Spanish Second Language Acquisition

This is an outstanding collection of papers on Spanish second language acquisition. The volume provides an overview and critical assessment of the major work done in this field to date. It will be an indispensable reference tool for those who want to keep up with current trends in the field of SLA in general, and Spanish SLA in particular. -- Carol A. Klee, University of Minnesota

Suitable 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."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.