Which Language Acquisition Argument can Hold Water?

The behavior before and after the critical period should display a decedent step function pattern of change.

Elman et al. (1996) directly re-analyzed the research data of Johnson and Newport (1989). They found that learning outcomes showed a linear decline with age, which is different from what Johnson and Newport reported that there was an abrupt change within and outside of the critical period.

Hakuta et al. (2003) had the opportunity to make use of the national census to survey the English level of Chinese immigrants in the United States.

They requested the research subjects to self-evaluate their English level. Results showed that, without considering other variables, the level of fluency of the English language was basically inversely proportional to the number of years of stay in the U.S. after immigration. However, the curve declined gradually, rather than the decedent step function pattern of decline.

If CPH exists in the learning of a second language, as long as the learning age is similar, there should not be an obvious difference in the result among learners from different regions in this world.

Birdsong and Molisin (2001) used Spanish immigrants in the U.S. as the subjects of the experiment, while the subjects of Johnson and Newport’s study were Korean immigrants.

Both studies are the same in test procedures and experimental design. Under the same condition, the subjects of the study carried out by Birdsong and Molis showed better performance than those by Johnson and Newport.

Accordingly, the results show that the phenomenon of the critical period is not universal among different language users.

References

Birdsong, D. & Molis, M. (2001). On the evidence for maturational constraints in second-language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 44, 235–249.

Elman, J.L., Bates, E.A., Johnson, M.H., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D., & Plunket, K. (1996). Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on development. The MIT Press.

Hakuta, K., Bialystok, E. & Wiley, E. (2003). Critical evidence: a test of the critical period hypothesis for second language acquisition. Psychological Sciences, 14, 31–38.

Johnson, J.S. & Newport, E.L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: the influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 60–99.

Johnson, J.S. & Newport, E.L. (1991). Critical period effects on universal properties of language: the status of subjacency in the acquisition of a second language. Cognition, 39, 215–258.

Originally published at http://poeticmindfulness.wordpress.com on November 8, 2020.