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- 2017 (2) (entfernen)
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- 2nd-language acquisition (1)
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The keynote article (Mayberry & Kluender, 2017) makes an important contribution to questions concerning the existence and characteristics of sensitive periods in language acquisition. Specifically, by comparing groups of non-native L1 and L2 signers, the authors have been able to ingeniously disentangle the effects of maturation from those of early language exposure. Based on L1 versus L2 contrasts, the paper convincingly argues that L2 learning is a less clear test of sensitive periods. Nevertheless, we believe Mayberry and Kluender underestimate the evidence for maturational factors in L2 learning, especially that coming from recent research.
Is there an ideal time window for language acquisition after which nativelike
representation and processing are unattainable? Although this question has
been heavily debated, no consensus has been reached. Here, we present
evidence for a sensitive period in language development and show that it is
specific to grammar. We conducted a masked priming task with a group of
Turkish-German bilinguals and examined age of acquisition (AoA) effects on
the processing of complex words. We compared a subtle but meaningful
linguistic contrast, that between grammatical inflection and lexical-based
derivation. The results showed a highly selective AoA effect on inflectional
(but not derivational) priming. In addition, the effect displayed a discontinuity
indicative of a sensitive period: Priming from inflected forms was nativelike
when acquisition started before the age of 5 but declined with increasing
AoA. We conclude that the acquisition of morphological rules expressing
morphosyntactic properties is constrained by maturational factors.