ZhaoHong Han is Professor of Language and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA, where she researches in second language acquisition, second language teaching, and their interface. She is the author/editor/co-editor of a number of volumes, including Fossilization in Adult Second Language Acquisition (2004) and Linguistic Relativity in SLA: Thinking for Speaking (co-edited with Teresa Cadierno, 2010).

Terence Odlin is Associate Professor Emeritus of English, Ohio State University, USA and his research interests focus on language contact and language transfer. He is the author of Language Transfer (Cambridge University Press) and editor or co-editor of four other volumes. He has also published articles and chapters in several journals and edited volumes.

This volume, as a sequel to Fossilization in Adult Second Language Acquisition by Han (2004), brings together a collection of most recent theoretical and empirical studies on fossilization, a classic problem of second language acquisition. It covers a wide range of perspectives and issues. The analyses discussed herein address key concerns of many second language researchers and teachers with regard to just how far anyone can go in learning a new language.

Acknowledgments

Contributors

1. ZhaoHong Han and Terence Odlin: Introduction

2. Constancio K. Nakuma: Researching Fossilization and Second Language (L2) Attrition: Easy Questions, Difficult Answers

3. Donna Lardiere: Establishing Ultimate Attainment in a Particular Second Language Grammar

4. ZhaoHong Han: Fossilization: Can Grammaticality Judgment Be a Reliable Source of Evidence?

5. Terence Odlin, Rosa Alonso Alonso and Cristina Alonso-Vázquez: Fossilization in L2 and L3

6. Usha Lakshmanan: Child Second Language Acquisition and the Fossilization Puzzle

7. Brian MacWhinney: Emergent Fossilization

8. Elaine Tarone: Fossilization, Social Context and Language Play

9. David Birdsong: Why Not Fossilization

10. Diane Larsen-Freeman: Second Language Acquisition and the Issue of Fossilization: There Is No End, and There Is No State

Larry Selinker: Afterword: Fossilization 'or' Does Your Mind Mind?

Index