Age Effects in Second Language Acquisition: Is Younger ...



Age of acquisition and proficiency as factors in language production:

Agreement in bilinguals

Rebecca Foote (rkphilli@uiuc.edu)

February 21, 2007

I. Central question in SLA

a. Why is the outcome of second language acquisition different from that of first language acquisition?

II. Age effects in language acquisition

a. Critical period hypothesis

III. Agreement production in bilinguals

a. Variability in production of agreement morphology in late bilinguals (L2 learners)

b. Two sources for problem

i. Deficit in linguistic knowledge

ii. Psycholinguistic processes of language production

c. Early bilingual agreement production

IV. Subject-verb number agreement production in Spanish and English

a. Verb number controlled by number of subject noun phrase

b. Other factors that influence agreement production

i. Grammatical number of the subject noun phrase

ii. Notional or conceptual number of the subject noun phrase

iii. Attraction

iv. Conceptual number and attraction working together

V. Cross-linguistic differences in subject-verb number agreement production

a. English – grammatical number

b. Spanish – grammatical and conceptual number

VI. Maximalist model of agreement production (Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Garrett, 1996)

a. Interactive model that assumes a language production system with various levels or steps (Levelt, 1989; 1999)

b. Information across levels or steps is shared throughout the system

c. Accounts for cross-linguistic differences in agreement production by proposing different mechanisms of agreement for different languages

i. English – feature copying

ii. Spanish – feature unification

d. How do these cross-linguistic differences in the mechanisms of agreement production play out in bilinguals?

VII. Experiment 1 – Agreement production in English and Spanish monolinguals

VIII. Experiment 1 – Research question

a. Are there differences in the mechanics of subject-verb number agreement production in Mexican Spanish, Dominican Spanish, and English?

IX. Experiment 1

a. Participants

i. English monolinguals (n = 18)

ii. Mexican Spanish monolinguals (n = 32)

iii. Dominican Spanish monolinguals (n = 28)

b. Materials

c. Experimental stimuli

d. Procedure

X. Experiment 1 – Results

a. Monolinguals

XI. Experiment 1 – Research question revisited

a. Are there differences in the mechanics of subject-verb number agreement production in Mexican Spanish, Dominican Spanish, and English?

i. NO…All three languages/dialects evidence conceptual effects in agreement production

XII. Experiment 1 – Discussion

a. English, Dominican Spanish, and Mexican Spanish all show sensitivity to conceptual number in agreement production

b. In terms of the maximalist model, all three effect agreement by means of feature unification

XIII. Experiment 2 – Agreement production in English-Spanish bilinguals

XIV. Experiment 2 – Research questions

a. Do English-Spanish bilinguals produce subject-verb number agreement in the same manner in both languages?

b. What role do age of acquisition and proficiency play in bilingual agreement production?

i. Manner

ii. Accuracy

XV. Experiment 2

a. Participants – English-Spanish bilinguals

i. Early-intermediate (n = 16)

ii. Early-advanced (n = 22)

iii. Late-intermediate (n = 52)

iv. Late-advanced (n = 18)

b. Materials

c. Experimental stimuli

d. Procedure

XVI. Experiment 2 – Results (Manner)

a. English

b. Spanish

XVII. Experiment 2 – Research questions revisited (Manner)

a. Do English-Spanish bilinguals produce subject-verb number agreement in the same manner in both languages?

i. YES

b. What role do age of acquisition and proficiency play in bilingual agreement production?

i. Manner

1. NONE…all groups are sensitive to conceptual number in both Spanish and English

XVIII. Experiment 2 – Discussion (Manner)

a. Results support NO cross-linguistic differences in how bilinguals produce agreement…conceptual number affects agreement processes in both English and Spanish regardless of age of acquisition or proficiency level

b. In terms of the maximalist model, bilinguals effect agreement by means of feature unification in both of their languages, no matter the AoA or proficiency level

XIX. Experiment 2 – Results (Accuracy)

a. Age of acquisition

b. Proficiency

XX. Experiment 2 – Research questions revisited (Accuracy)

a. What role do age of acquisition and proficiency play in agreement production in English-Spanish bilinguals’ two languages?

i. More proficient bilinguals are more accurate, no matter whether late or early

ii. Early bilinguals are less accurate than late bilinguals

XXI. Experiment 2 – Discussion (Accuracy)

a. Advanced proficiency bilinguals more accurate than intermediate proficiency bilinguals

b. Early bilinguals NOT more accurate than late bilinguals…other way around.

i. Contrary to an across-the-board interpretation of the CPH

XXII. Central question in SLA

a. Why is the outcome of second language (L2) acquisition different from that of first language (L1) acquisition?

b. The aspects of the agreement production system investigated are not responsible for the variability at the level of inflectional morphology present in bilinguals

c. Is there really a problem with morphological variability in late bilingual agreement production?

i. Subject-verb number agreement vs. adjective agreement

XXIII. Conclusion

a. Age effects in second language acquisition should be investigated in terms of specific linguistic structures or psycholinguistic processes

b. Younger may not always be better!

References

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