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The term ‘second language acquisition’ refers to the acquisition of a new language by
children and adults who already have full knowledge of their first language. It is thus
both languages beginning in infancy or soon after (Genesee 2000, Meisel 2001, 2004).
Child second language acquisition, also known as sequential bilingualism, refers to the
acquisition of a second language after age three of four, when much of the first language
is already in place (Gass and Selinker 2001, Lakshmanan 1994, McLaughlin 1978).
There is disagreement on exactly when child second language acquisition ends and adult
second language acquisition begins (Gass and Selinker 2001), but age eight or nine is
often taken as the upper boundary for true child second language acquisition (Bialystok
The input that child and adult learners receive in their second language takes many
different forms; like child language acquisition, second language acquisition involves
naturalistic exposure to the target language. However, the amount and type of input are
different for second language learners immersed in the language on the one hand, and
other hand (R. Ellis 1989, Pica 1983). Furthermore, second language learners often
receive negative evidence about the target language in the form of explicit and/or implicit
instruction (Bley-Vroman 1989, 1990, Doughty and Williams 1998; see White 1991 on
positive vs. negative evidence in the classroom). There is a debate in the field of applied
linguistics concerning the degree to which linguistic knowledge learned through explicit
instruction can become internalized, implicit linguistic knowledge (N. Ellis 2005, R. Ellis
2002, Norris and Ortega 2000, Krashen 1981; see R. Ellis 2006 for an overview of the
issues in grammar teaching). On the relationship between second language theory and
In addition to the target language input, a potential source of knowledge for second
Madden and Krashen 1974, Dulay and Burt 1974, Larsen-Freeman 1975) focused on
developmental sequences across second language learners from different native language
backgrounds, and found little effect of the native language (but see Larsen-Freeman and
Long 1991). However, there is much evidence from other studies that second language
learners are influenced by their native language in the acquisition of the target language,
a process known as transfer (Dechert & Raupach 1989, Gass & Selinker 1992, Odlin
1989, among many others). Transfer has traditionally been divided into positive transfer
or facilitation, which helps learners acquire properties of the target (second) language,
and negative transfer or interference, which hinders learners in their course of acquisition
the level of grammatical categories and features (Schwartz & Sprouse 1994, 1996,
Schwartz 1998, Vainikka and Young-Scholten 1994, 1996; see White 2003 for an
overview).
The role that age plays in second language acquisition has received much attention in the
literature. Early studies focused on how age affects ultimate attainment of the target
language, and found that younger age of exposure to the target language is related to
better performance on the target language phonology and syntax (Johnson and Newport
1989, 1991, Oyama 1978, Patkowski 1980; for critiques and replications of the Johnson
and Newport 1989 study, see Bialystok and Miller 1999, Birdsong and Molis 2001,
deKeyser 2000, among others). Following the proposal of Lenneberg (1967) that first
and Abrahamsson 2003, Long 1990, Patkowski 1980, Pulvermüller and Schumann 1994)
have argued that age effects in second language acquisition are a result of biological
maturation. At the same time, it has been argued that non-biological factors, such as the
type and amount of target language input, and learners’ motivation and attitude, may
account for, or at least contribute to, differences between child and adult second language
learners (Flege, Frieda and Nozawa 1997, Klein 1995; for a variety of approaches to age
effects, see the papers in Singleton and Lengyel 1995 and Birdsong 1999; see Birdsong
2004, 2006 for an overview). As pointed out by Long (1990) and Birdsong (2004), a
learners past a certain age. While Coppieters (1987) found that even highly advanced
adult second language learners in fact did not exhibit native-like attainment, much
literature since then has pointed out the existence of adult second language learners who
Within the field of generative approaches to second language acquisition, the critical
period debate takes the form of a debate concerning whether innate mechanisms
underlying language acquisition, in the form of Universal Grammar, are available to adult
learners. In a highly influential proposal, Bley-Vroman (1989, 1990) argued that first
relies on problem-solving, instruction, and explicit strategies. Much work in the field of
generative second language acquisition over the past twenty years has debated this view.
Proponents of the deficit view argue that adult learners are impaired with regard to all or
Grammar instantiated in their native language (Hawkins and Chan 1997, Hawkins and
Hattori 2006, Meisel 1997, Schachter 1990, Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou 2007). On the
other side of the debate, proponents of the Full Access to Universal Grammar view argue
that innate linguistic mechanisms remain active throughout adulthood, and that
differences between children and adults stem from other sources (Epstein, Flynn and
Martohardjono 1996, 1998, Schwartz and Sprouse 1994, 1996; see White 2003 for an
overview). On the influential Full Transfer / Full Access model of second language
acquisition (Schwartz and Sprouse 1994, 1996), second language learners transfer the
grammatical characteristics of their native language to the second language, but are then
able to acquire new aspects of the target language through direct access to Universal
Grammar.
Evidence for Full Access views of second language acquisition comes from two different
sources. The first source of evidence comes from developmental comparisons between
child and adult second language learners, under a research program put forth by Schwartz
(1992, 2003). On the assumption that innate linguistic knowledge is available to child
and adults (with the native language held constant) is used to argue that such knowledge
is available to adult learners as well (Gilkerson 2006, Schwartz 2003, Unsworth 2005).
phenomena with adult second language learners: when adult learners are able to master
aspects of the second language which are not instantiated in the native language, not
obvious from the input, and not explicitly taught in the classroom, this provides evidence
that innate linguistic knowledge is at work (Dekydtspotter, Sprouse and Anderson 1997,
Dekydtspotter, Sprouse and Swanson 2001, Montrul and Slabakova 2003, Kanno 1998,
among others). Much of this work has been done with phenomena at the syntax-
interface has also been examined in recent literature, both in second language acquisition
(Sorace 2003, 2005) and childhood bilingualism (Serratrice, Sorace and Paoli 2004).
on how languages are learned (Doughty and Long 2003), including interlanguage
pragmatics and approaches in applied linguistics, as well as generative approaches
(White 2003), and, more recently, psycholinguistic perspectives and techniques (see
Marinis 2003 for an overview). The study of second language acquisition is also closely
related to the study of attrition and incomplete acquisition of the first language under the
the same issues, including the role of transfer and the effects of age, are studied with
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