ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 discusses recent trends in the area of language acquisition and provides the motivation and justification for conducting the current study. It consists of several sections that introduce relevant terminology, such as acquiring a language versus learning a language or terminological issues concerning the first, second, and third language of a speaker. Moreover, this chapter introduces (current) theories about second language acquisition and third language acquisition, as well as more specifically third language acquisition of bilingual heritage speakers, and it disentangles the seemingly contradictory findings of previous studies. In addition, the concepts of bilingualism and heritage speakers, the notion of metalinguistic awareness, as well as the topic of bilingual advantages are reviewed.
