The Critical Period Hypothesis

Definition

A maturational period during which some experience will have its peak effect on development or learning resulting in normal behaviour attuned to the particular environment the organism has been exposed to. If exposure to this experience happens after this time, it will only have reduced or no effect. (Newport)

Critical period or critical periods?

The basic claim - strong and weak versions Evidence - feral children - child aphasia - deaf speakers and signers - L2 learning and acquisition

Evidence from the deaf: Chelsea

 Retareded or deaf?

 Hearing aid, normal capacity   IQ = 10 year old Works at a vet’s, reads, writes, communicates  Strings of words, no syntactic structure  Utterances comprehensible in context

Evidence from sign language

 Native – clear advantage in the use of grammatical markers  Early starters  Late starters

Evidence from neurology

 Medical evidence: childhood aphasia  Right hemisphere compensates for language capacity in childhood  No such compensation in adulthood  Controversial evidence for normal exposure and brain capacity

Processing L1 and L2

 L1 in both moniolinguals and bilinguals shows strong left hemisphere control  In later learners (even after 7) the active brain regions processing L2 and partially or completely non-overlapping with L1 areas  Neural organisation in late L2 is also less lateralisaed (more strategic control!!)

 Onset of L1 has great influence, onset of L2 doesn’t  Even overhearing a language, but not speaking or using it or hearing it again can reult in native like control later in life

Feral children

 Socialising, teaching and observing  Problems - ethical experiments?

- teacher=researcher bias - relation between lack of language and mental + social retardation

Wild Peter (13/1724) Victor (11/1800) Kaspar Houser (16/1828) Kamala and Amala (18m., 8/1920)

Genie

 Found: 13/1970  Severe social isolation  Thought to be mentally retarded  Punished for speech  20 words, colours,”stoppit”, „nomore”

Research and socialisation

 Taken into care  The first year: HOPE plural and singular nouns, positive and negative sentences 2/3-word sentences.

 Later: slow-down  Four years later No negation 'No' + V + Object No proper questions "Where is may I have a penny?" "I where is graham cracker on top shelf?"

 Chomsky no 'movement‘( reorganise the underlying declarative sentence)    Confused her pronouns, 'you' and 'me' interchangeable 'Hello‘, 'Thank you‘ 'Stopit‘, 'Nomore' addressed to herself

Achievements

 Sign language  Making sense of chaos  Spatial intelligence  Social relations  No apparent mental retardation

Support for CPH?

 Severe neglect and emotional trauma  Possibility of mental retardation  Right-hemisphere dominance  Language not lateralised to left-hemisphere: cause or result?

Conclusion

 Is there a CPH in FLA?

Clear neurological evidence (compensation) Suggestive evidence from the deaf Feral children - inconclusive

Critical Period Hypothesis in second language learning and acquisition

     

CPH in SLL/SLA: Weak version

Neurological Psychomotor Cognitive Affective Linguistic Contextual

Neurological considerations

 Lateralisation  Time - Lenneberg: 2-puberty - Krashen: 5 - Walsh & Diller: different timetables for different functions

Alternative considerations and counterevidence

 Left/Right cooperation in SLA Obler (1981): strategies of acquisition, guessing meaning, formulaic utterances

Scovel: socio-biological basis for accent in Western middle-class societies

Hill (1970), Sorenson (1967): multilingual tribes, no accent

Psychomotor considerations

 Problems in accent studies native judgement - testing isolated utterances, controlled language  Key issue: accent depends on muscular plasticity, subject to CP - the Henry Kissinger effect - significance?

ELF

Cognitive considerations

 Piaget, 1972 - sharp change from concrete to formal operation at puberty

A watched pot never boils?

 Equilibrium  Superior cognitive capacity in adults (Ausubel, 1964) - a watched pot never boils?

 Rote and meaningful learning

Rosansky, 1975: „Problem-centred learning” of children

Csíkszentmihályi’s Flow

Affective considerations

 Attitudes, beliefs, stereotypes,  Inhibition egocentrism – decentration – defending ego

 Motivation - internal - external - integrative - instrumental

 Identity (Guiora) - face threat - second identity - language ego - permeability of language ego

Linguistic considerations

 Bilingualism - coordinate vs. compound

Strategies and processes in child L1 and L2 acquisition similar

• • • • similar mistakes in acquisition acquisition order (Dulay and Burt, 1974) transfer is rare, creative language acquisition adults rely more on system of L1

Context

 Learning vs. acquisition  Input (motherese vs. foreigner talk)  Peer pressure and group dynamics

Benefits for young learners in instructed FLL

-

Accent

(esp. with native speaker) -

Acquisition

(if rooted in activity and ample time and + atmosphere available) -

Low inhibition

, communicating in L2:

natural

- Natural

curiosity

-

Little L1 influence

-

No preconceptions

culture about language and

Drawbacks

– – – – No (recognition of)

communicative need

No reliance on

reading/writing

No

formal

operation Difficult to

reproduce a rich „here and now

” context in classroom

Emergence of speech

is to be tolerated Difficult to demonstrate a

sense of progress

Highly

context and person dependent

Benefits for adults in instructed FLL

-

Formal operation

: grammar, vocabulary Learn through explanation (no exposure) L1 Previous

learning strategies

Controlled

motivation, goal orientation

Not strongly

context

dependent

Experience, beliefs

might create + attitude Faster development, better use of instructional time

Drawbacks

Too much reliance on the

rational mind Monitoring Low tolerance of ambiguity

No or little involvement of

affect Inhibitions

, L2 ego Previous

experience, attitudes Accent L1, L2

, etc.