Third Language Acquisition in Adulthood

“What does it mean to be a native speaker? The answer may differ for a monolingual or a multilingual person. This book explores unfamiliar territory, focusing beyond the monolingual native speaker model and challenging the reader to understand different shades of multilingualism. The reward for introducing a new viewpoint is in novel insights to many unanswered questions in linguistic theory, and this book is an important step in this direction.”

“This collection of research studies and theoretical proposals is very welcome and will certainly advance our knowledge both of second and third language acquisition. Third Language Acquisition in Adulthood brings together linguistic, sociolinguistic and cognitive perspectives and reports cutting edge research on the acquisition of a variety of languages.”

“In the recent upsurge of research on second language learning and bilingualism, multilingualism has been generally considered to be more of the same. This new volume challenges that view to demonstrate that learning and using three or more languages creates a powerful tool for testing new hypotheses about the grammar, the lexicon and the phonology. The approach to multilingualism that is described provides a broad framework for understanding how initial language learning constrains or enables later adult language experience. On some dimensions, it may indeed be more of the same, but on others it will require nothing less than a major revision to existing theories of language development.”

“ Third Language Acquisition in Adulthood is a very welcome publication which provides an excellent anthology of readings in the area of L3/Ln acquisition. The volume makes an important contribution to the field of L3/Ln research for several reasons. [...] The volume is also a valuable contribution to the field because it provides a solid overview of several important theoretical considerations that apply to the study of L3/Ln acquisition and, at the same time, presents up-to-date empirical research in the field. [...] Finally, it is crucial to point out that the volume raises a number of important questions that, as the editors Jennifer Cabrelli Amaro, Suzanne Flynn, and Jason Rothman suggest, should guide the development of the field of Overall, the book provides an excellent overview of the field of adult L3/Ln acquisition. It is not an introduction to the newly emerging field, and therefore, is not recommended for novice students of linguistics. However, it is a remarkable volume in that it marks the onset of the field of L3/Ln acquisition as an independent subfield of linguistics, and provides a solid overview of current research on adult multilingualism.”