Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2011, 33, 399–432. doi:10.1017/S0272263111000039 © Cambridge University Press 2011 399 LEFT DISLOCATION IN NEAR-NATIVE FRENCH Bryan Donaldson University of Texas at Austin The present study is concerned with the upper limits of SLA— specifically, mastery of the syntax-discourse interface in successful endstate learners of second-language (L2) French (near-native speakers). Left dislocation (LD) is a syntactic means of structuring spoken French discourse by marking topic. Its use requires speakers to coordinate syntactic and pragmatic or discursive knowledge, an interface at which L2 learners have been shown to encounter diffi- culties (e.g., Sorace, 1993; Sorace & Filiaci, 2006). The data come from (a) an 8.5-hr corpus that consists of recordings of 10 dyadic conversations between near-native and native speakers of French and (b) two contextualized paper and audio tasks that tested intui- tions and preferences regarding LD. Analyses of the near-native speakers’ production of LDs, the syntactic properties of their LDs, and their use of LDs to promote different types of discourse referents to topic status suggest that their mastery of this aspect of discourse organization converges on that of native speakers. THE ENDSTATE IN SLA Much SLA research has held that cases of entirely successful SLA are rare, if they exist at all (Bley-Vroman, 1989; Long, 1990). Most Thanks to Julie Auger, Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, David Birdsong, Laurent Dekydtspotter, Albert Valdman, the audience at EuroSLA 17 (in Newcastle), and the anonymous SSLA reviewers. The article has benefited greatly from the comments and suggestions of all these scholars; any remaining errors are my own. Address correspondence to: Bryan Donaldson, Department of French and Italian, University of Texas at Austin, HRH 2.114A, Mailcode B7600, Austin, TX 78712; e-mail: bdonaldson@austin.utexas.edu.