Linguistics

The collaborative duo of Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada is one of the most well-known and respected partnerships in the field of SLA. The two are highly prolific writers and researchers in their own right and have coauthored numerous articles and books ranging widely in subject including oral communication correction, developmental readiness in SLA and L2 learner awareness of L1 influence, to name just a few. Here, they come together again for the newest edition of the widely-used and highly-acclaimed book How Languages are Learned.

Now in its fourth edition, How Languages are Learned has been highly valued for the way it relates language acquisition theory to classroom teaching and learning and draws practical implications from the research for the language classroom. One of the strengths of all editions of this book is the emphasis on looking at relevant classroom research in which to analyze particular aspects of classroom dynamics and classroom instruction. Through looking at prior researchers’ studies, various SLA topics are examined such as the dynamics of pair work, learners talking to learners, oral and written corrective feedback and teacher’s questioning practices.

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Introducing Second Language Acquisition

Having written textbooks and scholarly articles for more than 40 years, Muriel Saville-Troike is an icon in the field of SLA. Coming primarily from a background in bilingual/multilingual education, she has examined an immense variety of SLA topics including contrasts in patterns of communication, achieving coherence in multilingual interaction, development of English language imagined communities and cross cultural communication in the classroom. In the second edition of Introducing Second Language Acquisition Saville-Troike shows again why she has been such an influential figure in SLA.

Aimed more at undergraduate students but practical as well for graduate students with little or no knowledge of linguistics, the second edition of this highly accessible book, like the previous edition, offers a clear and practical introduction to second language acquisition (SLA). Saville-Troike uses non-technical language to answer three key questions that the book investigates: how a second language is acquired, what the second language learner comes to know and why some learners are more successful than others. The book takes a step-by-step approach to
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Exploring ELF

Exploring ELF has nothing to do with Santa’s little helpers but is in fact a new book in the Cambridge Applied Linguistics series, authored by Anna Mauranen and edited by Carol A. Chappelle and Susan Hunston. ELF stands for English as a Lingua Franca, a term which is becoming more widely recognized around the world, especially in the realms of academia among not only language researchers but also teachers. Exploring ELF covers a vast range of topics related to ELF and all are extremely relevant in the field of linguistics.

The book deals with different perspectives on ELF, academic speech as data, vocabulary in oral ELF, word grammar, discourse explicitness, and repetition and rephrasing, after the very interesting Introduction. I was a little apprehensive because it seemed quite long at fourteen pages. However, as I started to read it I was relieved to find that it is very interesting and informative. Mauranen introduces the world of ELF and its spread in a relatively easy manner and includes a number of references and studies relevant to ELF. She also outlines the chapters, making the book easier to navigate. The introduction ends with a detailed reference list which is extremely useful for anyone interested in ELF. I highly recommend looking at the introduction before diving into the book.
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Replication Research in Applied Linguistics

As a PhD student and a newcomer to the world of research I found Replication Research in Applied Linguistics to be a useful extra textbook for research courses at universities along with other sources the professors introduced. Most of the time the doctoral students are encouraged to try to make a contribution to the overall knowledge of the field when it comes to selecting a topic for their research by doing something totally new. However, after reading this book, I found that we CAN contribute to the knowledge of the field even by doing appropriate replication studies, provided that we know the proper and accurate way of doing such research. If you want know how to replicate research and are eager to know the technical practices of replication in applied linguistics, then this book is written for you.

The book is organized carefully in three parts. First, we are introduced to the field by the editor of this collection with a comprehensible introduction to replication research in scientific thinking and practice, especially in applied linguistics. The book starts by explaining some introductory issues and then continues by explaining some practical aspects such as how to do and write replication research. The last part of the book provides two real examples of qualitative and quantitative replication research.
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Sociocognitive Perspectives on Language Use and Language Learning

Theories of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) have tended to converge on two main notions; that language learning is either primarily cognitive (informed by processes ongoing within the brain of the learner) or primarily social (emerging as a result of social interactions). Of course, researchers have long understood that these two domains must be to some extent interrelated, but the argument remains as to which is the driving influence behind SLA. This collection of edited papers seeks to integrate the two approaches, and provide a number of perspectives on the manner in which the social and the cognitive dimensions affect and interact with each other.

The book is divided into three sections. The first deals with the theoretical perspectives advanced by researchers into sociocognition, while the second takes a more empirical route, presenting studies into the interpersonal and intrapersonal functions of sociocognition among learners. Perhaps for most prospective readers the final section, concerned as it is with the practical classroom applications of sociocognitive perspectives, will be the most important and anticipated. Each of these three sections will be
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Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics

Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics by Diane Larsen-Freeman and Lynne Cameron forms part of the Oxford Applied Linguistics series. However, you don’t need a great deal of prior knowledge of Applied Linguistics to read this book, as the main focus is on the complex systems part of the title. For that reason, it may be that some background in science would be helpful. Alternatively, a scientific background may have you throwing this book against the wall, for reasons explained below.

Complexity theory tells us that the behaviour of certain systems, known as “complex systems”, cannot be predicted because unmeasurably tiny changes now lead to completely different results later. This concept is best grasped using an analogy with a pile of sand. If you keep adding grains of sand to the pile, an avalanche is sure to happen, but it’s impossible to predict when, and in which direction, and how much sand will fall. All we can do is look back, and offer a retrospective account of what happened: the pile collapsed after adding such-and-such a grain, and fell in such-and-such a way, something that doesn’t allow us to predict similar events in the future because that “…depends on the day of the week… the time of day…” and a thousand other interconnected and uncontrollable factors (p235). It doesn’t take much scientific knowledge to realise that this runs contrary to the conventional picture of science that most of us learnt at school, with its regularly moving pendulums and models of the solar system. Complexity theory has been heralded by some as a paradigm shift, one that could revolutionise areas outside the natural sciences like economics, education and business. However, others believe that when it is exported to those other areas it usually becomes pseudo-science at best (hence the potential for angry scientists).
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Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language

For those who are not familiar with him, David Crystal is the “David Bellamy of linguistics”, a knowledgeable, animated and bearded figure, and an outspoken commentator on contemporary language matters. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language is an ideal vehicle for his comprehensive knowledge. It is accessible, compelling and well organised, and deals with its topics with a depth that belies its glossy exterior and format. It is packed full of fascinating facts and is quite an inspiration to read, as well as being an ideal reference or revision tool.

In terms of its presentation and approach, this book resembles Crystal’s The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language. The Houston Chronicle, referring to that earlier work, commented that ‘you can’t turn a page without learning some fascinating titbit about our common tongue.’ I would make a similar claim for The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language. It seems that anything you want to look up is there in some form or other, and there is a wealth of new information and interest, making it a perfect book for idle browsing as well as serious study and reference.
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Language Teaching (henceforth LT) is one of our field’s longest running (since 1968) and most prestigious journals; getting published in it is only slightly short of getting knighted by the Queen. All exaggeration aside, LT’s most distinctive characteristic is its variety of article formats, including Plenary speeches, Research timelines, A country in focus, A language in focus, Surveys of PhD/ED.D theses, Annual reviews of research, Research in progress and the Comparative book reviews. I will look at these various types of article below.
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This textbook is an important new contribution to the discipline of linguistics because it considers corpus from a speaking point of view and, drawing on corpora of both spoken and written texts, explains comparisons between the features of spoken English and written English. Furthermore, this book incorporates a thorough literature review of all major texts written about using corpora, and as such represents an up-to-date bibliography of previous work on the topic, and presents the latest
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This book is one of many in Cambridge’s Studies in Language Testing series. This volume is compiled of 20 edited papers that were presented at the 2nd ALTE (Association of Language Testers in Europe) Conference in Berlin, May 2005. At first glance it is aesthetically simple and very academic in appearance. This made me very apprehensive to open it as I wasn’t sure
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Full title: World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching
Author: Andy Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Reviewed by: Eric Roth

Do the English in England speak the same English as the Americans, the Jamaicans, the South Africans, the Australians, the Irish, and the Indians? Do they even speak the same English as they did 100 years ago before radio, television, and the internet? Should there be a global standard for all English speakers? Linguist Andy Kirkpatrick raises these and many other provocative questions in his exceptionally documented book “World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching” published by Cambridge University Press. What does it mean if a majority of English speakers are actually English as a second language speakers? Can we actually assert that one version of English is more correct, formal, or proper than
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Publisher: Oxford University Press
Authors: A P R Howatt with H G Widdowson

Despite the fact that I could obviously judge the topic of the book from the title, this history of TEFL and TESOL was in no way what I expected before I started reading it. How that was a good and bad thing for me is examined below, along with some ideas on who else this book might be of interest to and a summary of some of the most interesting
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Author: Stephen Andrews
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

This book by Stephen Andrews seems to be the first major publication on TLA (Teacher Language Awareness- how much teachers know about the language they are teaching), which initially surprised me at a time when you could easily fill a whole bookshop with books on Linguistics, Applied Linguistics and SLA. As I read the introduction, though, his premise that teachers could teach better by knowing more about the English language
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Editor: Carol Griffiths
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

This book was written to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Joan Rubin’s article “What the ‘good language learner’ can teach us” about how we can analyse what makes some people more successful at learning languages and how this should change
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