Does complexity make multilingualism special? Since there is no unequivocal notion of complexity on which researchers agree, several characteristics that have been considered crucial for complexity are brought to bear on multilingualism. While multilingualism is fairly complex in some senses, for instance, because it requires that many variables…

Second language acquisition (SLA) research offers valuable insight on how languages are learned and how they coexist and influence each other. Sign language learners offer unique perspectives on SLA, allowing researchers to test theories that are otherwise constrained by access to only one modality. Current literature on sign language learning…

This article addresses different ways scholars conceptualize the multilingual repertoire. Formal and functional approaches investigate crosslinguistic influence across clearly demarcated languages, while dynamic systems theory and translanguaging approaches question countability and boundedness of languages. Problems with both perspectives are…

Multilingual research could offer a unique perspective on how the languages already acquired by a person affect the online processing of a new language. But it is currently difficult to assess this issue because theoretical accounts of multilingualism have focused on acquisition rather than processing and most empirical research to date has…

Using the lenses of bilingualism and social justice, I reflect on relevant conceptual and methodological issues encountered in the study of the linguistic development of heritage language speakers. Themes examined include the early but varying timing of heritage language learning; the surrounding linguistic environment, including the link between…

This article proposes basic (shared) and extended (nonshared) language cognition in native speakers as a function of two types of extralinguistic attributes: (a) degree of being multilingual and (b) variables related to amount and type of literacy experiences (e.g., level of education). This approach may throw new light on the question of whether…

Many people speak more than two languages. How do languages acquired earlier affect the learnability of additional languages? We show that linguistic distances between speakers' first (L1) and second (L2) languages and their third (L3) language play a role. Larger distances from the L1 to the L3 and from the L2 to the L3 correlate with lower…

The goals of this article are to appraise second language acquisition's (SLA) disciplinary progress over the last 15 years and to reflect on transdisciplinary relevance as the field has completed 40 years of existence and moves forward into the 21st century. I first identify four trends that demonstrate vibrant disciplinary progress in SLA. I then…

This study considered the effects of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI; Petrides & Mavroveli, 2007) and sociobiographical variables (age, gender, education level, number of languages known, age of onset of acquisition, context of acquisition, frequency of use, socialization, network of interlocutors, self-perceived proficiency) on…

Examination of differences in the language-learning strategies of monolingual and multilingual adults found no clear evidence that multilinguals were superior in language-learning abilities overall, although they were more able to adjust their learning strategies according to language task requirements. (Author/CB)