Explores the process of word selection in second language use and the factors which determine the writer's choice of words.

Svetlana Vetchinnikova is University Lecturer in the Department of Languages, University of Helsinki. Her current interests include chunking at different levels of language organisation, individual variation and modelling language as a complex system. She is co-editor of Changing English: Global and Local Perspectives (2017) and, with Anna Mauranen, of Language Change (Cambridge, forthcoming).

1. Introduction; 2. From a unit of meaning to a meaning-shift unit; 3. L2 use and processing of multi-word units; 4. Triangulating usage, exposure and processing; 5. Meaning-shift units in L2 learning and use: Usage vs. exposure; 6. Meaning-shift units in L2 processing: Usage vs. word association responses; 7. Toward the bigger picture.