scholarly journals Near-native, nativelike or native? Some terminological and conceptual remarks on L2 ultimate attainment research

2018 ◽  
Vol 93 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamil Zubrzycki
Keyword(s):  
Critical Period ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Factor ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Ultimate Attainment

The main objective of this paper is to draw attention to the problem of the inconsistent and potentially confusing use of the terms near-native, nativelike and native with reference to study participants and their level of L2 ultimate attainment in age-related research, as well as to highlight certain conceptual discrepancies pertaining to this issue. A basic analysis of some of the best-known publications in the relevant literature has demonstrated that the terms near-native and nativelike are not always defined in the same way, and furthermore, distinct criteria are applied to select highly advanced subjects for studies which set out to determine whether reaching a nativelike (native) level of L2 proficiency is feasible, thereby supporting or challenging the Critical Period Hypothesis. Such a state of affairs might have serious implications both for the methodology of L2 ultimate attainment research and the interpretation of the corresponding results. It is also argued that adopting a more bilingual-oriented approach to nativelikeness and reconsidering the role of the native speaker as the yardstick for L2 performance may significantly benefit the SLA theory by facilitating the interpretation of the findings and increasing the validity of studies investigating the age factor in L2 acquisition.

scholarly journals A critical review of age-related research on L2 ultimate attainment

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Muñoz ◽  
David Singleton
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Brain Research ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Ultimate Attainment

This article addresses age-related attainment effects in second language acquisition, posing the question of whether such effects are to be explained in terms of a Critical Period with a predictable and abrupt offset point or in terms of the impact of a wider range of factors. It attempts to explore this question by focusing on four discussion points in the current debate: (i) the wide use of native-speaker behaviour as the key L2 attainment yardstick; (ii) the degree of compatibility of prevailing views regarding the notion of a critical period for L2 acquisition; (iii) the relative narrowness of much research in this area, where age of L2 onset is often regarded as the crucial if not the only critical variable; and (iv) insights relative to maturational constraints on language acquisition offered by recent brain research. The article concludes that a loosening of the association between ultimate L2 attainment research and Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) issues would shed more light on L2 attainment in terms both of the comprehensiveness and of the acuity of the insights which would result.

scholarly journals Second language ultimate attainment: Effects of maturation, exercise, and social/psychological factors

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 921-923 ◽  
Author(s):  
KENNETH HYLTENSTAM
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Prior Learning ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Exact Position ◽  
Ultimate Attainment

Mayberry and Kluender (2017) offer a rich review of empirical research that contributes to the understanding of age-related effects on first and second language acquisition. Their keynote article compiles current, primarily linguistic and neurolinguistic, research on the notion of a critical period for language (CPL). The authors conclude “that the putative CPL applies to L1 learning, and that L2 effects are a consequence of this prior learning” (Mayberry & Kluender, 2017: p. 6). As they propose a clear role for CPL in L1 learning, and because their exact position on its role in L2 learning is, to my mind, not as clearly articulated, I will take the opportunity to argue the following: If a CPL exists at all, it should have identifiable implications for all kinds of language acquisition (cf. Gleitman & Newport, 1995). In the case of L2 acquisition what needs to be identified is how maturational constraints (implicated by a CPL) interact with other conditions that are at hand when the second language comes onto the scene.

scholarly journals Adolescence as a “critical period” in the heritage language use. Polish in Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 301-315
Author(s):  
Hanna Pułaczewska
Keyword(s):  
Role Models ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Media ◽  
Role Of Parents ◽  
Qualitative Part ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In the article, we consider the impact of adolescence upon the usage of Polish in Polish-German bilinguals raised and living in Germany and demonstrate how adolescence surfaces as a socially based “critical period” in this usage using results from a survey and interviews conducted with 30 teenagers. In the quantitative part of the study, we seek to establish whether adolescents’ age affected the pattern and quantity of their usage of Polish in the media and contacts with age peers, whether the latter two facets of growing up with Polish were interrelated, and which other factors affected peer-relevant activities in Polish. Both age and peer contact turned out to significantly affect the use of the media in Polish, while peer contact in Polish was affected by the parental use of Polish in parent-child communication. The qualitative part presents the context and motivation for using Polish by the youths in peer-relevant activities. We integrate the results with insights provided by child development psychology from the perspective of language socialisation theory and interpret the age-related decline of interest in the Polish media as an effect of a diminishing role of parents and the increasing role of age peers as role models in personal development.

scholarly journals Rethinking the critical period for language: New insights into an old question from American Sign Language

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 886-905 ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHEL I. MAYBERRY ◽  
ROBERT KLUENDER
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Second Language Proficiency ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Language Outcome ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
Ultimate Attainment

The hypothesis that children surpass adults in long-term second-language proficiency is accepted as evidence for a critical period for language. However, the scope and nature of a critical period for language has been the subject of considerable debate. The controversy centers on whether the age-related decline in ultimate second-language proficiency is evidence for a critical period or something else. Here we argue that age-onset effects for first vs. second language outcome are largely different. We show this by examining psycholinguistic studies of ultimate attainment in L2 vs. L1 learners, longitudinal studies of adolescent L1 acquisition, and neurolinguistic studies of late L2 and L1 learners. This research indicates that L1 acquisition arises from post-natal brain development interacting with environmental linguistic experience. By contrast, L2 learning after early childhood is scaffolded by prior childhood L1 acquisition, both linguistically and neurally, making it a less clear test of the critical period for language.

Roles of positive and indirect negative evidence in L2 feature reassembly

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Woramon Prawatmuang ◽  
Boping Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
The Other ◽  
Negative Evidence ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Advanced Level ◽  
Positive Evidence ◽  
Feature Reassembly ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

Abstract This article reports an empirical study investigating L2 acquisition of the Mandarin Chinese collective marker -men by adult Thai-speaking learners and the Thai collective marker phûak- by adult Chinese-speaking learners within the framework of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2009a, 2009b). An acceptability judgment test was administered to learners with beginning, intermediate and advanced proficiencies of Chinese and Thai (n = 114) as well as native speaker controls (n = 30). The results reveal a facilitating role of positive evidence in L2 feature reassembly as Chinese learners who are exposed to positive evidence of “phûak + animal noun” and “phûak + indefinite noun” structures in their Thai input perform native-like on these structures from an intermediate level onward. On the other hand, feature reassembly is hindered when positive evidence is unavailable as in the case of Thai learners of Chinese where no evidence they receive in the input shows ungrammaticality of “animal noun + men” and “indefinite noun + men” structures in Chinese. These learners mostly fail to perform native-like even at an advanced level.

scholarly journals Early child L2 acquisition: Age or input effects? Neither, or both?

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 608-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHARON UNSWORTH
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Age Of Onset ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Theoretical Significance ◽  
Verb Placement ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractThis paper explores whether there is evidence for age and/or input effects in child L2 acquisition across three different linguistic domains, namely morphosyntax, vocabulary, and syntax–semantics. More specifically, it compares data from English-speaking children whose age of onset to L2 Dutch was between one and three years with data from children whose age of onset was between four and seven years in their acquisition of verb morphology, verb placement, vocabulary, and direct object scrambling. The main findings were that there were no significant differences between the two groups in any of these areas and, with the exception of scrambling, current amount of exposure was the only factor significantly related to children's scores. The paper discusses the theoretical significance of these findings with respect to the role of input in the language acquisition process and the claim that there is a critical period ending within (early) childhood.

THE AGE FACTOR IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.David Singleton and Zsolt Lengyel. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters, 1995. Pp. viii + 160.

1997 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 406-407
Author(s):  
Martha Young-Scholten
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Affective Factors ◽  
Age Factor ◽  
Original Question ◽  
Age Studies

The age issue has been with us for some time, and Singleton and Lengyel's six-paper volume indicates it will accompany us into the next millennium. In the L1A = L2A spirit of the 1970s, nonlinguistic accounts for age differences were offered. Yet if factors such as anxiety or ego permeability are responsible for lack of L2 success after a certain age, studies of postpuberty failure either point to the difficulty of reducing affective factors to prepuberty levels or, alternatively, offer support for a neurobiologically based Critical Period. These studies notwithstanding, it is helpful to return to the original question: Is the outcome of adult L2 acquisition always failure?

scholarly journals The Role of Theory in SLA Empirical Research on the Critical Period Hypothesis

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paige Yi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Period ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Critical Period Hypothesis ◽  
L2 Phonology ◽  
Naturalistic Environment ◽  
Ultimate Attainment

This paper sets out to peruse the role of various theories or more precisely, hypotheses invoked in SLA research by surveying three empirical studies pertaining to the critical period hypothesis in the SLA of phonetics and phonology. In particular, the three studies which will be reviewed in the next section are titled in chronological order as (1) A critical period for learning to pronounce foreign languages? (Flege, 1987); (2) Reexamining the critical period hypothesis: A case study of successful adult SLA in a naturalistic environment. (Ioup et al., 1994); (3) Ultimate attainment in L2 Phonology: The Critical Factors of Age, Motivation, and Instruction (Moyer, 1999).

scholarly journals Ultimate attainment of second language articles: A case study of an endstate second language Turkish-English speaker

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal Snape ◽  
Tanja Kupisch
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Large Percentage ◽  
English Speaker ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Analysis Software ◽  
Prosodic Transfer ◽  
Ultimate Attainment

An area of considerable interest in second language (L2) acquisition is the difficulties learners face with the acquisition of articles. This article examines the role of prosody in the acquisition of articles by an endstate L2 English speaker focusing on the free morphemes the and a. In order to analyse the articles produced by a Turkish speaker named SD, we used the Praat (Boersma and Weenink, 2006) phonetic analysis software to determine the prosodic shape of each article in article + noun configurations and article + adjective + noun configurations. The aim of the analysis is to see whether a more detailed analysis of the data would be fully consistent with the strong or weak interpretation of the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis. The findings of our analysis show that SD produces a large percentage of stressed articles, which are non target-like. We discuss the implications of our analysis for the interlanguage representation of articles by SD as well as the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis.

scholarly journals The Reliability of Critical Period Hypothesis

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Zakaria Bziker
Keyword(s):  
Adult Learners ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Critical Period Hypothesis ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Ultimate Attainment

This article is an attempt to examine the reliability of the Critical Period Hypothesis (Note 1) in light of subsequent studies. The high improbability of successful L2 acquisition among adults is the main point of strength that CPH enjoys. However, we have incidents of nativelikeness with individuals that began L2 acquisition years past the critical period (Note 2) in addition to supporting studies that show ultimate attainment among L2 learners is still possible. In this case do we still talk about a reliable hypothesis? This opens us to ponder whether CPH is purely biological or there are other social construct factors at play that help some L2 adult learners to attain nativelikness despite the high unlikelihood of its occurrence.

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