp. 248. $79.95 cloth, $29.95 paper.

How do families who are trying to raise their children bilingually attempt to do so, and how do they overcome some of the challenges of this decision? This is the main theme of this very readable book, which is written with a variety of audiences in mind. The book is theoretically sound even though it is not primarily addressed to the research community. The author, who has had personal experience raising children bilingually, also documents the experiences of many other families involved in this endeavor, using direct quotes from interviews and small case studies of these families as documentation for the theoretical assertions.

There has been a great deal of discussion in the literature on second-language acquisition about the relationship between first-(L1) and second-language (L2) acquisition. I believe that the dust is beginning to settle and that it is now possible to move beyond this debate. I would like to do so in this paper, and examine in particular the role of linguistic input in L1 and L2 and the nature of conversational strategies in both processes.

DISCOURSE IN THE PROFESSIONS: PERSPECTIVES FROM CORPUS LINGUISTICS. Ulla Connor and Thomas A. Upton (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004. Pp. vi + 334. $119.00 cloth.

Whereas general corpora have been used successfully by linguists and language practitioners for more than 40 years now, corpora that capture the language of particular discourse communities are only recently becoming the focus of attention. The chapters in the present collection, edited by Connor and Upton, respond to the growing research interest in academic and professional discourses and illustrate the profitable use of specialized corpora in linguistics and in the learning and teaching of English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for specific purposes (ESP).

In this study, we approximately replicated Papi and Khajavy’s (2021) investigation into the regulatory focus in second language acquisition, applying their approach to a significantly larger cohort of 855 Chinese second language (L2) learners. In contrast with the original study, our research employed the College English Test Band 4 (CET-4), a standardized English test, to better align with the Chinese educational context. This methodological shift allowed for a nuanced exploration of the regulatory focus’s role in language learning among Chinese students. Our results predominantly reinforce the crucial role of regulatory focus in language learning, echoing Papi and Khajavy’s findings. We discovered notable parallels in how promotion positively influences ideal own and ideal other, and how prevention negatively impacts ought own and ought other. However, a unique finding of our study was the stronger impact of ought selves on L2 anxiety and enjoyment in the Chinese context. This highlights the nuanced influence of socioeducational environments on regulatory focus strategies, suggesting contextual variability in language learning strategies.

1. The discrepancy between the goals and reality of applied linguistics as an integrative discipline can be recognized most clearly in the field of intonation, prosody, and para- and extra-linguistic phenomena, since the area covered by these phenomena intrudes into many disciplines (e.g., medicine, psychology, physics, musicology, phonetics, linguistics and pedagogy). It is generally agreed that these phenomena have to be regarded in their manifold interrelations. On the other hand there seems to be very little agreement among authors in their attempts to delimit and define these phenomena. The result is simply complete terminological confusion.

Otto Jespersen was one of the first linguists to perceive a common basis underlying all types of language acquisition and learning. Comparing pidgins, broken or approximative version of a target language, and child language, he commented: “…. in all these seemingly different cases the same mental factor is at work, namely, imperfect mastery of a language, which in its initial stage, in the child with its first language and in a grownup with a second language learnt by imperfect method, leads to a superficial knowledge of the most indispensable words, with a total disregard for grammar”. (1921, 233–4)