Babcok et al. (2012) claim that Paradis (1994, 2004, 2009) argues that the reliance of late L2 learners on L1 neurocognitive mechanisms increases over time across both lexical and grammatical functions, namely for lexical items as well as rule-governed grammatical procedures, when in fact one can find repeated statements to the contrary in the…

It is argued that cognitive/academic language proficiencies in first and second languages are interdependent and empirically distinguishable from interpersonal communication skills. This analysis is applied to the interpretation of data on the effects of bilingual education programs and on the age issue in second language learning. (PMJ)