Preface

We resolved to start publishing this journal thinking that despite the fact 
that Poland has a strong position in second language acquisition research and 
that quite a large number of monographic publications in this area come out 
every year—often published abroad with Multilingual Matters or Springer, 
among others—yet there is no academic research-oriented journal devoted to 
the theory and practice of SLA which would be widely available to Polish 
academia. The existing journal, Studies in Second Language Learning and 
Teaching published by Adam Mickiewicz University (Kalisz-Poznań), em-
phasizes the role of classroom-oriented research and so its particular focus 
complements the new journal by presenting foreign language pedagogy and 
its classroom applications. The origins of our journal also lie in the success 
of the International Conference on Second/Foreign Language Acquisition 
that has been organized for almost thirty years by the Institute of English 
at the University of Silesia. It gathers together each year many Polish and 
foreign academics and focuses on often un-researched issues and fairly new 
trends in SLA. Papers falling within the leading theme of each conference 
are usually edited and published in the form of a monograph, but there are 
also many studies presented in research areas not directly related to the main 
theme. Since many of these are of a high academic standard, we would like 
to open a channel for their publication, alongside other original articles and 
submissions. We believe that our new journal will serve an important need 
in projecting new and interesting research in SLA.

This is the second issue of our journal, which is published bi-annually and 
consists of articles submitted to us directly or solicited (by invitation). Each text 
is peer-reviewed in a double blind referring process by referees of the Editorial 
Board and beyond. The Editorial Board consists of both Polish scholars and 
foreign experts in the area, and represents the wide range of research interests 
of its members. All updated information on the journal is available on its new 



6 Preface

website at www.journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/TAPSLA. Starting with the present 
issue, the journal is also available in electronic form.

We hope that this journal to some extent fills a gap in the Polish journal 
publishing market and that it will be of interest to researchers working in the 
field of second language acquisition. We would like to invite Polish and foreign 
academics to share their scholarly research with us by submitting their work 
to the Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition, published by the 
prestigious Polish academic publisher, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego 
(University of Silesia Press).

The present issue consists of articles in various areas of SLA and also 
research in multilingualism. The thematic spread starts with texts related to se-
lected sociolinguistic variables (age and sex), followed by studies of non-native 
speaker e-mail communication and code-switching practices among immigrants 
in the UK, and a more theoretically-oriented paper delving into the theoretical 
conceptualizations of language aptitude. The final paper represents the multi-
lingual dimension of psycholinguistic investigations.

Danuta Gabryś-Barker
Adam Wojtaszek