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University Of Rijeka

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of English

Academic year: 2016-2017

Is there a critical period for second language acquisition? Discuss this question
based on the findings of empirical studies and, if possible, your own examples.

(essay)

Student: Darija Turkovi

Course: Second Language Acquisition

Course Instructor: Dr Tihana Kra


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When discussing second language acquisition, one of the most common tips that normally
pop out is the earlier, the better. The idea is that children should be exposed to second
language(s) as early as possible if they want to master it up to the degree of native-like
proficiency at some point in their future. Some people, those who want their children to be
bilingual or multilingual, expose their offsprings to more than one language since day one, i.e.
immediately after their very birth. Number of empirical research has been conducted on this
topic confirming that the earlier, the better theory really works. Recognition of this theory
implies accepting Chomskys critical period hypothesis, i.e. believing that the first few years
in a persons life are the crucial time for individuals to acquire first language (...) also, a
second language learner still has abilities to take up linguistic data and manage to build up
his/her language system during the early years and till his/her puberty (Lin, 2014, pp. 45). In
other words, it is suggested that there is a stage in human development when the brain is
predisposed for success in language learning. In this essay I will try to support this premise by
presenting some of the prominent pieces of research conducted in this field, but also enlist
some of my own experiences in language learning in order to prove respectability of this
thesis.

As stated earlier, number of research has been conducted in this field of humanities and
some of the most reputable ones are those carried out by scholars such as: Patkowski (1980),
Johnson and Newport (1989), DeKeyser (2000), etc. Mark S. Patkowski tackled this issue in
1980 and published his research The sensitive period for the acquisition of syntax in a second
language acquisition. In the very introduction of his paper, he stated his hypothesis in which
he argued that learners whose exposure to a second language begins before the age of 15
years achieve higher syntactic proficiency in the target language than adult learners
(Patkowski, 1980, pp. 449). For the sake of this research, Patkowski chose 67 highly educated
immigrants, non-native speakers of English. Of course, certain conditions, such as residing in
the US for no less than 5 years (Patkowski, 1980, pp. 451) had to be fulfilled for this research
to be undertaken properly. His method implied using native speakers of English for evaluation
of participants intelligibility of English. In other words, native speakers interviewed
participants by using transcript for measuring their syntactic comprehension. What Patkowski
eventually concluded was that age of first exposure to L2 definitely has an impact on
successful language learning. His research showed that those immigrants, whose first contact
with English happened prior to puberty, had higher L2 proficiency than those who started
learning after the stage of puberty.
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Another prominent research was conducted by Krashen, Long and Scarcella (1979) where
they discussed the difference regarding mode and pace of learning between children and
adults. In the very beginning of their work, they presented three hypotheses claiming that
adults and older children grasp syntactic and morphological knowledge faster than younger
children and assuming, which is for sake of this work quite relevant, that people whose L2
acquisition starts early in the childhood, normally reach higher L2 proficiency (Krashen,
Long, Scarcella, 1979, pp. 573). What they eventually came to conclude was that all of their
predictions were true, but emphasized the fact that, when dealing with empirical research, all
of the environmental influences should be taken into account because every case is unique
and a great dose of carefulness is needed so as not to fall under the impact of generalization.

In order to confirm these empirical studies, I would like to present my own experience with
language learning. I first started learning English at the age of 8. Even though I had some
contact with English language (mostly via media) even before that age, classroom instruction
did not take place until I was 8 years old. I continued learning English throughout my entire
education. After completing high school education, I enrolled in English department on
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and started using English on everyday basis. My
skills of English are productive, i.e. I am able to speak and write in English. I mastered some
of the pragmatic aspects of the language, too. Even though some properties of English I still
find troublesome, such as idioms and phrasal verbs and I cant really state that my usage of
English is equivalent to my usage of Croatian (my mother tongue), I can happily claim that if
I continue with this pace of learning, at some point in future my English will become almost
native-like. When it comes to other foreign languages, I must mention my experience with
German. I started acquiring it upon my arrival to high school. It was an obligatory subject that
all of us were required to study. Prior to my coming to high school, I had no contact with
German whatsoever. I never had the opportunity to hear conversation in German, nor I ever
listened songs or watched shows, movies or any other type of entertaining material on TV.
During my whole high school education, I was really motivated and inspired to learn a new
language beside English. I also had a terrific professor who gave her best to teach us German
from the scratch. My attitude towards German language, and culture in general, was rather
positive and I was more than willing to improve my language skills. However, that did not
happen. To be more precise, I did acquire some basic skills and knew how to hold a mere
conversation, but I never managed to achieve some higher proficiency. This was, in my
opinion, due to a frequency of exposure and the age of starting to learn it. When arrived in
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high school, I was already in adolescent years and my linguistic adaptability was somehow
fixed, i.e. used to the systems of Croatian and English and anything different than those
language models was for me difficult to grasp. Even though majority of important conditions
were fulfilled (positive attitude, motivation, great professor and inspiring classroom
atmosphere), I never managed to reveal the logic behind German language. I am sure that if I
had started learning German before entering the adolescent stage, the situation would have
been entirely different.

Second language acquisition is certainly one of those fields which remain disputable and
controversial. When addressing issues related to SLA, one must bear in mind that there are
many pieces of research proving that there really is critical period for mastering second
language and it probably implies pre-puberty stage. Since my own learning experience goes
hand in hand with those empirical findings, I firmly believe that the earlier, the better theory
makes sense and that children should be exposed to second language in their early childhood
if they are expected to reach a high level proficiency at some point in their future. Learning
language as a child who is not yet aware of the fact that language is actually a rule-governed
system, but rather absorbs knowledge carelessly, is far better method for acquiring language
than memorizing structures by heart which is in vast majority of cases followed by constant
fear of making mistakes. What we can conclude here is that, even though critical period
regarding SLA is a term that is still open to debate (in sense of precise age limit), one thing is
sure, acquiring language in a nonchalant way, i.e. learning while being calm, relaxed,
spontaneous (young children alike), not worrying about fear and anxiety, will eventually
result in a high level proficiency.

1278 words
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References:

1) Krashen, S. D, Long, M. A, Scarcella, R. C. (1979). Age, Rate and Eventual


Attainment in Second Language Acqusition. Tesol Quarterly, 13(4), 573-582.
2) Lin, L. C. (2014). The Role of Linguistics in Second language learning. American
International Journal of Contemporary Research, 4(3), 42-47.
3) Patkowski, M. S. (1980). The sensitive period for the acquisition of syntax in second
language. Language learning, 30(2), 449-472.

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