Connected Words: Word Associations and Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Paul Meara. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, (2009). xvii + 174 pp.

Paul Meara has arguably been the most original thinker in the field of second language vocabulary acquisition (SLVA) over the past 3 decades, and his independent approach to research in the field is apparent from the beginning pages of Connected Words: Word Associations and Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition . His point is simple, yet powerful: Second language vocabulary acquisition researchers need to ask better questions, be more critical of the status quo in the field, and invest more effort into producing more effective methodologies and research instruments that allow them to better illuminate critical areas in the field. This book is a historical account of Meara’s attempts to do exactly that over a 30-year period. The book is divided into five sections. Section 1, Early work, is made up of two chapters that Meara calls “classic research” into word associations, as the two studies are based on traditional research methodologies and traditional ways of interpreting word association data (i.e., by dividing them into syntagmatic and paradigmatic associations). As Meara acknowledges, the studies offer little insight into the second language lexicon or how highquality associational data can be elicited. Rather, the primary benefit of these studies is to make the limitations of the traditional research paradigm clear and allow readers to better appreciate what follows by understanding the starting point of L2 word association research. Section 2 is an exploration of one of several novel ideas in the book: Second language learners’ ability to produce word associations can provide