David Singleton

A critical review of age-related research on L2 ultimate attainment

This article addresses age-related attainment effects in second language acquisition, posing the question of whether such effects are to be explained in terms of a Critical Period with a predictable and abrupt offset point or in terms of the impact of a wider range of factors. It attempts to explore this question by focusing on four discussion points in the current debate: (i) the wide use of native-speaker behaviour as the key L2 attainment yardstick; (ii) the degree of compatibility of prevailing views regarding the notion of a critical period for L2 acquisition; (iii) the relative narrowness of much research in this area, where age of L2 onset is often regarded as the crucial if not the only critical variable; and (iv) insights relative to maturational constraints on language acquisition offered by recent brain research. The article concludes that a loosening of the association between ultimate L2 attainment research and Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) issues would shed more light on L2 attainment in terms both of the comprehensiveness and of the acuity of the insights which would result.

The Critical Period Hypothesis: A coat of many colours

Abstract Research on age-related effects in L2 development often invokes the idea of a critical period – the postulation of which is customarily referred to as the Critical Period Hypothesis. This paper argues that to speak in terms of the Critical Period Hypothesis is misleading, since there is a vast amount of variation in the way in which the critical period for language acquisition is understood – affecting all the parameters deemed to be theoretically significant and indeed also relating to the ways in which the purported critical period is interpreted in terms of its implications for L2 instruction. The paper concludes that the very fact that there are such diverse and competing versions of the Critical Period Hypothesis of itself undermines its plausibility.

AGE AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

The idea that there is an age factor in language development has long been — and continues to be — a hotly debated topic. This review begins by briefly revisiting some of the early perspectives on this issue; it goes on to sketch some of the relevant findings which emerged in the three decades following the onset in the late 1960s of serious empirical investigation of the age factor in L2 acquisition; and, finally, in the third section of the survey, it hones in on the results of some more recently published age-related research. The article concludes with a short discussion — in the light of the foregoing — of (a) the degree of absoluteness of the age factor in L2 acquisition; and (b) the notion that there may be not one, but a number, of age-related factors at work.

Multilingualism as a New Linguistic Dispensation

Abstract This paper aims to show that the development of multilingualism in the world has reached a point where, in terms of scale and significance, it is comparable with and assimilable to politico-economic aspects of globalisation, global mobility and ‘postmodern’ modes of thinking. The paper situates multilingualism in its relationship with the most dramatic social changes currently occurring in the world, notably the transformation of the experience of time and space, as well as global mobility, which has resulted in unprecedented diversity and heterogeneity in the populations of individual countries and regions. It argues that multilingualism is the ineluctable concomitant of all dimensions of globalisation and that the application in the relevant literature of the notion of a new linguistic dispensation to recent shifts in the language/society interface is entirely justified by the facts. Finally, taking an historical perspective, it seeks to make a case for the claim that, although multilingual individuals and societies have existed throughout the history of humankind, the present stage of global sociolinguistic arrangements is in fact a novel development.

Perspectives on the Multilingual Lexicon: A Critical Synthesis

The starting point of this concluding synthesis is that the current locus of discussion in respect of the multilingual lexicon is the issue of the relationship between the operations of the mental lexicons associated with the different languages known to the multilingual individual. The article begins by examining some arguments that have hitherto been put with regard to the question of the degree to which such lexical operations are separate or integrated; it goes on to look at a founding model of this discussion; and, finally, it attempts to situate the various contributions to this volume in respect of the different perspectives which have emerged from previous debate.

Affordances and the diversity of multilingualism

Abstract With the advent of globalization and the consequent and concomitant establishment of a new linguistic dispensation, the diversity of multilingualism has increased exponentially. Unsurprisingly, such diversity has attracted the closest attention of researchers, as well as those involved in managing the practical ramifications of multilingualism, particularly, perhaps, in regard to issues relating to the ethnic diversity of multilingual populations, both indigenous and immigrant. In this contribution, we call attention to further numerous distinctions manifested in the diversity of multilingualism. We also discuss the recent emergence of new language nominations. Language nominations are terms which have been traditionally attached to languages used in society, such as mother tongue, heritage language and foreign language — as opposed to the proper names of particular languages (e.g. English, Turkish, Urdu, etc.). In addition to strong subjective connotations, language nominations advert to the value and role currently assigned to a given language by a given society/community. We go on to argue that the concept of affordances has considerable explanatory power in relation to the unprecedented flourishing of multilingual diversity of all kinds and can provide a framework within which the description and explication of the intriguing array of attributes of multilingual communities and individuals becomes feasible. In addition, we suggest that societal linguistic affordances are more conducive to the selection of particular languages for use and study in society than to the selection of others: in other words, that social affordances pave the way for the realization of specific individual linguistic affordances. It is our view that the affordances perspective will facilitate a more efficacious organization of a research perspective on multilingual diversity — allowing investigators to fish out, as it were, identifiable societal underpinnings for individual patterns of linguistic behavior from what may appear to be an unruly pool of complexity.

Current multilingualism : a new linguistic dispensation

This volume approaches current multilingualism as a new linguistic dispensation, in urgent need of research-led, reflective scrutiny. The book addresses the emergent global and local patterns of multingual use and acquisition across the world and explores the major trends that characterize todays multilingualism. Its fifteen chapters discuss a range of issues relating to the quintessential and unique properties of multilingual situations.

Strategic L2 Lexical Innovation: Case Study of a University-Level Ab Initio Learner of German.

The article is a case study of one learners use of lexical innovation. She is a university-level ab initio learner of German, and a subject in the Trinity College, Dublin, Modern Languages Research Project. In the target language production tasks performed over a two-year period, she exhibits a particular tendency towards lexical innovation as a strategy to cope with lack of TL lexical knowledge. From her introspective reports there is evidence to suggest that this type of strategic behaviour is related to her conscious approach towards vocabulary learning.

Affect trumps age: A person-in-context relational view of age and motivation in SLA

Recent findings (see, for example, Muñoz and Singleton, 2011) indicate that age of onset is not a strong determinant of instructed foreign language (FL) learners’ achievement and that age is intricately connected with social and psychological factors shaping the learner’s overall FL experience. The present study, accordingly, takes a participant-active approach by examining and comparing second language (L2) data, motivation questionnaire data, and language experience essays collected from a cohort of 200 Swiss learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at the beginning and end of secondary school. These were used to analyse (1) whether in the long run early instructed FL learners in Switzerland outperform late instructed FL learners, and if so the extent to which motivation can explain this phenomenon, (2) the development of FL motivation and attitudes as students ascend the educational ladder, (3) the degree to which school-level variables affect age-related differences, and (4) learners’ beliefs about the age factor. We set out to combine large-scale quantitative methods (multilevel analyses) with individual-level qualitative data. While the results reveal clear differences with respect to rate of acquisition in favor of the late starters, whose motivation is more strongly goal- and future-focused at the first measurement, there is no main effect for starting age at the end of mandatory school time. Qualitative analyses of language experience essays offer insights into early and late starters’ L2 learning experience over the course of secondary school, capturing the multi-faceted complexity of the role played by starting age.

Age and Second Language Learning

The question of whether the age at which individuals begin to be exposed to a second/foreign language (henceforth L2) plays a role in L2 development has long been a theme of discussion amongst researchers, educators and indeed learners (for reviews see Long, 1990; Singleton, 1989, 1995). The reasons for this interest in the age issue relate not only to theoretical issues such as whether a putative innate language faculty continues to function beyond a particular maturational point (see, e.g., Martohardjono and Flynn, 1995; Schachter: this volume), but also to very practical issues such as when L2 instruction should begin in school — which has recently become again a major subject of debate in many countries (see, e.g., C.M.I.E.B./C.L.A./Ville de Besancon, 1992).