Cross-linguistic evidence for the nature of age effects in second language acquisition

Abstract

Few researchers would doubt that ultimate attainment in second language grammar is negatively correlated with age of acquisition, but considerable controversy remains about the nature of this relationship: the exact shape of the age-attainment function and its interpretation. This article presents two parallel studies with native speakers of Russian: one on the acquisition of English as a second language in North America (n = 76), and one on the acquisition of Hebrew as a second language in Israel (n = 64). Despite the very different nature of the languages being learned, the two studies show very similar results. When age at testing is partialed out, the data reveal a steep decline in the learning of grammar before age 18 in both groups, followed by an essentially horizontal slope until age 40. This is interpreted as evidence in favor of the critical period. Both groups show a significant correlation between ultimate attainment and verbal aptitude for the adult learners, but not for the early learners. This is interpreted as further evidence that the learning processes in childhood and adulthood not only yield different levels of proficiency but are also different in nature.Age effects in (second) language learning are widely acknowledged, but their exact nature remains controversial, in particular, the concept of a critical period for second language acquisition (SLA). In about the last 15 years, numerous arguments against the critical period hypothesis (CPH) have been formulated: a few studies have failed to find a clear correlation between age of acquisition and ultimate attainment; many more researchers accept the negative correlation as a fact, but they argue that it is attributable to a confound between age of acquisition and one or more other variables, such as length of residence, age at testing, the nature of the input received as a function of age, the extent to which education was provided in the second language (L2) or the first language (L1), the (lack of) motivation to integrate fully with the L2 society, or simply the amount of practice

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

“…Moreover, many more researchers accept the negative correlation between age and Critical Period Hypothesis as a fact (DeKeyser, Shabtay & Ravid, 2010). However, Ellis & Sagarra (2010) argued that there is limited attainment among adult learners of a second language.…”

“…The reasons behind ultimate attainment and CPH being an unsolved mystery laying behind the shade of poor methodological 7, No. 5;2017 instrumentation (DeKeyser et al, 2010).…”

“…Hulstijn (2014), cited in Rahman & Pandian (2016), articulated the distinct nature between positivism and interpretivism, which can differentiate one research from another. The ultimate attainment were mostly evaluated in the numbers by grammatical judgement tests with a few variables (DeKeyser et al, 2010). Moreover, present-day SLA research is also dominated by lab-based experiments, which are fundamentally wrong for the conception of research in SLA since it eliminates the natural setting of research at the start (Rahman & Pandian, 2016;Light & Gnida, 2012).…”

“…In the field of SLA, more specifically, age-related studies lack uniformity and methodological soundness (Muñoz & Singleton, 2011;DeKeyser et al, 2010). Due to this, the available findings in literature is inconclusive and speculative.…”

Role of Formal Input Exposure and Onset Age in Grammaticality Judgement

“…The influence of the CP on various skills and linguistic factors at different ages, levels and areas of knowledge have been studied and the results have caused disagreement among researchers and linguists (Huang 2009, Johnson & Newport 1989, Dekeyser et al 2008, Flege, Yein-Komshian & Liu 1999, Nikolov & Djigunovic 2006, Johstone 2002. BettoniTechio (2008) states that, according to Lenneberg (1967) the beginning of lateralisation (age two) is introduced as the onset for learning and the offset would be the end of lateralisation (puberty); though she points out that there is no fixed agreement on the onset and offset of language acquisition, it is mostly agreed that puberty is the offset.…”