The Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Competence in a Study Abroad Context

Everyone knows that the best way to learn a second language is to go to where it is spoken and hang out for a year or so, but there have been no numbers to verify it. Irish scholars Regan (sociolinguistics, U. College Dublin), Martin Howard (French, U. College, Cork), and Isabelle Lemee (French, St. Patricks College) take up the challenge and demonstrate how acquiring socio-linguistic competence is linked to learning language by immersion in another society. They show that the year abroad is one context, and perhaps the best available to certain categories of second-language learners, for acquiring such competence. Anglophone Irish students learning French serve as a case study. Distributed in the US by UTP Distribution. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Vera Regan is Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics at University College Dublin. She is Chevalier de l? ordre des Palmes AcadAcmiques and has served as President of the European Second Language Association, President of the Association for French Language Association, and President of the Association of Canadian Studies in Ireland.

Martin Howard is Lecturer in French at University College, Cork, Ireland. A former President of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland, he is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA), and Treasurer of the International Council for Canadian Studies (ICCS). He is a former Government of Ireland Research Fellow and was a recipient of the Prix du Quebec. His research focuses on Second Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics, and Canadian Studies. He has published on (socio)linguistic variation in relation to both native speaker and learner French, as well as on the acquisition of temporality.

Isabelle Lemee is Assistant Lecturer in the Department of French at St Patrick's College in Ireland. Her research focuses on Second Language Acquisition, as well as on Canadian Studies. She is currently the Secretary of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland. She is also on the Committee of the Association for French Language Studies and the Association of Applied French (AFA).