Language fundamentally defines and distinguishes us as humans, as members of society, and as individuals. As we go through life, our relationship with language and with learning shifts and changes, but it remains significant. This book is an up-to-date resource for graduate students and researchers in second language (L2) acquisition who are interested in language learning across the lifespan. The main goal is to survey and evaluate what is known about the linguistic-cognition-affect assoc...

The economic and political situation of cities has shifted in recent years in light of rapid growth amidst infrastructure decline, the suburbanization of poverty and inner city revitalization. At the same time, the way that data are used to understand urban systems has changed dramatically.Urban Analytics offers a field-defining look at the challenges and opportunities of using new and emerging data to study contemporary and future cities through methods including GIS, Rem...

A lifetime ago, the Lancashire poet, Allen Clarke, described his native county in the following, rather defensive, way:"The outside folk who have never seen Lancashire think it wholly a steam engine land: a hideous shire of factories, coalpits, forges, ironworks, cinder pits and slag accumulations, inhabited by barbarians who wear clogs with which they are in the habit of kicking one another to death.Round every Lancashire town there is a bonny expanse of hill and fell. Lan...

The lexicon represents the building blocks of language: words and vocabulary. Most of us think of language in terms of words, and words are also integral to the way in which linguists approach language as an object of study. The lexicon and lexical issues must be taken in consideration in every domain of language study and, conversely, the lexicon cannot be viewed in isolation from other aspects of language.'Language and the Lexicon' provides a comprehensive yet accessible overview...

Geocomputation is the use of software and computing power to solve complex spatial problems. It is gaining increasing importance in the era of the ‘big data’ revolution, of ‘smart cities’, of crowdsourced data, and of associated applications for viewing and managing data geographically - like Google Maps. This student focused book:Provides a selection of practical examples of geocomputational techniques and ‘hot topics’ written by world leading practitioners.Integra...

This book provides a linguistic and cultural profile of the Polish diasporic communities in three different European countries: Ireland, France and Austria. The eight contributing chapters present original research on the acquisition and use of the languages of the respective host communities and also explore related elements of cultural acquisition. A number of aspects of second language acquisition are considered, notably the acquisition of phonology, lexicon and discourse, as well as as...

This major new textbook offers an accessible introduction to many of the most interesting areas in the study of multilingualism. It consists of twelve lectures, written by leading researchers, each dedicated to a particular topic of importance. Each lecture offers a state-of-the-art, authoritative review of a subdiscipline of the field. The volume sheds light on the ways in which the use and acquisition of languages are changing, providing new insights into the nature of contemporary multi...

This book constitutes a holistic study of how and why late starters surpass early starters in comparable instructional settings. Combining advanced quantitative methods with individual-level qualitative data, it examines the role of age of onset in the context of the Swiss multilingual educational system and focuses on performance at the beginning and end of secondary school, thereby offering a long-term view of the teenage experience of foreign language learning. The study scrutinised fac...

This textbook offers an introductory overview of eight hotly-debated topics in second language acquisition research. It offers a glimpse of how SLA researchers have tried to answer common questions about second language acquisition rather than being a comprehensive introduction to SLA research.Each chapter comprises an introductory discussion of the issues involved and suggestions for further reading and study. The reader is asked to consider the issues based on their own experienc...

The Science of Reading: A Handbook brings together state-of-the-art reviews of reading research from leading names in the field, to create a highly authoritative, multidisciplinary overview of contemporary knowledge about reading and related skills.Provides comprehensive coverage of the subject, including theoretical approaches, reading processes, stage models of reading, cross-linguistic studies of reading, reading difficulties, the biology of reading,...

In this insightful book, you'll learn from the best data practitioners in the field just how wide-ranging -- and beautiful -- working with data can be. Join 39 contributors as they explain how they developed simple and elegant solutions on projects ranging from the Mars lander to a Radiohead video.With Beautiful Data, you will:Explore the opportunities and challenges involved in working with the vast number of datasets made available by the WebLearn...

Written by David Hornsby, who is a current Linguistics lecturer and researcher at theUniversity of Kent, Linguistics - The Essentials is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key areas that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the basics in clear jargon-free English, and then providing added value features like summaries of key books, and even lists of questions you might be asked in your seminar or exam.The book u...