Critical period in second language acquisition: The age-attainment geometry

critical period effects in foreign language learning:the influence of maturational state on the acquisition of reading,writing, and grammar in english as a foreign language

since the 1960s the age effects on learning both first and second language have been explored by many linguists and applied linguists (e.g lennerberg, 1967; schachter, 1996; long, 1990) and the existence of critical period for language acquisition was found to be a common ground of all these studies. in spite of some common findings, some issues about the impacts of age on acquiring a second or...

Assess the Critical Period Hypothesis in Second Language Acquisition

The ultimate attainment level of Second Language Acquisition (L2A) contrasts sharply with that of First Language Acquisition (L1A) (Birdsong, 1999, p.1). That is: various success versus universal success (Gleitman & Newport, 1995, p.1). This significant difference between L1A and L2A is explained by the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH). The CPH states that for language acquisition, either first...

Ultimate Attainment in Second Language Acquisition

Second Language Acquisition and Ultimate Attainment

In second language acquisition (L2A) research, ultimate attainment refers to the outcome or end point of acquisition, and is used interchangeably with the terms final state, end state, and asymptote. "Ultimate" is not to be thought of as synonymous with "nativelike," although nativelikeness is one of the observed outcomes of L2A. Most L2A studies have focused on the initial state, stages in L2 ...

Critical evidence: a test of the critical-period hypothesis for second-language acquisition.

The critical-period hypothesis for second-language acquisition was tested on data from the 1990 U.S. Census using responses from 2.3 million immigrants with Spanish or Chinese language backgrounds. The analyses tested a key prediction of the hypothesis, namely, that the line regressing second-language attainment on age of immigration would be markedly different on either side of the critical-ag...