DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Second-language acquisition
Research
Second/foreign-language learning and teaching is expensive and it is also very often wasteful, in that many of those who embark on a course of instruction abandon it before they have reached some useful take-off point. Whether there is an optimum age to start learning a second/foreign language is therefore of considerable practical importance. It is also of theoretical importance because it bears on the question of the critical or sensitive period (which takes place some time during puberty) for engaging with a new cognitive load. Furthermore, it relates to our understanding of what it means to be a native speaker (Davies 1991a, 2003). It is assumed that only those exposed to a language in early childhood are native speakers of that language. It is further assumed that if there is exposure to more than one language during early childhood, then it is equally possible to be a native speaker of more than one language. But later exposure, it is thought, cannot produce a native speaker.
There are, of course, serious problems in defining a native speaker so narrowly-for at least two reasons. The first is that there are indeed so-called exceptional learners who start learning a second language in later life and who do somehow attain native-like mastery, in some cases so perfect that their provenance cannot be distinguished from that of a birthright native speaker. The second reason is that those birthright native members differ among themselves. Not only do they have different accents, they also have different grammars (Ross 1979), quite apart from their very different control over performance skills in the language: in writing, speaking and so on.
However, the sensitive period position has been difficult to counter for second language acquisition, even thought its legitimacy properly belongs to the acquisition of the first language. Birdsong (1992) has challenged the view that ultimate attainment (native-speaker ability) is not possible for exceptional second-language learners. Bialystok (1997) has shown that on the basis of her experiments it is not only the exceptional learner who is capable of such attainment.
She accepts that ‘the general success of younger learners in acquiring a second language is true’ (ibid: 133) but points out that the evidence does not therefore mean that ‘this advantage is the reflection of a sensitive period in learning’ (ibid). She rejects the casuistry of those who wish to add qualifications to the claim that a second-language learner can become a native speaker: as she writes: ‘there either is a maturational constraint on second language acquisition or there is not’ (ibid: 134).
And she concludes that it is not in fact only the exceptional learner who can overcome the problems of reaching ultimate attainment after the sensitive period. Indeed, it is quite a normal feat: ‘it is prudent to assume that successful second-language acquisition remains a possibility for all those who have learnt a natural language in childhood and can organize their lives to recreate some of the social, educational and experiential advantages that children enjoy’ (ibid: 134).
Research such as Bialystok’s is unlikely to have direct application to second-language teaching. But that is of course not its purpose. And yet it belongs firmly within applied linguistics since it takes a problem of language in use (or several problems) such as what is the optimum age to start acquiring a second language, what sort of attainment can be expected of a learner, whether native-speaker attainment is possible, and so on. These are real problems and what research such as Bialystok’s does is to investigate them, reflect on them and provide an explanatory framework that may be used for later developmental studies.
