The study of bilingualism has become an important field within applied linguistics, as indicated by the fact that in the past 3 years, several comprehensive volumes that relate to bilingualism have been published with the word “handbook” in their titles. Nevertheless, this volume offers new perspectives even to those who have read The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (Doughty & Long, 2003) and The Handbook of Bilingualism (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2004). Whereas the previous handbooks summarize the state-of-the-art research findings and theories in the field of SLA, this new book, edited by Kroll and de Groot, familiarizes readers with the cognitive approach to the study of bilingualism. The majority of the chapters in this volume do more than just summarize psycholinguistic issues in SLA research; many of them present research findings not yet published (e.g., Christoffels & de Groot, Pienemann et al., Sanchez-Casas & Garcia-Albea, Tamar & Galan) and extend previous models of language acquisition and production to account for more phenomena of bilingualism (e.g., La Heij, MacWhinney, Myers-Scotton).

The volume is divided into four parts, entitled “Acquisition,” “Comprehension,” “Production and Control,” and “Aspects and Implications of Bilingualism.” The eight chapters in the section on acquisition discuss aspects of vocabulary learning (de Groot & Hell), the acquisition of syntax (Pienemann et al.), morphology (De Houwer), and phonology (Sebastián-Gallés & Bosch) as well as the critical period and age of acquisition effects (Birdsong; DeKeyser & Larson-Hall). In this section, we can also read two chapters on theories of language acquisition: MacWhinney presents a new version of his competition model and Murre describes the various computational models of first language and second language learning. The chapters in the section on comprehension follow a clear order: the sequence of comprehension processes. First, readers are acquainted with research on word recognition and lexical access (Dijsktra; Thomas & van Heuwen.), then with models of lexical representation (Francis; Sánchez-Casas & García-Albea), and, finally, with recent research on sentence processing (Frenck-Mestre). The section on production and control gives a comprehensive account of language production. In their chapters, both La Heij and Myers-Scotton propose new ways of conceptualizing speech production processes, whereas Michel and Gollan present new findings concerning the role of working memory capacity in language production. The fourth section, “Aspects and Implications of Bilingualism,” is further subdivided into two parts: “Cognitive Consequences” and “Cognitive Neuroscience Approaches.” The latter subsection contains fascinating chapters about the bilingual brain, whereas the former includes chapters that could not be thematically organized into any of the previous three main sections. Chapters in this section include Bialystok's chapter on the consequences of bilingualism for cognitive development, Pavlenko's philosophical discussion of bilingualism and thought, and Christoffels and de Groot's description of the cognitive processes involved in simultaneous interpreting.

This volume is both an excellent reference book and a good collection of chapters of outstanding quality. The volume is logically organized and covers all of the relevant issues in the psycholinguistic study of bilingualism. The only aspect of the handbook that can be criticized is its reader-friendliness. Even for a researcher in the field, some parts of certain chapters were difficult to follow; therefore, certain chapters might not be accessible for a novice audience such as postgraduate students. Nevertheless, I would recommend that the handbook should be on the shelves of students and scholars seriously interested in the cognitive aspects of SLA.