Plasticity, Variability and Age in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism

Birdsong, David

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00081

Cited by 121 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 110 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

100

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This study also contributes to exploration of perceptual abilities correlated with working memory in children close to or within the critical period for the first language acquisition, as related to brain plasticity and age (cf. [47]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of working memory in children's ability for prosodic discrimination

Stepanov¹,

Kodrič²,

Stateva³

2020

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous research established that young children are sensitive to prosodic cues discriminating between syntactic structures of otherwise similarly sounding sentences in a language unknown to them. In this study, we explore the role of working memory that children might deploy for the purpose of the sentence-level prosodic discrimination. Nine-year old Slovenian monolingual and bilingual children (N = 70) were tested on a same-different prosodic discrimination task in a language unknown to them (French) and on the working memory measures in the form of forward and backward digit span and non-word repetition tasks. The results suggest that both the storage and processing components of the working memory are involved in the prosodic discrimination task.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of working memory in children's ability for prosodic discrimination

Stepanov¹,

Kodrič²,

Stateva³

2020

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…L1/L2 performance differences have traditionally been attributed to a lack of relevant L2 knowledge, reduced L2 experience, L1 influence, and/or age-of-acquisition effects. Recent attempts to account for L1/L2 differences in sentence-level processing include the idea that, in comparison to L1 processing, L2 processing is impeded by cognitive resource limitations (McDonald, 2006) or slower lexical access (Hopp, in press), a reduced ability to predict (Grüter et al, 2017), reduced sensitivity to grammatical information (Clahsen & Felser, 2006, 2018, or increased susceptibility to memory interference (Cunnings, 2017). These hypotheses are often difficult to disentangle empirically and are not necessarily mutually exclusive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structure-sensitive constraints in non-native sentence processing

Felser

2019

Journal of the European Second Language Association

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies examining the real-time application of structure-sensitive constraints in second-language (L2) sentence processing have shown that depending on the type of constraint under investigation, the constraint may be more likely, equally (un)likely, or less likely to be violated during L2 than during native (first-language, L1) processing. Several attempts have been made in the past to attribute L1/L2 processing differences to a specific underlying cause, including cognitive resource limitations, reduced sensitivity to grammatical information, or increased susceptibility to memory interference during L2 processing. Focusing on recent findings on the processing of referential and filler-gap dependencies, I argue that trying to reduce L1/L2 processing differences to a single cause is misguided. What is called for instead is a more careful investigation of how different types of constraint and information sources interact during L2 comprehension, taking into account what linguistic cues need to be extracted from the input or need to be re-accessed in order for a given constraint to be applied. This should provide us with a more nuanced picture of how the relative weighting or timing of constraints or information sources might differ in L2 in comparison to L1 processing.

show abstract

“…English proficiency is unique because, instead of being an explanatory variable, it is an outcome variable that is the result of a few main factors (AoA, language exposure, motivation to learn, and potential genetic factors; Vaughn & Hernandez, ). Given that, early AoA is a consistently strong predictor of having higher proficiency in both languages (Birdsong, ), attempts to separate these two variables may lead to results that are less informative. For instance, matching early and late bilinguals on proficiency would require picking only the early bilinguals with English proficiency that is lower than expected in order to match the late bilinguals who have English proficiency that is higher than expected.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that, early AoA is a consistently strong predictor of having higher proficiency in both languages (Birdsong, 2018), attempts to separate these two variables may lead to results that are less informative. For instance, matching early and late bilinguals on proficiency would require picking only the early bilinguals with English proficiency that is lower than expected in order to match the late bilinguals who have English proficiency that is higher than expected.…”

Section: Development and Its Role In Language Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age of acquisition impacts the brain differently depending on neuroanatomical metric

Claussenius-Kalman

Vaughn

Archila‐Suerte

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although researchers generally agree that a certain set of brain areas underlie bilingual language processing, there is discrepancy regarding what effect timing of language acquisition has on these regions. We aimed to investigate the neuroanatomical correlates of age of acquisition (AoA), which has been examined previously, but with inconsistent results, likely influenced by methodological differences across studies. We analyzed gray matter density, volume, and thickness using whole-brain linear models in 334 bilinguals and monolinguals. Neuroanatomical correlates of AoA differed depending on gray matter metric. Relative to early bilinguals, late bilinguals had thicker cortex in language processing and cognitive control regions, and greater density in multiple frontal areas and the right middle temporal and supramarginal gyri. Early bilinguals had greater volume than late bilinguals in the left middle temporal gyrus. Overall, volume was the least sensitive to AoA-related differences. Multiple regions not classically implicated in duallanguage processing were also found, which highlights the important role of whole-brain analyses in neuroscience. This is the first study to investigate AoA and gray matter thickness, volume, and density all in the same sample. We conclude that cognitive models of bilingualism should consider the roles of development and neuroanatomical metric in driving our understanding of bilingual and monolingual language organization. K E Y W O R D S age of acquisition, bilingualism, gray matter, language development, magnetic resonance imaging, neuroanatomy, replication crisis

show abstract

Plasticity, Variability and Age in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism

Cited by 121 publications

References 110 publications

The role of working memory in children's ability for prosodic discrimination

The role of working memory in children's ability for prosodic discrimination

Structure-sensitive constraints in non-native sentence processing

Age of acquisition impacts the brain differently depending on neuroanatomical metric

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About