First published in paperback 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, ISBN: 1-4051-3281-7

The scope of inquiry and goals of SLA -- On the nature of interlanguage representation: universal grammar in the second language -- The radical middle: nativism without universal grammar -- Constructions, chunking and connectionism: the emergence of second language structure -- Cognitive processes in second language learners and bilinguals: the development of lexical and conceptual representations -- Near-nativeness -- Language socialization in SLA -- Social context -- Input and interaction -- Instructed SLA: constraints, compensation and enhancement -- Implicit and explicit learning -- Incidental and international learning -- Automaticity and second languages -- Variation -- Cross-linguistic influence -- Stabilization and fossilization in interlanguage development -- Maturational constraints in SLA -- Individual differences in second language learning -- Attention and memory during SLA -- Language processing capacity -- Defining and measuring SLA -- Data collection in SLA research -- SLA theory: construction and assessment -- SLA and cognitive science