Is there critical age for second language learning?

1. Is there critical age for second language learning? 3308 심리언어학 Steinberg & Schiarini 2006, Chapter 6

2. Age of acquisition • Characteristics of age - It is easy to define and measure than personality, attitude, or motivation -The relationship between a learner’s age and success in second language acquisition is the subject of much lively debate.

3. Age of acquisition • What makes the difference between young learners and adults in second language learning? • Differences of accent • Word choice - Grammatical features

4. Critical Period Hypothesis • A specific time in human development: somewhere around puberty • Developmental changes in the brain - Losing the innate biological ability

5. Critical Period Hypothesis • Intuition of grammaticality • The earlier the age of arrival, the better the participants perform on the second language learning.  Patkowski (1980); Johnson and Newport (1989); Mayberry and Lock (2003)

6. Critical Period Hypothesis • Intuition of grammaticality • Learners who begin to acquire a language after puberty can reach near-native levels.  Birdsong (1992); Wuijtswinkel (1994); White and Grenesee (1996); Birdsong and Molis (2001); Mayberry and Lock (2003)

7. Critical Period Hypothesis • Intuition of grammaticality - There is no critical age in terms of acquiring the syntax of a second language.

8. Critical Period Hypothesis • Mastery of the spoken language • Native-like mastery of the spoken language is difficult to attain by older learners.  Mack (1986); Perani et al. (2003); Scovel (1988)

9. Critical Period Hypothesis • Mastery of the spoken language • Henry Kissinger: 15 years old (German accent) • Zbigniew Brzezinski: 10 years old (Polish accent) - Arnold Schwarzenegger: 21 years old (German accent, born in Australia)

10. Critical Period Hypothesis • Mastery of the spoken language • Adults can pick up near-native foreign language pronunciation  Matsui (2000) • Special brain exercises are even reported to help people regain language functions despite various deficits.  Ariniello (2000)

11. Critical Period Hypothesis • Mastery of the spoken language - - “ a very high motivation.. continued access to target language input.. and intensive instruction in the perception and in the production of the speech sounds…” (Bongaerts et al., 1995, 1997).