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A critical review of age-related research on L2 ultimate attainment Muñoz…
A critical review of age-related research on L2 ultimate attainment
Muñoz and Singleton (2011)
Variability in proposed for the critical period
Disagreements about when the optimum period of acquisition ends
at the age of 9: after this age the human brain becomes too stiff and rigid for lg learning purposes (Penfield)
puberty should be the offset point (Lenneberg)
doubts regarding the existence of CP
IMPORTANT: any comparison of early and late L2 beginners must be discussed relative to a particular timing of the critical age
Different areas of lg have different critical ages associated with them
EXAMPLES
for phonetics/phonology: twelfth month of infancy
for syntax: in the fourth year of life
for semantics: fifteenth / sexteenth year
Questions reagarding the scope of the the CP effects
it might affect:
lg in general (Lenneberg)
only the phonetic/phognologycal sphere (Scovel)
interpersonal communicative skills (Cummins)
Taking consideration the nature of offsets
types of decline in physical and cognitive capacities that is associated with the ageing of any organism :
gradual
linear
overall
The native speaker as a point of comparison
L2 proficiency is compared to native speakers' lg proficiency
Critical Period Hypothesis
Problematic because:
even very early L2 beginners tend to differ from monoglot native speakers
differences regarding: lexico-grammatical details, phonological details
the degree of distance between the L1 and the L2 palys a role as well
e.g. Spanish-->English = easier ; Vietnamese -->English = more challanging
language aptutide palys a role in successfull L2 learning at any age
+the level of exposure in the L2 also have in important effect
it is questionable whether Universal Grammar remains available beyond this critical period or not
CPH claims:
early acquirers tend to end up indistingusihable form native speakers
later aquires are not indistingusihable form native speakers
Problematic because: native speakers are exposed to the lg in question since infancy
Taking into consideration of L1 acquisition studies
There are two kind of late L1 acquires
children who were deprived of normal human society + linguistic interaction (case of Genie)
deprivation of lg input when cognitive developments are the most intense in a child life -->generates serious cognitive effects -->negative effect in late lg development
profoudly deaf children who are not give access to lg input they can process until a relatively late stage
Problematic beacuse: the notion of native speakrs is culture-bound
there are areas where many lgs are used -->hard for natives to recognize L2 users of their own lg e.g. South India
Problematic beacuse: there are cases where in functional terms the L2 becomes the L1
individuals become native on their L2 and tend to forget their L1 because of lack of use