This book is based on a series of lectures, which begin with a look at the history of the language that we use in order to encode our knowledge, particularly our scientific knowledge, i.e., the history of scientific English. Prof. M.A.K. Halliday poses the question of how a growing child comes to master this kind of language and put it to his or her own use as a means of learning. In subsequent chapters, Halliday explores the relationship between language, education and culture, again taking the language of science as the focal point for the discussion; and finally he draws these various themes together to construct a linguistic interpretation of how we learn and how we learn how to learn.

Basics of Language for Language Learners, 2nd edition, by Peter W. Culicover and Elizabeth V. Hume, systematically explores all the aspects of language central to second language learning: the sounds of language, the different grammatical structures, the tools and strategies for learning, the social functions of communication, and the psychology of language learning and use.

The papers in this volume offer a sampling of contemporary efforts to update the portrayal of study abroad in the applied linguistics literature through attention to its social and cultural aspects. The volume illustrates diversification of theory and method, refinement of approaches to social interactive language use, and expansion in the range of populations and languages under scrutiny. Part I offers a topical orientation, outlining the rationale for the project. Part II presents six qualitative case studies adopting sociocultural, activity theoretical, postructuralist, or discourse analytic methodologies. The four chapters in Part III illustrate a variety of approaches and foci in research on the pragmatic capabilities of study abroad participants in relation to second language identities. The volume will be of interest to a broad audience of applied linguistics researchers, language educators, and professionals engaged in the design, oversight, and assessment of study abroad programs.

Professor M A K Halliday has been enriching the discipline of linguistics with his keen insights into the social semiotic phenomenon we call language. This ten-volume series presents his seminal works. This fourth volume contains sixteen papers that look at the development of early childhood language. They are presented in three parts.

This volume critically reviews the most prominent issues in language teaching today and relates them to general perspectives on the nature of language and of language teaching and learning.

While there is much in the literature on ESL development, this book is the first of its kind to track the development of specific language abilities in an Intensive English Program (IEP) longitudinally and highlights the implications of this particular study’s findings for future IEP implementation and practice and ESL and SLA research. The volume draws on many years’ worth of data from learners at an IEP at the University of Pittsburgh to explore selected aspects of language development, including lexical, grammatical, speaking, and writing abilities, in addition to placement assessment practices and student learning outcomes. A concluding chapter points to the ways in which these findings can be applied to decision making around IEP curriculum development and the future role of IEPs in higher education more broadly. With its focus on students in IEP settings and the concentration on data from students evaluated over multiple semesters, this volume offers a unique opportunity in which to examine longitudinal developmental patterns of different L1 groups on a variety of measures from the same learners and will be key reading for students and researchers in second language acquisition, English for Academic Purposes, language education, and applied linguistics.

This book deals with the phenomenon of third language (L3) acquisition. As a research field, L3 acquisition is established as a branch of multilingualism that is concerned with how multilinguals learn additional languages and the role that their multilingual background plays in the process of language learning. The volume points out some current directions in this particular research area with a number of studies that reveal the complexity of multilingual language learning and its typical variation and dynamics. The eight studies gathered in the book represent a wide range of theoretical positions and offer empirical evidence from learners belonging to different age groups, and with varying levels of proficiency in the target language, as well as in other non-native languages belonging to the learner’s repertoire. Diverse linguistic phenomena and language combinations are viewed from a perspective where all previously acquired languages have a potential role to play in the process of learning a new language. In the six empirical studies, contexts of language learning in school or at university level constitute the main outlet for data collection. These studies involve several language backgrounds and language combinations and focus on various linguistic features. The specific target languages in the empirical studies are English, French and Italian. The volume also includes two theoretical chapters. The first one conceptualizes and describes the different types of multilingual language learning investigated in the volume: i) third or additional language learning by learners who are bilinguals from an early age, and ii) third or additional language learning by people who have previous experience of one or more non-native languages learned after the critical period. In particular, issues related to the roles played by age and proficiency in multilingual acquisition are discussed. The other theoretical chapter conceptualizes the grammatical category of aspect, reviewing previous studies on second and third language acquisition of aspect. Different models for L3 learning and their relevance and implications for representations of aspect and for potential differences in the processing of second and third language acquisition are also examined in this chapter. As a whole, the book presents current research into third or additional language learning by young learners or adults, considering some of the most important factors for the complex process of multilingual language learning: the age of onset of the additional language and that of previously acquired languages, social and affective factors, instruction, language proficiency and literacy, the typology of the background languages and the role they play in shaping syntax, lexicon, and other components of a L3. The idea for this book emanates from the symposium Multilingualism, language proficiency and age, organized by Camilla Bardel and Laura Sánchez at Stockholm University, Department of Language Education, in December 2016.