Age and Second Language Acquisition

In the words of Federick, “A different language is a different vision of life.”  Although there is much truth to this quote, it does not touch on another truth about learning a different language; that it is a complex process that many people may not ever fully achieve.  This is due to the fact that there are many factors that can affect one’s ability to reach second language proficiency.  Some of these factors include: gender, socioeconomic status, the amount of exposure to the language, the amount of exposure to the culture, and also age.  Recently, there has been much research discussing the affect of age on second language acquisition.  A significant amount of this research has been focused on determining the ages of a “critical period” during which language abilities peak, and after which they level off and language proficiency becomes more difficult to achieve.  It has been suggested that this period ends at puberty, which makes learning a second language past the age of twelve a more difficult task.  As a result of many studies, it is now common knowledge that the age at which one begins learning a second language has been shown to influence the rate of acquisition and ultimate proficiency in various aspects of that language. 

            Since Leninbergh first pioneered the idea of the critical period in his publication, Biological Foundations of Language, there have been many studies on the effect that age has on the acquisition of a second language.  Lenneberg theorized that language acquisition is an innate process determined by the biology of the brain.  There are certain biological factors that limit the brain to a “critical period” for language acquisition from age two to puberty.  Lenneberg believed that after the complete lateralization of the brain, it no longer had the ability to “reopen” the part of the brain that deals with learning language.  When brain lateralization occurs, it loses plasticity making it more difficult to acquire a second language past puberty (Leninberhg, 1967).

            Since Leninbergh’s publication, many studies of the effect of age on the acquisition of language have focused on proving or disproving his hypothesis of the critical period.  Many studies have tested this hypothesis by comparing findings in the area of pronunciation between adults and children.  In her article, The Effect of Age on Acquisition of a Second Language, Virginia P. Collier criticizes some studies that deal with pronunciation, in particular.  These studies found that after assessing students’ acquisition of pronunciation after three years of exposure to a second language, that the younger students had retained more “accent free” pronunciation when compared to adolescents just past puberty.  Collier criticizes these studies saying that, “perhaps the effort to test the hypothesis of the critical period has called too much attention to the pronunciation aspect of language proficiency, and also to the adult/child dichotomy.”  Collier instead believes that researchers and educators alike should be interested in more than just pronunciation, which is why she analyzed the length of time required to achieve proficiency in multiple content areas.  She found that typically, 8-12 year-olds reached the set norms first within four and five years.  The group of 5-7 year olds, slightly younger than the first group, reached the norms in about five to eight years.  The group of post-pubescent (12-15 year-olds) experienced the greatest difficulty reaching age and grade norms.  Luckily, she also found that the effect of age diminishes over time as the language acquirer becomes more proficient in the second language (Colliers, 1988). 

            One of the most unfortunate ways to test this famous hypothesis came when a thirteen-year old girl was discovered in a home in the Los Angeles suburbs in 1970.  That girl was perhaps one of the most shocking, yet important discoveries in the realm of language study.  That girl is known as Genie.  With her days spent in total isolation, restrained to a potty chair, Genie grew up with very little sense of language.  This marked the perfect opportunity to test the critical period hypothesis.  There have been very few recorded accounts of feral children throughout history, especially in recent years, which made Geniy’s case extremely significant, yet highly controversial.  Sadly, Geniy never achieved the type of language proficiency many had hoped she would.  She was able to acquire only about 100 words over a period of four years.  Although Genie’s story is not one of her personal triumph, it has helped further the science of language acquisition and human development.  It is not exactly clear whether Genie’s inability to acquire language came as a result of missing her critical period, or as a result of severe trauma, but many researchers believe that it has brought them closer to unlocking more of the brain’s fascinating mysteries regarding language development.

            When Piaget in his work, The Language and Thought of the Child, distinguished between “egocentric” and “socialized” speech and noticed the many other interesting aspects of speech in children, he opened the door to the many studies about the most significant part of language development, childhood (Piaget, 1926).  According to Piaget’s shrewd observations and also Leninbergh’s hypothesis, the child’s brain undergoes the most significant changes during the years of two and twelve.  A child’s mind is like a sponge.  This is a common saying brought upon by the seemingly innate ability young children have to pick up on things rather quickly.  This includes, among many other amusing things, language.  One particular study in this interest is a study conducted to measure the lexical comprehension in infant bilinguals.  This study found that children even as young as thirteen months can be considered bilingual due to their ability at this young age to understand translation equivalents (words from two languages that have the same adult meaning).  This study also proves that comprehension is a central feature of the bilingual acquisition process, and that it is already actively in motion as early as infancy (Dr. Houwer, 2006).

            While most language studies focus on early childhood versus adulthood, adolescence is an interesting time period that is commonly overlooked. Since one in every six adolescents in the United States was either born in a foreign country or speaks a language other than English at home, second language acquisition in this group is rapidly increasing and deserves more attention from researchers (Sxuber, 2007). The main focus here will be on immigrants who arrive to the United States during adolescence. It is evident that young children learn language in more natural setting while adults learn it in a structured classroom setting; but what of the adolescents who fall in between? The answer seems to be that they have the advantage and disadvantage of freely changing from one environment to another, and therefore control the amount of the language they are exposed to (Sxuber, 2007). The reason this can be a disadvantage is that when feeling uncomfortable they can hide behind their native language and not receive enough exposure to the new one. Unlike younger immigrants who are typically immersed in English, and unlike adult learners who mostly learn by equating the second language with their first, adolescents have a variety of choices about the amount of contact in either language both in and outside of the classroom (Sxuber, 2007). This means they may speak either language at school, with their peers, in their neighborhoods, or at home with siblings and parents.

The study of fifty nine native Polish adolescent immigrants in Chicago shows they speak the least English with their parents, some with their siblings, and most with peers and teachers at school (Sxuber, 2007). According to the Critical Period Hypothesis, the time frame in which these adolescents are learning their second language is past the time they can easily acquire language. They must be more conscious and give more effort to learn another language, but will most likely never achieve native-like proficiency (Sxuber, 2007). Critical period aside, there are other reasons it may be more difficult for immigrants to learn a second language during puberty. Clearly they are handling anxiety from having to adapt to a new environment. In addition to this stress, they are experiencing typical pubescent traumas such as self-consciousness, self-image problems, and low self-esteem. It is no wonder that adolescents feeling anxious tend to revert to their native language and are timid about speaking a new one at this point in their lives (Sxuber, 2007). Therefore, the combination of biological and environmental factors greatly affects second language acquisition in adolescents.

            By now it should be no surprise that the odds are stacked against an adult attempting to learn a second language. There are several arguments that support two very different sides to this issue. First, there is the nativist perspective, which includes major contributions from Noam Chomsky and Eric Lenneberg. Chomsky developed two very important theories in language acquisition. He claims that we humans are born with a Language Acquisition Device in our brains that we unknowingly use to acquire our first language. He also came up with idea of Universal Grammar, a set of basic grammatical rules that are common to all human languages, which we are equipped with at birth. Lenneberg’s Critical Period Hypothesis, which was discussed in detail earlier, is another theory that points out the adult’s loss of inborn language abilities. While older learners tend to make faster initial progress, it eventually levels out and does not usually result in proficiency (Sxuber, 2007).