Spanish Second Language Acquisition: State of the Science

Spanish Second Language Acquisition provides a panoramic overview of previous studies on the acquisition of Spanish as a second or foreign language, the theoretical approaches used in these studies, and the effects of various pedagogical approaches on the development of Spanish interlanguage systems. Barbara Lafford and Rafael Salaberry have compiled the first volume to provide a comprehensive critical overview of the research done and data compiled on how adults acquire Spanish as a second language. Major scholars in the field of SLA have contributed chapters having to do with a wide range of "products" (phonology, tense/aspect, subjunctive, clitics, lexicon, discourse/pragmatics) and "processes" (generative, cognitive and sociocultural theories) involved in the acquisition process-concluding with a discussion of the effects of instruction on Spanish interlanguage development.

While being an invaluable reference tool for undergraduate and graduate programs that focus on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language, due to the extraordinary range of the review research on theoretical and methodological issues, this is also an extremely useful volume for second language theoreticians and practitioners involved in all aspects of the pedagogy of other second languages. It is the editors' desire that students, teachers, program administrators and scholars alike will benefit from the insights that the contributors bring to the myriad issues that language professionals confront.

Barbara A. Lafford is an associate professor of Spanish and Linguistics at Arizona State University and has published in the areas of Spanish sociolinguistics, second language acquisition (primarily lexical and discourse issues), second language pedagogy, the use of technology to enhance second language learning and the effects of study abroad experiences on the second language learner's acquisition process. She served as Associate Editor for the Applied Linguistics section of Hispania (1996-2002) and is the co-editor (with Michele Shockey) of Culture and Context: Perspectives on the Acquisition of Cultural Competence in the Foreign Language Classroom.

Rafael Salaberry is a professor of Spanish Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas in Austin. He is the author of The Development of Spanish Past Tense Morphology in a Classroom Environment and co-editor (with Yasuhiro Shirai) of The L2 Acquisition of Tense-Aspect Morphology. His main research interests are second language acquisition, second language assessment and the use of new technologies for pedagogical purposes. He is also the reviews editor of the journal Language Learning and Technology.