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Age of learning and second language speech
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In this chapter I consider the relation between the age of first exposure to a second language (L2) and the accuracy with which the L2 is pronounced. Earlier is almost always better. However the widely accepted view that age of L2 learning effects can be attributed to the closure of a critical period for speech learning is by no means certain.
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... In addition, learners' proficiencies in their first language (L1) and the specific L1 being spoken and read can have an impact on L2 acquisition (Branum-Martin et al. 2012;Melby-Lervag and Lervag 2011). Another documented source of variability in L2 acquisition is the age of acquisition (AoA) of the L2 (Birdsong 2006;Flege 1992;Flege et al. 1999;Paradis 2019). However, chronological age, AoA and grade/educational experience with a language as measured by the learner's current grade level are often confounded. ...
Although age of acquisition (AoA) is frequently used when examining the endpoint of second language (L2) learning, it is rarely used to examine the initial phases of L2 acquisition. The present study provided a unique look at the role of AoA in early language and literacy acquisition in the L2 by a priori selecting two groups of Arabic-English speakers based on their ages, 6–8-year-olds (N = 43) and 9–13-year-olds (N = 53). These Syrian refugees were matched on English experience, having immigrated to Canada and having learned English for two years or less. Raw scores on language and literacy measures were compared across groups. The older group had higher scores on all first language (L1) variables. The groups did not differ on most L2 variables except for English word reading. Additionally, L1 and L2 variables were examined in relation to English word and pseudoword reading with different patterns of relations found for the two groups. For the younger group, phonological awareness and vocabulary were related to reading, while for the older group phonological awareness and morphological awareness were key predictors. These finding points to the unique relations among age, age of acquisition, L1 skills, and L2 language and literacy skills.
... A number of studies have examined L2 speech in migrant settings, with several factors identified as key influences on L2 acquisition-most notably the age of acquisition (Guion et al. 2000;Flege 1999), length of residence (Lu 2015), and level and quality of exposure to the host culture (Allen and Dupuy 2013;Flege and Bohn 2021;Moyer 2009). However, while the age of acquisition (AoA) and length of residence (LOR) are both considered to be fairly reliable predictors of pronunciation acquisition in immigrant children (Lee and Iverson 2009;Fox 2014, 2017), the influence of the AoA and LOR appears to be far more mixed in studies on adult phonological acquisition and has also received more scrutiny in recent research (see discussion in Flege and Bohn 2021). ...
This study adopts the Speech Learning Model to investigate the first language (L1) influence as well as the effects of the length of residence and second language (L2) exposure on American English-speaking learners of Turkish in their productions of Turkish unrounded–rounded vowel pairs, with a particular focus on the vowel categories “new” to American English speakers (/y/, /œ/, and /W/). L1 (English) and L2 (Turkish) speech samples were collected from 18 non-governmental organisation (NGO) workers. L2 experience was defined by whether the worker lived in an urban or regional environment in Turkey. Participants’ audio productions of the word list in L1 and L2 were segmented and annotated for succeeding acoustic analyses. The results show an interesting front–back variability in the realisations of the three vowels, including further back variants of the front vowels (/y/, /œ/) and more forward variants of the /W/ vowel, with a substantial degree of interspeaker variability. While the analysis revealed no significant results for the length of residence, language experience was found to have a significant effect on the production of /y/ (F2) and /W/ (F1/F2). This study forms a first step into the research of adult L2 acquisition in Turkish with a focus on L2 in the naturalistic workplace environment, rather than instructed settings. The findings of this study will contribute to the development of teaching materials for NGO workers learning Turkish as their L2.
... Auch nach langjähriger Erfahrung mit einer Sprache nehmen L2-Sprecherinnen Laute anders wahr als NaS derselben Sprache. Daraus folgt einerseits eine abweichende Produktion dieser Laute und damit der Effekt eines fremdsprachlichen Akzents, andererseits ein Lernerlexikon mit vielen Homophonen, die durch "mangelnde lautliche Differenzierung" (Bohn 1998 Flege (1992) stellt zwar mehrfach dar, dass L2-Laute nach dem Alter von fünf bis sechs Jahren anders perzipiert und kategorisiert werden, und dass frühe und späte Lerner im Allgemeinen ganz klar unterschiedlich gute Aussprachefähigkeiten erreichen, was beides mit einem stärkeren fremdsprachlichen Akzent bei späten L2-Lernern einhergeht, lässt aber einen Zusammenhang dieser Studien mit einer critical period offen. Insbesondere hebt er hervor, dass Akzent auch schon bei fünf-bis siebenjährigen Kindern auftritt, wo Lenneberg (1967: 181) noch von 11-14 Jahren sprach (vgl. ...
Manche Fremdsprachenlerner eignen sich die zielsprachliche Aussprache schon nach relativ kurzem Aufenthalt in einer L2-Umgebung an – andere leben jahrelang in so einer Umgebung und sprechen trotzdem noch mit einem klar erkennbaren fremdsprachlichen Akzent. Wie ist das zu erklären? Der vorliegende Artikel beschäftigt sich mit den Ursachen für die Intensität eines fremdsprachlichen Akzents. Insbesondere wird die Einstellung zur Fremdsprache als massgeblicher Einflussfaktor bei Deutschschweizer Sprechern empirisch untersucht. Dabei kommen als Zielsprachen sowohl das Standarddeutsche als auch das Französische zum Tragen.
... Taken together, our stop consonant data suggest that despite being English-dominant, our informants showed the ability to distinguish the stop phonetic categories of their two languages right from their first narrative. According to the Speech Learning Model (Flege 1992(Flege , 1995, such success in category separation could be attributed to their being early learners of Spanish; early learners typically show a lower degree of interaction between their two sound systems. Being early learners also meant that our informants had a malleable Spanish sound system as children that permitted the addition rather than assimilation of categories when L1 and L2 sounds were similar. ...
While heritage Spanish phonetics and phonology and classroom experiences have received increased attention in recent years, these areas have yet to converge. Furthermore, most research in these realms is cross-sectional, ignoring individual or group changes across time. We aim to connect research strands and fill gaps associated with the aforementioned areas by conducting an individual-level empirical analysis of narrative data produced by five female heritage speakers of Spanish at the beginning and end of a semester-long heritage language instruction class. We focus on voiced and voiceless stop consonants, vowel quality, mean pitch, pitch range, and speech rate. Our acoustic and statistical outputs of beginning versus end data reveal that each informant exhibits a change in between three and five of the six dependent variables, showing that exposure to a more formal register through a classroom experience over the course of a semester constitutes enough input to influence the heritage language sound system, even if the sound system is not an object of explicit instruction. We interpret the significant changes through the lenses of the development of formal speech and discursive strategies, phonological retuning, and speech style and pragmatic effects, while also acknowledging limitations to address in future related work.
The critical period hypothesis (CPH) as an explanation of age effects on language learning has been a perennial source of contention in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Although this hypothesis – which suggests that adult language learning is constrained by biological or maturational changes in the brain – has been based on the work of Eric Lenneberg (i.e. Biological Foundations of Language, 1967), it does not reflect Lenneberg's original biological theory of language. In this paper, the CPH is examined in light of a comprehensive review of Lenneberg's work and related disciplines. By outlining Lenneberg's notion of epigenesis in language development, it is argued that the CPH interpretation of the critical period notion that has long skewed the debate over age effects in SLA must be re-evaluated, and that any reference to “Lenneberg's CPH” can – and should – be abandoned.
This paper compares bilinguals of 2L1s with monolinguals and second language speakers. The experiment and statistical analysis reveals that the question whether bilinguals adopt a more extreme, intermediate, or monolingual-like approach may not have a clear-cut yes or no answer. Our finding demonstrates that bilinguals are more monolingual-like when they have greater control over their speech production. Additionally, bilinguals employ an extreme approach to positive VOTs, where they must distinguish among all the six stops in Japanese and English, though they adopt an intermediate approach to negative VOTs, where they just need to distinguish among the three voiced stops.
This study examines the status of lexical stress in the processing system of heritage speakers of Spanish and whether or not it is influenced by their experience with English. Participants completed an ABX matching task with auditory stimuli differing in the location of stress or in one consonantal sound. Findings reveal that heritage speakers are more accurate in consonant-based trials than in stress-based ones, but only when matching stimuli were non-adjacent, which suggests that their stress-processing strategies pattern more closely with those of native English speakers. Furthermore, dominance and knowledge of Spanish appear to be associated with increased phonological sensibility to stress contrasts. Pedagogical implications are discussed.
https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1068&context=wls_fac
The present study investigated whether age of acquisition (AOA) is a significant predictor of the extent to which Korean learners of English perceive and produce two nonnative vowels and the extent to which their speech perception and production accuracy are linked. A total of 100 Korean learners of English with a varying range of AOA participated in the study by completing perception and production measurement tasks. Overall, there were significant AOA effects found in the case of Korean participants who moved to Canada before the age breakpoint range of 17.0 to 25.5, after which AOA failed to be a significant predictor of their perception and production accuracy. In addition, compared to late second language (L2) learners, early L2 learners more consistently demonstrated instances of significant perception-production correlation. This study concludes by highlighting the role of AOA in L2 speech acquisition, supporting the existence of a critical period for intelligible L2 pronunciation.
Die Zweitspracherwerbsforschung entwickelte sich während der letzten 50 Jahre zu einer selbstständigen Disziplin, die sich mit der Aneignung von Zweitsprachen, d. h. von Sprachen, die nach der Erstsprache erworben werden, befasst. Die Forschung identifiziert und untersucht Prozesse, die dem Zweitspracherwerb zugrunde liegen, sowie Faktoren, die ihn beeinflussen. Obwohl die Zweitspracherwerbsforschung inzwischen ein eigenständiges Fachgebiet ist, bleibt ihr Bezug zur Fremdsprachendidaktik deutlich.
Durch ihren fremdsprachlichen Akzent gibt eine Sprecherin ihre Herkunft, ihre Muttersprache preis. So werden die meisten Deutschschweizer beim Sprechen einer Fremdsprache als solche erkannt. Kann aber aufgrund dieses "Deutschschweizer" Akzents auch erkannt werden, aus welchem Dialektgebiet ein Sprecher stammt? Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt eine empirische Studie zur Perzeption dialektaler Akzente vor. Er beschäftigt sich mit dialektalen Akzenten im Standarddeutschen und im Französischen und zeigt mit quantitativen Methoden auf, dass dialektal bedingte Akzentunterschiede von native speakers durchaus wahrgenommen und lokalisiert werden können. Darüber hinaus und als Basis für die Auswertung des empirischen Teils leistet die vorliegende Arbeit eine Beschreibung und Kategorisierung der dialektalen Lautlandschaft der Schweiz sowie einen Ansatz zur Beschreibung der Aussprache des Französischen durch Schweizer Dialektsprecher.
It is a striking fact that in humans the greatest learning occurs precisely at that point in time--childhood--when the most dramatic maturational changes also occur. This report describes possible synergistic interactions between maturational change and the ability to learn a complex domain (language), as investigated in connectionist networks. The networks are trained to process complex sentences involving relative clauses, number agreement, and several types of verb argument structure. Training fails in the case of networks which are fully formed and 'adultlike' in their capacity. Training succeeds only when networks begin with limited working memory and gradually 'mature' to the adult state. This result suggests that rather than being a limitation, developmental restrictions on resources may constitute a necessary prerequisite for mastering certain complex domains. Specifically, successful learning may depend on starting small.
This study built on earlier investigations of the effects of noise on speech identification by nonnative speakers. Oyama showed that the ability of native Italian subjects to identify speech in noise was inversely related to their age of arrival (AOA) in the United States [J. Psycholinguist. Res. 5, 261–283 (1976)]. Mayberry and Fischer showed that more phonological and fewer semantic errors are made the later sign language is acquired, indicating that late learners allocate more attention to bottom‐up processes [Mem. Cognit. 17, 740–754 (1989)]. Subjects in the present study were native English (NE) and Italian/English bilinguals differing in their AOA in Canada. The stimuli were naturally produced, semantically unpredictable English sentences. Subjects repeated as much of each sentence as possible as it was presented at successively higher S/N ratios (−6, 0, 6, 12 dB). NE subjects outperformed the bilinguals, despite the latter’s lengthy residence in Canada (M=35.4 years). The bilinguals’ performance varied inversely as a function of AOA. Scores were also related to individual differences in phonological short term memory. Additional analyses will determine whether late learners allocate more attention to bottom‐up processes than do NE subjects. [Work supported by NIH.]
A phoneme identification experiment manipulating closure duration was carried out to investigate perception of the word-medial voicing contrast by Dutch four-year-old, six-year-old, and 12-year-old children, and Dutch adults. Pretest results show that all children responded correctly to real-word minimal pairs differing in stop voicing. Subsequently, subjects were tested in an identification task using nonsense words, in which closure duration for labial and alveolar stops was manipulated through waveform editing. The two older age groups consistently distinguished voiced and voiceless stops. The younger children displayed a relatively high percentage of ambiguous responses, indicating that they had difficulties with the categorization of voiced and voiceless stops. Results are discussed in relation to adult perception, the perception-production relationship, and early infant research. It is argued that phoneme perception in children from the age of four evolves synchronously with their phoneme production, and that the perceptual processes develop gradually with age.
This article reviews the second language research on age-related differences, as well as first language work needed to disambiguate some of the findings. Five conclusions are drawn, (a) Both the initial rate of acquisition and the ultimate level of attainment depend in part on the age at which learning begins. (b) There are sensitive periods governing language development, first or second, during which the acquisition of different linguistic abilities is successful and after which it is irregular and incomplete. (c) The age-related loss in ability is cumulative (not a catastrophic one-time event), affecting first one linguistic domain and then another, and is not limited to phonology, (d) The deterioration in some individuals begins as early as age 6—not at puberty as is often claimed. (e) Affective, input, and current cognitive explanations for the reduced ability are inadequate. The capacity for language development is maturationally constrained, and its decline probably reflects a progressive loss of neural plasticity, itself possibly associated with increasing myelination.
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