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What is the role of chronological age on the acquisition of a second language?

Age-Related Differences The effect of age on acquisition has been extensively documented, the issue being whether younger learners acquire a second language more efficiently than older learners. Research to date has not conclusively settled the issue of age one way or another (Scovel 1988), largely because, from a research perspective, the issue is more complex than it might seem at first. As Ellis (1985), points out, it is necessary to distinguish between the effect of age on the route of acquisition (whether the same target language items are acquired in the same order for different learners), the rate (how rapidly the learners acquire the language), and ultimate attainment (how proficient they end up being). Ellis concludes from his review of the available literature that, while age does not alter ultimate success. However, the results are by no means straightforward. For example, in terms of rate, adults appear to do better than children (6 to 10 years), while teenagers (12 to 15 years) appear to outperform both adults and children. Ellis concludes that:

1. Starting age does not affect the route of SLA. Although there may be differences in the acquisitional order, these are not the result of age. 2. Starting age affects the rate of learning. When grammar and vocabulary are concerned, adolescent learners do better than either children or adults, when the length of exposure is held constant. When pronunciation is concerned, there is no appreciable difference. 3. Both number of years of exposure and starting age affect the level of success. The number of years exposure contributes greatly to the overall communicative fluency of the learners, but starting age determines the level of accuracy achieved, particularly in pronunciation.

The Critical Period Hypothesis

These age-related differences have been explained in terms of a biological mechanism known as the critical period. This construct refers to a limited period of time in the development of an organism during which a particular behaviour can be acquired. Psycholinguists have looked for evidence of the critical period in both first- and second-language acquisition. It has been argued (see, for example, Penfield and Roberts 1959) that the optimum age for acquiring another language is in the first ten years of life because it is then that the brain retains its maximum plasticity or flexibility ( the plasticity metaphor, suggesting as it does that the brain is like a lump of plasticine that gradually hardens with age, seems a favoured one among investigations of the critical period). It is suggested that, at around puberty, the brain loses its plasticity, the two hemispheres of the brain become much more independent of one another, and the language function is largely established in the left hemisphere. The critical period hypothesis argues that, after these neurological changes have taken place, acquiring another language becomes increasingly difficult.

The hypothesis, however, is not without its critics. As Ellis (1985) points out, it is only partially correct to suggest that acquisition is easier for younger children. In fact, pronunciation is the only area where the younger the start the better and the hypothesis is at a loss to explain why the loss of plasticity only affects pronunciation. Evidence relating to brain plasticity and the differential functions of the two hemispheres of the brain has come, not from research into language acquisition, but from clinic work on both children and adults who have suffered physical injury, or who have brain or speech disorders of one sort or another. Investigations into the effect of age on acquisition have come from the experiments and quasi-experiments. Such experiments typically take subjects from two contrasting age groups, such as children versus adolescents, or children versus adults, teach some aspect of the target language such as a grammatical form or phonological feature, and then test the subjects to determine whether one group has learned more effectively than the other. For example, Asher and Price (1967) compared the efforts of a group of pre-adolescents to learn Russian with a group of college students, and found that the adults outperformed the children. One of the major shortcomings of these experiments, however, is that they are generally extremely selective, looking at a small subset of the features of one aspect of the target language. They also tend to be carried out over relatively short periods of time. For instance, the study carried out by Asher and Prince was based on a mere 25 minutes of instruction.

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