Age constraints on first versus second language acquisition: Evidence for linguistic plasticity and epigenesis  

Oleh:

Mayberry, Rachel I. ; Lock, Elizabeth

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Brain and Language (Full Text) vol. 87 no. 3 (2003), page 369-384.
Topik: Critical period; Grammatical processing; Comprehension; First-language acquisition; Second-language acquisition; Signed language; ASL; Plasticity; Syntax
Fulltext: 87_03_Mayberry.pdf (249.59KB)

Isi artikel

Does age constrain the outcome of all language acquisition equally regardless of whether the language is a first or second one? To test this hypothesis, the English grammatical abilities of deaf and hearing adults who either did or did not have linguistic experience (spoken or signed) during early childhood were investigated with two tasks, timed grammatical judgement and untimed sentence to picture matching. Findings showed that adults who acquired a language in early life performed at near-native levels on a second language regardless of whether they were hearing or deaf or whether the early language was spoken or signed. By contrast, deaf adults who experienced little or no accessible language in early life performed poorly. These results indicate that the onset of language acquisition in early human development dramatically alters the capacity to learn language throughout life, independent of the sensory-motor form of the early experience.

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