Why is learning the grammar of a second language difficult?

The present volume brings together insights from leading researchers, published in the past five years of the journal Language Learning, to identify the multiple factors that combine to challenge learners in attaining full proficiency in a second language.

• An innovative synthesis of recent research on grammar and second language acquisition.
• Highlights the importance of transparency in form-meaning relations as well as learners' aptitudes and previous language learning experiences.
• Shows how diminutives facilitate gender acquisition in Russian.
• Demonstrates how learners make semantic distinctions in acquiring gender distinction in French.
• Evaluates the role of phonological short-term memory in the acquisition of gender in a semi-artificial linguistic system.
• A useful collection for a graduate seminar on psycholinguistic aspects of second language acquisition.

Robert DeKeyser is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh. He has a Ph.D. in Education with a minor in Linguistics from Stanford University. His research is on second language acquisition, particularly cognitive-psychological aspects. Some of his favorite topics are interlanguage variability, monitoring processes, automatization of second language grammar, the effect of age of learning and other individual differences, and the relationship between implicit and explicit learning and knowledge. He has published in a variety of journals, including Language Learning, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Language Testing, The Modern Language Journal, TESOL Quarterly, and AILA Review.