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


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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

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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 about language and
culture
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.