Researchers have claimed that recasts might be ambiguous as feedback. Because recasts serve a dual function, as both feedback and conversational response, learners might not always interpret them as feedback (e.g., Lyster & Ranta, 1997). This study explores how learners interpret recasts they notice (as responses to content, negative evidence, positive evidence, or a combination of negative and positive evidence) and how recast features (linguistic targets, length, number of changes) might affect their interpretations. Forty-nine learners of Japanese engaged in task-based activities during which they received recasts of morphosyntactic and lexical errors. When learners noticed recasts, they occasionally interpreted them as responses to content, particularly when recasts were long and substantially different from their problematic utterances. In contrast, learners were significantly more likely to attend to the linguistic evidence in recasts when these were short and closely resembled the original utterances. These patterns were generally observed for both morphosyntactic and lexical recasts. Results suggest that length and number of changes might, in part, determine the explicitness of recasts as feedback and thus affect learners' abilities to interpret them as such.I am grateful to Alison Mackey, Helen Carpenter, and Ana-Maria Nuevo for their insightful suggestions on an earlier version of this article. I also would like to thank Alison Mackey, Ronald Leow, and Noriko Iwashita for their valuable feedback on the dissertation research on which this study is based, the anonymous SSLA reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions, and Brian Marx for his statistical advice. Any errors, of course, are my own. This research was supported in part by a dissertation improvement grant from the National Science Foundation (grant No. 0214188).

This study explores the question of whether native and nonnative listeners, some familiar with the language and some not, differ in their accent ratings of native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs). Although a few studies have employed native and nonnative judges to evaluate native and nonnative speech, the present study is perhaps the first to include nonnative judges who were unfamiliar with the language they were judging. This study compares accent ratings of four different groups listening to Brazilian Portuguese spoken by NSs and NNSs. The 25 speakers of Portuguese were 5 NSs and 20 NNSs who were NSs of American English. The four listening groups were (a) Brazilian Portuguese listeners, (b) American English listeners with Portuguese experience, (c) American English listeners without Portuguese experience, and (d) English as a second language listeners without Portuguese experience. Although there were some differences, the results show striking similarities across groups, suggesting that listeners' first and second languages do not strongly affect ratings of foreign accents. The study also has implications for the critical period hypothesis because it raises the possibility that there are salient universal features of nonnative speech.

This study investigated the relationship between phonological memory and second language (L2) fluency gains in native English-speaking adults learning Spanish in two learning contexts: at their home university or abroad in an immersion context. Phonological memory (operationalized as serial nonword recognition) and Spanish oral fluency (temporal/hesitation phenomena) were assessed at two times, 13 weeks apart. Hierarchical regressions showed that, after the variance attributable to learning context was partialed out, initial serial nonword recognition performance was significantly associated with L2 oral fluency development, explaining 4.5–9.7% of unique variance. These results indicate that phonological memory makes an important contribution to L2 learning in terms of oral fluency development. Furthermore, these results from an adult population extend conclusions from previous studies that have claimed a role for phonological memory primarily in vocabulary development in younger populations.This study was conducted by the first author as part of her doctoral dissertation research, under the supervision of Norman Segalowitz. The research was funded by a grant to Barbara Freed from the Council for International Educational Exchange (New York), in part by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to Norman Segalowitz, in part from the Dean's Office, Faculty of Arts and Science at Concordia University to Norman Segalowitz, and in part from the Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec to Irena O'Brien. The authors wish to thank Manuel Díaz-Campos, Barbara Lafford, and Nicole Lazar, who were members of the research team involved in the larger project of which this study is one part. The authors would also like to thank Peter Scherzer, Leif French, and two anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Finally, the authors would like to thank Conchita Bueno, Hazel Casas, Elizabeth Gatbonton, Randall Halter, Guy Lacroix, Anne-Marie Linnen, Magnolia Negrete, Laura Renteria-Díaz, Marlene Taube-Schiff, and Naomi Yamasaki, who helped during various phases of this project.

This experimental study on the acquisition of the double-object construction in Spanish as a second language (L2) by a group of first language (L1) English adults investigates the role of Universal Grammar (UG) and its interaction with L1 in two modules of grammar: morphosyntax and semantics. The double-object construction in Spanish differs from its English counterpart in its morphosyntactic properties (case, clitic doubling, word order) and its semantics (interpretation of arguments and restrictions on the construction). Results show that L2 learners are sensitive to most of the morphosyntactic properties of the double-object construction but lag behind in the acquisition of its semantics. The experimental group shows evidence of UG-constrained acquisition in their sensitivity to morphosyntactic properties not instantiated in their L1 as well as in their nontarget but UG-licit analysis of the semantic restrictions of Spanish double objects. The dissociation between level of knowledge of morphosyntax and of semantics suggests that modularity of grammar is reflected in SLA exactly as it is in L1 acquisition.I am extremely grateful to Suzanne Flynn, Joyce Bruhn de Garavito, Andrew Stringfellow, Laura Colantoni, and Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux for their generous assistance in terms of comments, encouragement, sharing of materials, and statistical analyses. I also want to thank the teachers and students that participated in the study as well as three anonymous SSLA reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article.

DEVELOPING MEDIA LITERACY IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE CLASSROOM.Paul Gruba. Sydney, NSW: Macquarie University, 2005. Pp. vi + 64. $49.95 paper.

This volume, part of the “Teaching with New Technology” series, aims to provide teachers with practical techniques and lesson plans that employ computer-based technologies in second language (L2) classrooms. The volume helps promote teaching and the development of media literacy utilizing digitized video clips, and it provides access to both practical and research-based approaches. The author presents pertinent research summaries and issues in order to help teachers understand the theoretical bases behind various teaching techniques and eventually allow them to conduct action research in their own classrooms.

RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS: BECOMING A DISCERNING CONSUMER.Fred L. Perry, Jr. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xx + 268. $29.95 paper.

As one might expect based on its title, this volume offers a basic introduction to research within the field of applied linguistics, including data collection methods, statistical analyses, and research write-ups. In contrast to other recent research methods volumes (e.g., Mackey & Gass, 2006), Perry frames this volume not as teaching readers how to do applied linguistics research but rather as how to read and critically evaluate this research, along similar lines as Porte (2002).

EDUCATING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: A SYNTHESIS OF RESEARCH EVIDENCE.Fred Genesee, Kathryn Lindholm-Leary, William M. Saunders, and Donna Christian (Eds.). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. x + 245. $24.99 paper.

Focusing on empirical second language (L2) studies from the past 20 years, this highly informative and well-researched volume offers a detailed examination of the findings on learning outcomes and educational achievements of prekindergarten through grade 12 English language learners (ELLs) in the United States.

FOSSILIZED SECOND LANGUAGE GRAMMARS.Florencia Franceschina. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 288. $138.00 cloth.

This monograph by Franceschina presents an empirical study of what is known as Orwell's problem: a learnability problem manifested as lack of learning in spite of exposure to abundant and unambiguous positive input evidence. The study is premised on three main assumptions: (a) Universal Grammar (UG) operates normally in all types of natural language acquisition, (b) first language (L1)-selected parameterized functional features (PFFs) are available in the acquisition of languages other than the L1, and (c) there is a critical period for the acquisition of PFFs. Following Hawkins and Chan's (1997) failed functional features hypothesis (FFFH), Franceschina hypothesizes that in adult SLA, nativelike knowledge of PFFs will be restricted to the subset instantiated in the L1. Using gender marking in second language (L2) Spanish as a test case, the study addresses the following questions: (a) Can adult learners acquire nativelike knowledge of grammatical gender in the L2? (b) In adult L2 learners, is the possibility of nativelike attainment in the area of grammatical gender determined by the learner's L1? (c) What might prevent near-natives from reaching the same endstate knowledge as L1 speakers? Two experimental groups of adult near-natives with contrasting L1s (+gen vs. −gen) relative to the target language and a control group of native speakers were formed and subsequently subjected to six experimental tasks that tapped into comprehension, production, and metalinguistic judgments. The data from each test task separately underwent quantitative analyses, and the results consistently pointed to an advantage for the +gen group and, conversely, a disadvantage for the −gen group, thereby confirming the FFFH and, hence, Franceschina's own hypothesis.

EXPLORING CORPORA FOR ESP LEARNING. Laura Gavioli. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005. Pp. viii + 176. $119.00 cloth.

Gavioli's volume, published in Benjamins' “Studies in Corpus Linguistics” series, states that its aim is to “discuss the relevance of corpus work for learners of English as a foreign language,” focusing on English for specific purposes (ESP) settings, with an intended audience of “materials designers, teachers and applied linguists in general” (p. 1). Gavioli explicitly states that she does not provide any comparison of corpus-based instruction to other, traditional methods to evaluate their effectiveness but that her view is that they “can be largely complementary” (p. 3).

SIGN LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALS.Wendy Sandler and Diane Lillo-Martin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xxi + 547. $45.00 paper.

Sandler and Lillo-Martin's volume is an incredibly important, powerful, and timely work. That the sign languages used by deaf people around the world are real human languages in every meaningful sense of the term has become a given among linguists over the past 30 years; as Sandler and Lillo-Martin point out, “In sum, the way sign language is acquired and the ease and speed of its transmission strongly support the view that a single cognitive system underlies language in both [spoken and signed] modalities” (pp. 3−4). Furthermore, apart from the psycholinguistic perspective, it is clear that

BILINGUAL MINDS: EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE, EXPRESSION AND REPRESENTATION.Aneta Pavlenko (Ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2006. Pp. xvi + 324. $54.95 paper.

Pioneering research by Pavlenko (2002) has attracted the attention of many researchers to the emotions of bilinguals and multilinguals. The present collection of chapters reports a number of recent studies in this new research area. The 11 contributions, written by established academics, cover various issues in emotional experience, emotional expression, and emotional representation of bilingual and multilingual speakers.

THE DYNAMICS OF LANGUAGE USE: FUNCTIONAL AND CONTRASTIVE PERSPECTIVES.Christopher S. Butler, Maria de los Angeles Gómez-González, and Susana M. Doval-Suárez (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005. Pp. xvi + 413. $150.00 cloth.

Judging from the varied and stimulating content of this anthology, the Third International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (held in September 2003 at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain) must have been an exciting experience for theorists and teachers in the field of SLA. This volume—a collection of selected papers from the conference—pays eloquent testimony to the success of the academic gathering.

INFERENCE AND GENERALIZABILITY IN APPLIED LINGUISITCS: MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES.Micheline Chalhoub-Deville, Carol Chapelle, and Patricia Duff (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2006. Pp. 249. $42.95 paper.

This volume is a collection of 10 chapters by leading specialists in applied linguistics. Generalizability is defined as “the extent to which research results can justifiably be applied to a situation beyond the research setting” (p. 3). Inferences are the links that the researcher makes between observations of the learners' data and their interpretation as evidence of theoretical arguments.

LANGUAGE, SPACE AND POWER: A CRITICAL LOOK AT BILINGUAL EDUCATION.Samina Hadi-Tabassum. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2006. Pp. v + 295. $50.55 paper.

As a former bilingual teacher in a dual-language school in Chicago, I approached Hadi-Tabassum's work not only with interest but with an insider's perspective on dual-language instruction. As promised, the volume provides rich descriptions of a fifth-grade dual-language classroom and documents key events that occurred throughout the school year. Situated within a discussion of language, space, and power, the author's quest for evidence of metalinguistic awareness in the context of classroom events is an ambitious project, but, at times, the framework overshadows a more practical interpretation of classroom life.

EMOTIONS AND MULTILINGUALISM. Aneta Pavlenko. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. v + 304. $90.00 cloth.

Pavlenko's preface captures one's attention immediately. She believes that writing about human beings should include personal as well as scholarly insights. She then proceeds to demonstrate the value of the personal perspective, beginning with her own bilingual experience as a student of linguistics. She reports that, as a student, she continually asked questions of her teachers about bilingual issues because they were marginalized in her training. As a result of this marginalization, she is firmly committed to exposing the monolingual bias in all areas of linguistic research; she also rejects the view that language is a static system. Emotions, she argues, have been undertheorized in bilingual studies and SLA. Pavlenko brings new attention to research from SLA, bilingual studies, ethnographies, psycholinguistics, psychology, neurophsychology, memoirs, and anecdotes from her own life. The methodologies and research questions differ, as do the definitions of emotion in these fields. Pavlenko presents a comprehensive examination of relevant literature in all of these areas and frames that exploration with probing questions and results from her own research (a Web-based survey) and experience. She examines both emotion terms and emotion repertoires and asks: For multilingual speakers, are these repertoires distinct? Do they refer to universal notions of emotion varying only in their linguistic expression?

TEACHING WORLD LANGUAGES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE: A SOURCEBOOK OF PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES.Terry A. Osborn. Mahwah, NJ. Erlbaum, 2006. Pp. xiii + 190. $27.50 paper.

Grounded in the major tenets of critical theory and informed by principles of critical pedagogy, this volume comes as a much needed contribution to the area of foreign language education (FLE). This is a volume that bridges the gap between calls for changes made by critical pedagogues and a need to turn these critical principles into classroom practice. Osborn's volume is set against an unsatisfactory situation of world language (foreign language) education in the United States. The principal aim in the nine chapters is to reconsider the epistemological and ontological foundations that inform foreign language pedagogical theory and practice. The author suggests that community building be added to the cognitive tradition in forming the theoretical basis of FLE.

INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATICS: EXPLORING INSTITUTIONAL TALK.Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Beverly Hartford (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. v + 230. $29.95 paper.

This volume is an edited collection of recent research on institutional talk from an interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) perspective. It is targeted at ILP researchers, particularly those who have restricted themselves to the collection of elicited data. Its purpose is to demonstrate the value of and procedures for conducting research on institutional and workplace talk. The volume consists of an introduction, eight chapters (an overview chapter, six chapters on ILP research in institutions, and a final chapter that provides guidelines for conducting research in institutions), each with its own bibliographic references, and separate author and subject indexes.

ACHIEVING SUCCESS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.Betty Lou Leaver, Madeline Ehrman, and Boris Shekhtman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 265. $29.99 paper.

This volume presents in considerable depth many of the factors that must be taken into account when developing effective language learning. The volume is divided into three parts. The first deals with learning, including chapters on planning one's study, the role of cognition, learning styles and learning strategies, feelings and personality, and interpersonal relationships. The second part focuses on language and includes chapters on verbal language, sociolinguistics, and unspoken communication. The third part addresses the need for independent learning: One chapter discusses how learners can take control of their learning and a second offers strategies for managing communication.

TEACHING AND LEARNING CHINESE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.Janet Zhiqun Xing. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006. Pp. x + 323. $49.50 cloth, $24.95 paper.

With the rapid increase in the number of people who are interested in learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), the demand has grown for research and knowledge on how to effectively teach and learn a language that appears intimidating to speakers of alphabetic languages. Xing's volume is the first attempt in English to comprehensively address CFL pedagogical and acquisition issues. An experienced language teacher and researcher, the author makes her work a valuable resource for Chinese language professionals and learners by integrating theoretical principles into the practice of teaching and learning Chinese.

THE LANGUAGE OF LANGUAGE: CORE CONCEPTS IN LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS (2nd ed.).Madalena Cruz-Ferreira and Sunita Anne Abraham. Singapore: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2006. Pp. iii + 266. $32.00 paper.

This 12-chapter volume is intended to introduce the field of linguistics to a student with no previous experience. The chapters are arranged to focus on the various facets of language, with each chapter building on the preceding one. Chapter 1, “Language and Linguistics,” and chapter 2, “Language and Languages,” offer an introduction to language as a concept. Chapters 3 and 4 have a word-level focus, whereas chapters 5 and 6 focus on sounds. Chapters 7 and 8 synthesize the previous chapters to discuss language on the sentence level. Chapters 9–12 use the discussion of language structure presented in the previous chapters to direct the reader's attention to the meaning of language as a whole. These last four chapters discuss language meaning, discourse, and the relationship between language and humans.