2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A research in L2 learner's starting age effects and long-term attainment
| Project/Area Number |
11680259
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
|
| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
|---|
| Section | 一般 |
|---|
| Research Field |
教科教育
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Shizuoka University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
SHIRAHATA Tomohiko Shizuoka University, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (50206299)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
1999 – 2002
|
| Keywords | Second language acquisition / Critical period hypothesis / L2 starting age / Duration of learning / binding form / learning Japanese / Universal Grammar |
|---|
| Research Abstract |
This year, I challenged the critical period hypothesis (CPH) by examining the acquisition of the three grammatical properties of subject-orientation (SO), local binding and long-distance (LD) binding in the Japanese binding form, zibun ("self") by second language (L2) learners. The participants included 59 native English speakers with various learning backgrounds living in Japan. True-or-False tests with pictures were administered by telling short stories to the participants.
Although the results showed that the older the learners' age of initial exposure to the L2 was, the worse the learners' test scores became for all the participants, the same tendency was not found for the 26 participants who had lived in Japan longer than ten years. These people acquired the properties in zibun to the level of native speakers, no matter how old they were when they started learning Japanese.
It is suggested from the results that there should be grammatical items that are less constrained by an age of initial L2 exposure factor. However, compared with the results obtained from English-speaking child L2 learners of Japanese reported in Shirahata (2002), the adult L2 learners take more time to acquire the properties of zibun. This difference might be an age-effect of language learning
|
