ABSTRACT
The topic of substrate inuence has often been viewed as a controversial area, and some specic controversies seem likely to continue for a long time to come. Even so, any careful look at the studies in the last three decades or so will afrm both massive evidence of such inuence and an increasing sophistication in methodology. Indeed, the enhanced understanding of what it takes to document substrate inuence has helped greatly in providing solid evidence and thus in reducing the range of controversies. This chapter focuses on the methodological advances, but a useful byproduct of looking at the advances will be some specic inferences about second language acquisition (SLA) and language contact that are warranted by the methods.
