Reviewed by Richard W. Hallett, Northeastern Illinois University

This edited book contains second language acquisition (SLA) and second language attrition research on missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormons. As the editor, Lynne Hansen, notes in Ch. 1, ‘Introduction: Investigating mission languages’ (1–9), this population is ripe for SLA research, as the missionaries typically spend around two years in a second language (L2) environment. This book is divided into two sections: ‘Acquisition of mission languages’ and ‘Attrition of mission languages’.

The first section begins with Ch. 2, ‘Language learning and teaching in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ (13–28), in which C. Ray Graham provides a historical overview of LDS language training programs from the creation of the ‘deseret alphabet’ (16) to the establishment of sixteen missionary training centers around the world. In Ch. 3, ‘The development of speaking proficiency of LDS missionaries’ (29–49), Dan Dewey and Ray T. Clifford compare returned missionaries’ oral proficiency to that of undergraduate foreign language majors. In Ch. 4, ‘An examination of the effects of input, aptitude, and motivation on the language proficiency of missionaries learning Japanese as a second language’ (51–88), Jenifer Larson-Hall and Dan Dewey analyze forty-four missionaries who are native speakers of English learning Japanese as an L2. Lynne Hansen, Karri Lam, Livia Orikasa Nufer, Paul Rama, Geraldine Schwaller, and Ronald M. Miller investigate the lexical acquisition of German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish in Ch. 5, ‘In the beginning was the word: Vocabulary learning in six mission languages’ (89–108).

The second section begins with Ch. 6, ‘The lost word: Vocabulary attrition in six mission languages’ (111–34), in which Lynne Hansen, Andrew Colver, Wonhye Chong, Helama Pereira, Jeremy Robinson, Akihiro Sawada, and Ronald M. Miller examine attrition in the same six languages examined in the previous chapter. C. Ray Graham analyzes the L2 attrition of fifteen returned missionaries in Ch. 7, ‘Vocabulary attrition in adult speakers of Spanish as a second language’ (135–84).  In Ch. 8, ‘Savings in the relearning of mission vocabulary: The effects of time and proficiency’ (185–202), Lynne Hansen, Melanie McKinney, and Yukako Umeda apply the savings paradigm from cognitive psychology to the vocabulary (re)learning of Japanese and Korean by returned missionaries. Lynne Hansen and Yung-Lin Chen test the numeral classifier accessibility hierarchy in Ch. 9, ‘What counts in the retention of numeral classifiers in Japanese and Chinese?’ (203–20). In Ch. 10, ‘Syntactic attrition in L2 Japanese missionary language’ (221–44), Robert A. Russell examines particle usage and syntactic complexity used by a small set of returned missionaries. Lynne Hansen, James Gardner, James Pollard, Joshua Rowe, and Junko Tsukayama measure temporality in oral narratives via a new computer instrument in Ch. 11, ‘The measurement of oral fluency in mission languages’ (245–58). The book concludes with two bibliographies, one annotated and the other not annotated.

Overall, this book bolsters the literature on L2 retention and attrition.