Short description:

This volume addresses theoretical and research domains related to questions of how forms-meaning connections are initiated, processed, and stored, and what internal and external factors may affect these mappings.

Long description:

Form-Meaning Connections in Second Language Acquisition is an interdisciplinary and timely edited book of essays and empirical studies, most of which are based on the papers presented at the Form and Meaning Conference held in Chicago in 2002. The goal of the conference and now of the book is to present linguistic and cognitive approaches to second language acquisition, attempting to integrate external and internal issues in interlanguage development, while outlining directions for future research. The editors address questions, such as: What is the nature and sequence of the form-meaning mapping process? How are these connections made? How are these connections used to construct grammars and lexicons? And, how can conditions and external factors be manipulated to improve the chances of making these form-meaning connections?

Contributors to this volume include such second language acquisition scholars as Susan Gass, Nick Ellis, Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Catherine Doughty, and Diane Larsen-Freeman. They address these form-meaning issues from a variety of settings and from multiple perspectives.

Researchers and graduate students in applied linguistics, cognitive psychology, linguistics, and language pedagogy will find this volume to be an important resource.

"This volume presents a high caliber of careful psycholinguistic studies about how form and meaning are connected at the micro-processing level. It also shows further directions we need to take, including the studies about input-output relationships and the role of implicit learning in FMC. This volume is highly recommended for many SLA researchers, graduate students, and pedagogy specialists."
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"...VanPatten, Williams, Rott, and Overstreet should be commended for their careful editorial work, as evidenced by the absence of typographical errors, accurate referencing, and useful author and subject indexes, as well as for their effort in calling attention to, exploring, and paving the way for future studies on one of the most fundamental concerns in SLA: how learners come to establish and develop connections between form and meaning in a L2."
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Table of Contents:

Contents: Preface. B. VanPatten, J. Williams, S. Rott, Form-Meaning Connections in Second Language Acquisition. Part I: Factors and Processes. B. VanPatten, Input and Output in Establishing Form-Meaning Connections. N.C. Ellis, The Processes of Second Language Acquisition. S.M. Gass, Context and Second Language Acquisition. Y. Shirai, A Multiple-Factor Account for the Form-Meaning Connections in the Acquisition of Tense-Aspect Morphology. Part II: Evidence and Impact. K. Bardovi-Harlig, The Emergence of Grammaticalized Future Expression in Longitudinal Production Data. T. Cadierno, K. Lund, Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition: Motion Events in a Typological Framework. E.C. Klein, Beyond Syntax: Performance Factors in L2 Behavior. Part III: Research and the Classroom. C.J. Doughty, Effects of Instruction on Learning a Second Language: A Critique of Instructed SLA Research. J.N. Williams, Implicit Learning of Form-Meaning Connections. J. Barcroft, Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Research on Semantic and Structural Elaboration in Lexical Acquisition. Part IV: Commentary. D. Larsen-Freeman, Reflections on Form-Meaning Connection Research in Second Language Acquisition.