Usage in Second Language Acquisition

Kevin McManus is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at The Pennsylvania State University, USA.

• AcknowledgementsList of illustrationsList of contributors1. Usage in second language acquisitionKevin McManus2. Corpus-linguistic approaches to usage in SLAStefanie Wulff3. Multimodal resources and action: A conversation-analytic approach to SLA and usageSøren Wind Eskildsen4. Usage and variationist approaches to second language acquisitionAarnes Gudmestad5. What counts as usage in Dynamic Usage-Based models?Marjolijn Verspoor and Hans-Jörg Schmid6. Cognitive-linguistic approaches to SLA and usageHan Luo7. Usage in ISLA from a processing-based perspectiveRonald P. Leow8. Skill acquisition theory: learning-to-use and usage for learning in SLAYuichi Suzuki9. Synthesizing usage in second language acquisitionKevin McManusIndex

This volume offers an insightful exploration of the usage-learning nexus, arguably the key issue in current SLA research and theory. It goes beyond a collection of conceptual reviews. Each chapter stands independently while taken together the chapters provide a comprehensive account of language usage, learning, and how they are interconnected. It will serve as a valuable resource for researchers both familiar with SLA and just entering the field.Natsuko Shintani, Kansai University, JapanThe nine highly readable chapters in this collection address three questions of central importance to SLA research and pedagogy: what is usage, what is the L2 learning task, and what are the connections between usage and learning. The contributions address these issues using different methodologies, but with highly compatible underlying assumptions. In this way, the volume provides a definitive up-to-date statement regarding the role of usage in second language learning.Brian MacWhinney, Carnegie Mellon University, USA