Critical Period Hypothesis Revisited

The book discusses various arguments for and against Critical Period Hypothesis for the acquisition of foreign language native-like pronunciation. The research described in the book encompassed adult learners of English and Polish, some of whom mastered the pronunciation in such a way that they managed to pass off as native speakers of the target language. Various factors were examined in order to show their contribution to the ultimate success of the learners such as a learning setting, a length in learning and a training in foreign language phonology/phonetics.

Biolinguistics involves the study of language from a broad perspective that embraces natural sciences, helping us better to understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language. This Handbook offers the most comprehensive state-of-the-field survey of the subject available. A team of prominent scholars working in a variety of disciplines is brought together to examine language development, language evolution and neuroscience, as well as providing overviews of the conceptual landscape of the field. The Handbook includes work at the forefront of contemporary research devoted to the evidence for a language instinct, the critical period hypothesis, grammatical maturation, bilingualism, the relation between mind and brain and the role of natural selection in language evolution. It will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, Ruhr-University of Bochum, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In 1967 Eric Heinz Lenneberg established his groundbreaking work "Biological Foundations of Language" in which he tries to push the biological view on language forward. One important point that is discussed is "language in the context of growth and maturation". The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) is the essence of this considerations. Lenneberg tries to find evidence for his theory in the study of retarded, aphasic or deaf children and in neurological studies. But at this time the most striking proof for the CPH, Genie, was still imprisoned in a small room in her parents home. Three years after Lenneberg published his work on the CPH, 131⁄2 years-old Genie was recovered by an eligibility worker and her case rapidly aroused the interest of neurologists, psychologists and linguists. Susan Curtiss, a graduate student of the UCLA Linguistic Department got the possibility to work with Genie for the years to come. Her work Genie - A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day ′Wild Child′ compiles her experiences on working with Genie added by a detailed case history. What Susan Curtiss found out about Genie′s linguistic development seems to be the evidence for the existence of a critical phase for first language acquisition. This paper gives a brief definition of Lenneberg′s Critical Period Hypothesis, summarizes the case history and the data of Genie′s linguistic development and, according to Susan Curtiss, relates Genie′s case directly to the CPH. Over and above that, it tries to explain, why Genie developed a certain amount of language and with this proved the ′strong′ version of Lenneberg′s hypothesis as wrong.

This book examines the importance of prenatal, birth, and postnatal factors in determining the extent of "risk" that may be predicted for an infant in the first year of life and in early childhood. It highlights the multiplicity of factors that contribute to "survival" in the developmental process.

This volume aims to provide a broad view of second language acquisition, from initial to final stages. It does this within a comparative perspective that addresses results concerning adult and child learners across a variety of source and target languages, in order to assess the relative weight of cognitive and typological determinants during language learning.

The book is arranged alphabetically from Academic English to Zelasko, Nancy.

Volume 14 2018 This is the fourteenth volume of the hard-copy edition of a journal that has been published online (www.jgrchj.net) since 2000. As they appear, the hard-copy editions replace the online materials. The scope of JGRChJ is the texts, language and cultures of the Greco-Roman world of early Christianity and Judaism. The papers published in JGRChJ are designed to pay special attention to the larger picture of politics, culture, religion and language, engaging as well with modern theoretical approaches.

Biolinguistics involves the study of language from a broad perspective that embraces natural sciences, helping us better to understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language. This Handbook offers the most comprehensive state-of-the-field survey of the subject available. A team of prominent scholars working in a variety of disciplines is brought together to examine language development, language evolution and neuroscience, as well as providing overviews of the conceptual landscape of the field. The Handbook includes work at the forefront of contemporary research devoted to the evidence for a language instinct, the critical period hypothesis, grammatical maturation, bilingualism, the relation between mind and brain and the role of natural selection in language evolution. It will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology and cognitive science.