In this book the authors address five central problems in the study of second language acquisition: transfer, staged development, cross-learner systematicity, incompleteness and variability. The book begins with a definition of each of these areas and an indication of why they are important for understanding SLA. In Chapters 2-4 attempts to explain these phenomena via early linguistic, sociolinguistic, and cognitive approaches are examined. It is argued that they all fail because they attach insufficient importance to the nature of language. In Chapters 5-9 the central problems are approached from the perspective of Universal Grammar and parametric variation: it is considered that this approach provides greater insights into transfer, staged development, cross-learner systematicity and into some aspects of completeness, but that it has difficulty accounting for variability. Variability, it is then argued in Chapters 10-13, is more attributable to factors related to language use and language processing. The most important of these are: the learner's need to develop hypotheses from data where Universal Grammar may not be accessible or applicable; the learner's need to transform linguistic knowledge into the productions required for language processing in real-time; and the learner's need to communicate effectively with an incomplete linguistic system. The variability observed in second language learners who began learning after the age of seven is attributed to the use of multiple knowledge sources and the different kinds of productions which may underlie second language use. The strands making up this argument are then brought together in Chapter 14 in a single model and indications of further directions for research are provided.

This highly useful bilingual thesaurus is aimed at all English-speaking learners and users of French at intermediate and more advanced levels. Structured in a uniquely helpful way, it is arranged thematically, with extensive subdivisions into topic categories. Two alphabetical indexes of more than 8,000 words each, one listing English vocabulary and the other French, help readers find what they're looking for easily. This is the best bilingual thesaurus available Like the best thesauri, it gives not only analogous words but analogous phrases and expressions as well; moreover it explains in what contexts the different synonyms should be used. Contains a wealth of information Let's say you want to look up the French for the word "difficult." You may know that this translates into French as "difficile" but may be curious about other, synonymous words that could be used to mean "difficult" in slightly different contexts. Look up "difficult" in the English-French index at the back of the book, and you're directed to a section that gives you a range of synonymous words and tells you when to use them. Explains nuances and contexts In this way it's like a very elaborate dictionary, with phrases as well as words. Easy to use in French and English There's not only a long English-French index, but a long French-English one as well, so you can come at it from either language, to find your lists of synonyms in either English or French. Moreover, it gives American English expressions as well as British English ones, wherever they differ.