scholarly journals THE ROBUSTNESS OF CRITICAL PERIOD EFFECTS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. DeKeyser
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Period Effects ◽  
High Level ◽  
Adult Immigrants

This study was designed to test the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (Bley-Vroman, 1988), which states that, whereas children are known to learn language almost completely through (implicit) domain-specific mechanisms, adults have largely lost the ability to learn a language without reflecting on its structure and have to use alternative mechanisms, drawing especially on their problem-solving capacities, to learn a second language. The hypothesis implies that only adults with a high level of verbal analytical ability will reach near-native competence in their second language, but that this ability will not be a significant predictor of success for childhood second language acquisition. A study with 57 adult Hungarian-speaking immigrants confirmed the hypothesis in the sense that very few adult immigrants scored within the range of child arrivals on a grammaticality judgment test, and that the few who did had high levels of verbal analytical ability; this ability was not a significant predictor for childhood arrivals. This study replicates the findings of Johnson and Newport (1989) and provides an explanation for the apparent exceptions in their study. These findings lead to a reconceptualization of the Critical Period Hypothesis: If the scope of this hypothesis is limited to implicit learning mechanisms, then it appears that there may be no exceptions to the age effects that the hypothesis seeks to explain.

The state of emergentism in second language acquisition

2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin R. Gregg
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The State ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
The Mind

‘Emergentism’ is the name that has recently been given to a general approach to cognition that stresses the interaction between organism and environment and that denies the existence of pre-determined, domain-specific faculties or capacities. Emergentism thus offers itself as an alternative to modular, ‘special nativist’ theories of the mind, such as theories of Universal Grammar (UG). In language acquisition, emergentists claim that simple learning mechanisms, of the kind attested elsewhere in cognition, are sufficient to bring about the emergence of complex language representations. In this article, I consider, and reject, several a priori arguments often raised against ‘special nativism’. I then look at some of the arguments and evidence for an emergentist account of second language acquisition (SLA), and show that emergentists have so far failed to take into account, let alone defeat, standard Poverty of the Stimulus arguments for ‘special nativism’, and have equally failed to show how language competence could ‘emerge’.

scholarly journals The critical period effects in second language acquisition

2016 ◽  
pp. 86-96
Author(s):  
Jhon Jairo Losada Rivas
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Period Effects

Este artículo tiene como objetivo brindar una clara revisión de algunos de los factores más importantes relacionados con la diferencia de edades y el comúnmente conocido como periodo crítico en la adquisición de una segunda lengua (SLA). Primeramente, este se centra en revisar las principales consideraciones de la Hipótesis del Periodo Crítico (CPH) y el periodo sensible en la adquisición de otra lengua. Seguidamente, algunos aspectos influyentes son analizados tales como la edad inicial de exposición de una lengua, duración del estudio y variables actitudinales conectadas con las perspectivas anteriormente mencionadas. Finalmente, el autor concluye sugiriendo que mientras existen algunas evidencias que demostrarían ciertos efectos del periodo crítico en la adquisición de una segunda lengua, el aprendizaje de una lengua es un proceso que todos los individuos pueden emprender sin importar la edad o las etapas de maduración, ya que hay otros aspectos de carácter lingüístico, cognitivo, afectivo y sociales que también influencian el proceso de adquisición de una segunda lengua y que no están necesariamente asociados a efectos de la edad.

Grammatically Judgments and Second Language Acquisition

1991 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Think Aloud ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Think Aloud Protocols ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions

This article takes a critical look at grammaticality judgment tasks in second language acquisition research. It begins by examining the theoretical assumptions that underlie grammaticality judgment tasks, pointing out that previous studies have reported considerable differences between the results obtained from grammaticality judgment tasks and from other, production-oriented tasks. A description of the design features of grammaticality judgment tasks that have been used to date is then provided. There follows an account of a small-scale study designed to investigate the nature of learner judgments. Twenty-one adult advanced Chinese learners of English were asked to judge sentences designed to test their knowledge of dative alternation. The results indicated that the learners rarely used the “not sure” option in the test. Eight of these subjects were then administered a reduced version of the original test as a think-aloud task 1 week later. The results showed that these learners were inconsistent in 22.5% of their judgments. The think-aloud protocols showed that they resorted to a variety of strategies in making judgments. The article concludes by arguing that grammaticality judgment tasks elicit a particular kind of performance that needs to be understood much more thoroughly before it is used as a basis for investigating second language acquisition.

Universals, innateness and explanation in second language acquisition

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 682-703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Eckman
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Typology ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Typological Approach

This paper considers the question of explanation in second language acquisition within the context of two approaches to universals, Universal Grammar and language typology. After briefly discussing the logic of explaining facts by including them under general laws (Hempel & Oppenheim 1948), the paper makes a case for the typological approach to explanation being the more fruitful, in that it allows more readily for the possibility of ‘explanatory ascent’, the ability to propose more general, higher order explanations by having lower-level generalizations follow from more general principles. The UG approach, on the other hand is less capable of such explanatory ascent because of the postulation that the innate, domain-specific principles of UG are not reducible in any interesting way to higher order principles of cognition (Chomsky 1982).

Lexical Organization in Second Language Acquisition: Does the Critical Period Matter?

TESOL Journal ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 540-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Cardimona ◽  
Pamela Smith ◽  
Lauren Sones Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Lexical Organization

scholarly journals Effect of Age in Second Language Acquisition: A Critical Review from the Perspective of Critical Period Hypothesis and Ultimate Attainment

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Mosiur Rahman ◽  
Ambigapathy Pandian ◽  
Abdul Karim ◽  
Faheem Hasan Shahed
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Critical Period Hypothesis ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Ultimate Attainment ◽  
Effect Of Age

This article addresses the effect of age in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), posing the relative question that whether the Critical Period hypothesis (CPH) exists in Second Language (SL), and if existing, how it is associated duly with SLA. The justification of comparing the achievement of L1 and L2 learners on the basis of Ultimate Attainment (UA) in the establishment of Critical Period Hypothesis, is also discussed. In the methodology, secondary data analysis was used to answer of research questions. To achieve a reliable result from the wide range of secondary data primarily from journal articles, a systemic search has been adopted. In conclusion, compare and contrast was made with earlier studies to show the findings of the study and to scope future research. 

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