articles that are mentioned often, such as Selinker in IRAL, Firth and
Wagner inMLJand Norris and Ortega inLL. It may have to do with the
image of the journals, withSSLAandLLbeing seen as hardcore psycho-
linguistic journals,TQas focusing on English teaching primarily andMLJas
more policy oriented. That leavesALfor a wide range of topics, also for
those not primarily related to second or foreign languages. There may also
be differences in the number of pages per year, but for the selection presented
here that will not play a role.
In addition to the core AL journals, 15 more different journals are mentioned
that are more peripheral to AL. This reflects once more the multidisciplinarity
of thefield.
For Jodi Crandall, book chapters are more important than journal articles to
represent the stream of thinking. Maybe on the basis of that she also mentions
that she recently threw away all of her printed journals (apart from theAnnual
Review of Applied Linguistics!), because they are now all available online.
5.2 Most important books
As with the journal articles, the range of books mentioned was impressive.
A total of 478 books are listed, with 196 appearing only once. Books that
have seen a number of editions over time, like Ellis’sThe Study of SLAand
Spada and Lightbown’sHow Languages are Learned, have been listed as one
entry. The books that have been mentioned at least three times with the total
number of listings between brackets are:
Widdowson, H.G. (1990)Aspects of Language Teaching, Oxford: Oxford
University Press. (8)
Krashen, S. (1982)Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition,
Oxford: Pergamon. (7)
Ellis, R. (1986)Understanding Second Language Acquisition, Oxford: Oxford
University Press. (7)
Ellis, R. (1994)The Study of Second Language Acquisition, Oxford: Oxford
University Press. (6)
Lantolf, J.P. and Thorne, S.L. (2006)Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of
Second Language Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (6)
Tomasello, M. (2003)Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language
Acquisition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (6)
Dörnyei, Z. (2005)The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences
in Second Language Acquisition, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. (5)
Lantolf, J.P. (ed.) (2000)Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning,
Oxford: Oxford University Press. (5)
Brice-Heath, S. (1983)Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities
and Classrooms, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (4)
Chaudron, C. (1988)Second Language Classrooms: Research on Teaching and
Learning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (4)
Most important articles and books in AL 53