The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition

A comprehensive, current review of the research and approaches to advanced proficiency in second language acquisition

The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition offers an overview of the most recent and scientific-based research concerning higher proficiency in second language acquisition (SLA). With contributions from an international team of experts in the field, the Handbook presents several theoretical approaches to SLA and offers an examination of advanced proficiency from the viewpoint of various contexts and dimensions of second language performance. The authors also review linguistic phenomena among advanced learners through the lens of phonology and grammar development.

Comprehensive in scope, this book provides an overview of advanced proficiency grounded in socially-relevant domains of second language acquisition including discourse, reading, genre-based writing, and pragmatic competence. The authoritative volume brings together the theoretical accounts of advanced language use combined with solid empirical research.

• Includes contributions from an international collection of noted scholars in the field of second language acquisition
• Offers a variety of theoretical approaches to SLA
• Contains information on the most recent empirical research that contributes to an understanding of SLA
• Describes performance phenomena according to multiple approaches to SLA

Written for scholars, students and linguists, The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition is a comprehensive text that offers the most recent developments in the study of advanced proficiency in the acquisition of a second language.

Paul A. Malovrh is Associate Professor of Hispanic Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, University of South Carolina, USA. His recent work emphasizes advanced-level language proficiency and explores its relationship with globalization and curricular design, as well as the effect of different instructional approaches on foreign-language processing, learning, and retention. 

Alessandro G. Benati is Head of the English Department at the American University of Sharjah.  Previously, he was Head of School of Languages and Area Studies and Professor of Second Language Acquisition at the University of Portsmouth, UK.  He was also director of CAROLE and Professor of Applied Linguistics and Second Language Studies, University of Greenwich. He has published extensively with over fifteen established monographs and articles in international journals.