Theories in Second Language Acquisition

The third edition of this best-selling book surveys the major theories currently used in second language acquisition (SLA) research, serving as an ideal introductory text for undergraduate and graduate students in SLA and language teaching.

Bill VanPatten was a professor of Spanish at Michigan State University, where he was also an affiliate faculty in the Department of Cognitive Science. He is currently an independent scholar while he also pursues fiction writing in both English and Spanish. His primary areas of research within second language acquisition are the acquisition of formal properties of language, language processing and parsing, and the interface between processing and acquisition. Gregory D. Keating is an associate professor of Linguistics at San Diego State University. His research interests include second language acquisition, heritage language bilingualism, sentence processing, and online methods. He is an associate editor of Studies in Second Language Acquisition. Stefanie Wulff is an associate professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of Florida, and between 2019 and 2023, Professor II at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Her research interests are in second language learning, quantitative corpus linguistics, and student writing development. She is the editor-in-chief of Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory (de Gruyter Mouton).

Contributors Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Introduction: The Nature of Theories Bill VanPatten, Jessica Williams, Gregory D. Keating and Stefanie Wulff Chapter 2. Linguistic Theory, Universal Grammar, and Second Language Acquisition Lydia White Chapter 3. One Functional Approach to L2 Acquisition: The Concept-Orientated Approach Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig Chapter 4. Usage-Based Approaches to L2 Acquisition Nick C. Ellis and Stefanie Wulff Chapter 5. Skill Acquisition Theory Robert DeKeyser Chapter 6. Input Processing in Adult L2 Acquisition Bill VanPatten Chapter 7. The Declarative/Procedural Model: A Neurobiologically Motivated Theory of First and Second Language Michael T. Ullman Chapter 8. Processability Theory Manfred Pienemann and Anke Lenzing Chapter 9. Input, Interaction, and Output in L2 Acquisition Susan M. Gass and Alison Mackey Chapter 10. Sociocultural Theory and L2 Development James P. Lantolf, Matthew E. Poehner, and Steven L. Thorne Chapter 11. Complex Dynamic Systems Theory Diane Larsen-Freeman Chapter 12. Theories and Language Teaching Bill VanPatten Glossary Index