Third language acquisition is a common phenomenon, which presents some specific characteristics as compared to second language acquisition. This volume adopts a psycholinguistic approach in the study of cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition and focuses on the role of previously acquired languages and the conditions that determine their influence.

Jasone Cenoz is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country (Spain). She co-edited the books Beyond Bilingualism and English in Europe (Multilingual Matters 1998, 2000) and has published in the fields of second/third language acquisition, multilingualism and interlanguage pragmatics.Britta Hufeisen is Director of the Language Resource Center at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, and Adjunct Professor with the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta, Edmonton/AB, Canada. She has published in the fields of third language acquisition and multilingualism. Another area of interest is the analysis of cultural-specificity in the development of foreign language learner narrative genres.Ulrike Jessner has published on psycholinguistic issues in the fields of first and second language acquisition, multilingualism and gender issues. Recently she has co-edited the book English in Europe and is co-author of A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism. She is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Innsbruck.