Input, Interaction, and the Second Language Learner

by Susan M. Gass

Twenty years after its first publication, Susan M. Gass’s Input, Interaction, and the Second Language Learner has become a classical text in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). This new printing includes the original text, along with a new preface that comprises individual consultations between the author and Alison Mackey, Rod Ellis, and Mike Long on the importance of the project two decades later.

The volume provides an important view of the relationship between input, interaction, and SLA. In so doing, it should prove useful to those whose major concern is with the acquisition of a second or foreign language, as well as those who are primarily interested in these issues from a pedagogical perspective. The book does not explicate or advocate a particular teaching methodology, but does attempt to lay out some of the underpinnings of what is involved in interaction―what interaction is and what purpose it serves. Research in SLA is concerned with the knowledge that second language learners do and do not acquire, and how that knowledge comes about. This book ties these issues together from three the input/interaction framework, information-processing, and learnability. This Routledge Linguistics Classic remains a key text for all SLA scholars and an essential supplementary volume for students on SLA courses.

Genres: Linguistics

214 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

Susan Gass is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages at Michigan State University. Her research is in Second Language Acquisition and includes the areas of Input and Interaction, Language Universals and Language Transfer.

More recently she has become interested in the area of attention and how it relates to acquisition. She has written/edited a number of books on second language acquisition and has taught and lectured in various parts of the world. She co-edits Second Language Acquisition Research with Alison Mackey - published by Routledge

Currently at MSU, she is the Director of the English Language Center, Co-Director of the Center for Language Education And Research, co-Director of the Center for Language Teaching Advancement and Director of the Second Language Studies Ph.D. Program. She recently served as President of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (2002-2008) and is Associate Editor of Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

She has been invited to give lectures in Europe (most recently, Greece and Germany) and in Asia (most recently, Japan, S. Korea, China).