High-Level Language Proficiency in Second Language and Multilingual Contexts

Kenneth Hyltenstam is Professor of Bilingualism at Stockholms Universitet. He has published extensively in the area of second language acquisition, but his research also covers other topics within the area of bilingualism, including dementia, language policy, language maintenance and shift with respect to minority languages, and language and education issues. Inge Bartning is Professor of French at Stockholms Universitet. Her main interest is French L2 acquisition including the developmental stages, advanced learners, near-native use in morphosyntax, cultural migrants and sociolinguistic variation. Lars Fant is Professor of Romance Languages at Stockholms Universitet. His research fields are interaction and discourse linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, intercultural communication and high-level second language use, each field with particular focus on the Spanish language.

'... while the text cannot possibly provide definitive answers to its broad questions (and never claims to), it does leave the reader with a much deeper understanding of these issues and the questions that remain to be explored.' Jean Danic, LINGUIST List

• Introduction: high-level proficiency and the concept of nativelikeness in second language and multilingual research practice Kenneth Hyltenstam, Inge Bartning and Lars Fant; 1. Age effects on language acquisition, retention and loss – key hypotheses and findings Niclas Abrahamsson, Emanuel Bylund and Kenneth Hyltenstam; 2. The last barriers in high-level L2 speech: morphosyntax in focus Inge Bartning and Fanny Forsberg Lundell; 3. Discourse and interaction in highly proficient L2 users Lars Fant; 4. Formulaic language in advanced long-residency L2 speakers Britt Erman, Fanny Forsberg Lundell and Margareta Lewis; 5. Developing lexical complexity in oral production: limitations and possibilities of the advanced L2 learner Camilla Bardel and Anna Gudmundson; 6. Reading comprehension in advanced L2 readers Philip Shaw and Alan McMillion; 7. Polyglotism – a synergy of abilities and predispositions Kenneth Hyltenstam; 8. What's the target? A folk linguistic study of young stockholmers' constructions of linguistic norm and variation Ellen Bijvoet and Kari Fraurud.