ERIC Number: EJ878691
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Mar
Pages: 33
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0019-042X
EISSN: N/A
Judgments of Information Structure in L2 French: Nativelike Performance and the Critical Period Hypothesis
Reichle, Robert V.
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (IRAL), v48 n1 p53-85 Mar 2010
Previous studies using judgments of morphosyntactic errors have shown mixed evidence for a critical period for L2 acquisition (e.g., Birdsong & Molis, Journal of Memory and Language 44: 235-249, 2001, Johnson & Newport, Cognitive Psychology 21: 60-99, 1989). This study uses anomalies in the domain of information structure, the interface between syntactic form and pragmatic function, to shed light on the effect of age of arrival on L2 performance. In two experiments, high-proficiency L2 speakers of French were presented with sentence pairs containing either expected or anomalous information structure. Subjects judged each exchange as acceptable or unacceptable. A weak post-maturational effect of age on acceptability task performance was observed, along with a high degree of nativelike performance. These results are incompatible with the traditional notion of a critical period for second language acquisition in this domain of language, and also suggest that long periods of immersion in the L2 environment can lead to nativelike performance on tasks relating to information structure.
Descriptors: Grammar, Cognitive Psychology, Pragmatics, French, Second Language Learning, Morphology (Languages), Syntax, Language Proficiency, Age, Error Analysis (Language), Task Analysis, Linguistic Theory
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom (England)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A