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1 - Age Effects on Language Acquisition, Retention and Loss

Key Hypotheses and Findings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2018

By
Niclas Abrahamsson ,
Kenneth Hyltenstam  and
Emanuel Bylund
Edited by
Kenneth Hyltenstam ,
Inge Bartning  and
Lars Fant
Kenneth Hyltenstam
Affiliation:
Stockholms Universitet
Inge Bartning
Affiliation:
Stockholms Universitet
Lars Fant
Affiliation:
Stockholms Universitet
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Summary

This chapter asks to what extent the ultimate attainment in an L2 differs from that of native speakers, and why the rate of nativelike ultimate attainment differs between child and adult second language learners. A related issue is the role of language aptitude for the attainment of high-level proficiency. The chapter addresses these questions on the basis of extensive empirical findings and discusses their implications for our understanding of age-related/maturational, bilingualism-related/cross-linguistic, and aptitude-related determinants of language acquisition, and their complex interrelations. The methodology includes a strict selection of participants and native controls, a large battery of elicitation techniques with demanding language tasks (covering aspects of phonology, grammar and lexical idiomaticity in both production and perception), and an aptitude component. The findings privilege an interpretation of the lack of nativelikeness in L2 ultimate attainment in terms of maturational constraints rather than primarily as the effect of cross-linguistic (bilingualism) factors. Further, they suggest a role for aptitude as a contributing factor behind nativelike proficiency, strongly so for adult L2 learners, but also in L2 acquisition among bilingually developing children.
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High-Level Language Proficiency in Second Language and Multilingual Contexts , pp. 16 - 49
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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