Age and SLA

Question 1

How do children and adults compare in potential for L2 learning?

Answer 1

• Adults and older children have an initial boost for the first 1-3 years.
• Younger children however will eventually catch up and overtake late starters
• Starting younger can mean a higher ultimate attainment.
• No difference for Foreign Language Learning

Question 2

What is the difference between Sensitive and Critical Period Hypotheses?

Answer 2

• Sensitive = A period of time in biological development where the person is more sensitive to something. If this something isn’t learned during this time, it can be picked up later with less efficiency.
• Critical = A period of time where something must be learned, or else it can not be learned later in life.

Question 3

How does Age affect the likelihood of acquiring native-like Morphosyntax?

Answer 3

• Empirical Dissonance: Research seems to show that there is a systematic relation between Age and Morphosyntax, but not necessarily a sharp cut of after puberty.
• There are always exceptional cases however.

Question 4

What is Morphosyntax.

Answer 4

Essentially a formal term for grammar.

Question 5

What are the effects of age on pronunciation? How is this explained?

Answer 5

• There is clear overwhelming evidence that foreign accents are more likely to develop when the L2 is learned later in life.
• Neuromuscular Programming
• L1 Interference: By age 5-7 mental phonetic categories are stabilized. Therefore new phonetic material must be processed through an L1 filter.
• There are always exceptional cases however.

Question 6

What causes the age effects? Explanations.

Answer 6

• L1 Entrenchment = The older a person is the more entrenched they are in their L1. The more entrenched they are, the more the L1 influences the L2.
• Critical/Senstive Hypotheses.
• Fundemental Difference Hypothesis

Question 7

What is the Fundemental Difference Hypothesis?

Answer 7

This hypothesis states that there is a fundamental difference between children and adults in the way they learn.

• Children can intuit a language (instinctively learn)
• Adults must problem solve and consciously attend to the L2 to learn it.

Question 8

Flege (1999: 125) points out that foreign accents may arise “not because one has lost the
ability to learn to pronounce, but because one has learned to pronounce the L1 so well.” What
is meant by this?

Answer 8

This means that the learner has become so entrenched in the L1 that they naturally process the L2 through it.

Question 9

Why might exceptionally late learners of L2 phonology be successful?

Answer 9

According to research by Bongaerts, exceptional learners had:

• High-quality L2 Instruction
• High motivation
• Desire to sound native-like