Critical period hypothesis

Critical Period Hypothesis
Narottam Dev Sharma
BA (Hons), MA in English
Language and Literature Eastern
University
MA in TESOL
BRAC Institute of Languages (BIL)
BRAC University

TOPIC:
Critical Period
Hypothesis (CPH)
Revisited in
Second Language
Acquisition
Sunday,April10,2016Narottam/CPH

OUTLINE
Introduction
What is CPH?
Historical Background
Supportive Studies and
Findings
Study Against CPH and
Findings
CPH in Chinese context
Our point of view

INTRODUCTION
 The critical period
hypothesis is the subject of
a long-standing debate
in linguistics and language
acquisition over the extent
to which the ability to
acquire language is
biologically linked to age.

INTRODUCTION
 The hypothesis claims that there
is an ideal 'window' of time in a
person’s life to acquire language
in a linguistically rich
environment, after which further
language acquisition becomes
much more difficult and effortful.

WHAT IS (CPH)?
 The critical period
hypothesis states that the
first few years of life is the
crucial time in which an
individual can acquire
a native language (L1) if
presented with adequate
stimuli.

WHAT IS (CPH)?
Brown (2007) defines
CPH as “a biological
timetable during
which, both first &
second language is
more successfully
accomplished”.

WHAT IS CPH?
Ellis (1997) defines CPH
as a period during
which “target-language
competence in an L2 can
only be achieved if
learning commences
before a certain age is
reached. (e.g. the onset
of puberty)”

HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
 The critical period hypothesis
was first proposed by
Montreal neurologist Wilder
Penfield and co-author
Lamar Roberts in 1959.
 Popularized by Eric
Lenneberg in 1967 with his
famous book Biological
Foundations of Language.

 Lenneberg proposed that
brain lateralization (the
longitudinal fissure that
separates the brain into two
distinct cerebral hemispheres)
at puberty is the mechanism
which closes down the brain's
ability to acquire language.
HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND

Another well-known
person who supports the
critical period hypothesis
would be Noam
Chomsky, who believes
that children are born
with an inherited ability
to learn any human
language.
HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND

HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
CONTINUED
 Chomsky: every child has a
‘language acquisition device’ or
LAD which encodes the major
principles of a language and
its grammatical structures
into the child’s brain.

HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
CONTINUED
Lenneberg: there are
maturational constraints on
the time a first language
can be acquired.
If language acquisition does
not occur by puberty, some
aspects of language can be
learnt but full mastery
cannot be achieved.

SUPPORTIVE STUDY-1 ON
CPH
 Johnson and Newport (1989)
sought to further probe the
relationship between the effects of
maturation and the ability of an
individual to acquire a second
language.
 They aimed at either verifying or
disproving the existence of age-
related effects on second language
acquisition of grammar by
establishing a correlation between
age of first exposure to a language
and level of morphosyntactic
accuracy in that language.

CPH
 Forty-six native Chinese and
Korean speakers who had
arrived in the United States
between the ages of 3 to 39 and
had learned English as a second
language were asked to
determine the grammaticality of
a variety of English sentences in
order to determine their
respective knowledge of English
morphosyntax.

FINDINGS FROM STUDY-1
 After the study Johnson and
Newport (1989) simply stated,
“success in learning a
language is almost entirely
predicted by the age at which
it begins” (p. 81).

 Furthermore, they argue that
although there is widespread
individual variation in the
competence of adult learners of
a second language, a late age of
first exposure to a second
language prevents native or
native-like performance in that
language.

CPH
Thompson (1991) for his
study surveyed 39
Russian-born subjects who
had immigrated to the
United States between the
ages of 4 and 42.

CPH
 Each of them were given three
types of speaking tasks:
1. reading a list of 20 sentences
which were intentionally
“seeded” with English sounds
2. reading a 160-word passage
which had not been seeded
3. speaking spontaneously for
one minute about their activities
on the day of the experiment.

 Thompson’s results pointed that
subjects who got the exposure to
English at early age spoke consistently
and considerably better than adult ones
in term of foreign accent.
 Finally, Thompson concluded that
“the age at which [the immigrants]
arrived in the U.S. was the best
indicator of the accuracy of their
pronunciation in English” (p. 195)

STUDY -1 AGAINST CPH
In opposition to Johnson
and Newport’s (1989) claim
Long (1990) claims that the
existence of a critical period
in second language
acquisition is totally false.

STUDY -1 AGAINST
CPH
 He states, “the easiest way
to falsify [claims supporting]
would be to produce learners
who have demonstrably
attained native like
proficiency despite having
begun exposure well after the
closure of the hypothesized
sensitive periods” (p. 274).

STUDY - 2 AGAINST CPH
 White and Genesee (1996),
conducted a study on highly
proficient adult to determine
whether acquirers of a L2
were indeed at a nativelike
level, tested 89 speakers of
English as L2.

 He used a grammaticality
judgment task, a question
formation task, and an
interview task in which they
were evaluated on their
performance in terms of
pronunciation, morphosyntax,
fluency, choice of vocabulary,
and overall nativeness.
STUDY - 2 AGAINST
CPH

FINDINGS FROM STUDY -
2
The results of White
and Genesee’s (1996)
study provided them
with ample evidence to
controvert the CPH.

FINDINGS FROM STUDY
- 2
 White and Genesee also
found that “the performance
of [these] near-native subjects
on the grammaticality
judgment task, both in terms
of their accuracy and their
speed, was indistinguishable
from that of the native
speakers, as was their
performance on the written
production task” (p. 258).

CPH IN CHINESE CONTEXT
 Few empirical studies on CPH
(Dong, 2003; Wang, 2003; Shu,
2003; Lu, 2004; Liu, 2005; Xin &
Zhou 2006; Zhao & Zou, 2008) have
been found in Chinese EFL context.
 Zhao and Zou (2008) conducted a
qualitative analysis of 42
autobiographies of contemporary
renowned foreign language experts
in China to examine the age related
factors.

CPH IN CHINESE
CONTEXT
This finding does not
support the CPH and
argues that the other
important factors such
as motivation, teachers
and language aptitude
may decide L2 success
for the learners.

CPH IN CHINESE
CONTEXT
 The result of another study
(Wang 2003, Liu 2005) shows
that there does not really exist
a so-called optimum age for
Chinese learners. The author
thus proposes that a strong
motivation, proper learning
strategies and intense efforts
are decisive factors in
successfully learning a foreign
language.

 The result of Lu (2004),
Xin and Zhou( 2006) says
that CPH really exists.
Thus they suggest that,
the initial English
program should be begun
in elementary school
rather than in junior high.
CPH IN CHINESE
CONTEXT

NOTHING EXISTS LIKE
CPH (?)
White and Genesee
challenge the notion that
a critical period exists in
the domain of second
language acquisition
which bars nativelike
proficiency.

NOTHING EXISTS LIKE
CPH (?)
 They argue that the existence of
adult learners of a language whose
competence is indistinguishable
from that of native speakers
proves that adults have access to
the language learning mechanisms
to which children have access, and
disproves the notion that after the
closing of a critical period,
nativelike performance in a second
language is unattainable.

OUR POINT OF
VIEW
After reviewing data
on both sides of the
controversy, we
believe that critical
period in second
language acquisition
is not relevant to
proficiency level
attainment.

OUR POINT OF VIEW
 Though we explained some
studies in favour of the
existence of CPH, we think
that there are too many
variables with strong
factual support that explain
second language acquisition
differences in learners, and
too few factual explanations
of the critical period theory
to warrant its belief.

OUR POINT OF
VIEW
We feel that the study of
second language
acquisition would greatly
benefit from additional
studies examining all
possible variables that
result in different second
language proficiency.

OUR POINT OF VIEW
Finally, it is our hope that
our colleagues who wish
to tackle a second
language will not
dissuade by the prospect
of a critical period being
passed, because there is
just not enough factual
evidence to support it at
this time.

CONCLUSION
Despite huge debate
CPH still matters in
Language acquisition.

CONCLUSION
 Along with CPH, learner
factors like age, motivation,
anxiety, culture, aptitude,
cognitive style, learning
style are also important in
language acquisition.

Critical period hypothesis

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