Critical period effects on universal properties of language: The status of subjacency in the acquisition of a second language

doi:10.1016/0010-0277(91)90054-8

Cognition

Volume 39, Issue 3, June 1991, Pages 215-258

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(91)90054-8 Get rights and content

Abstract

Recent studies have shown clear evidence for critical period effects for both first and second language acquisition on a broad range of learned, language-specific grammatical properties. The present studies ask whether and to what degree critical period effects can also be found for universal properties of language considered to be innate. To address this issue, native Chinese speakers who learned English as a second language were tested on the universal principle subjacency as it applies to wh-question formation in English. Subjects arrived in the U.S.A. between the ages of 4 and 38 years. They were immersed in English for a number of years (a minimum of 5) and were adults at the time of testing. Non-native performance on subjacency was found for subjects of all ages of arrival. Performance declined continuously over age of arrival until adulthood, (r = -.63). When immersion occurred as late as adulthood, performance dropped to levels slightly above chance. In all of the analyses performed, subjacency did not differ from language-specific structures in the degree or manner in which it was affected by maturation. These results suggest that whatever the nature of the endowment that allows humans to learn language, it undergoes a very broad deterioration as learners become increasingly mature.

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Language researchers have long been fascinated with young children’s ability to acquire new languages and accents. Based on many decades of work, we know that children who are immersed in two languages early in life can efficiently learn both languages (e.g., Johnson & Newport, 1991), and children who move into a new dialect region are faster than adults in their adoption of the local variety of English (e.g., Chambers, 1992; Tagliamonte & Molfenter, 2007). Overall, those previous studies paint a picture where young children are optimally designed to learn to produce multiple languages at once – or to add to, or even replace, the language or language variety they speak – with what increasingly seems to be very little (if any) negative impact on their overall linguistic abilities.
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In probability learning experiments, a participant is typically presented with one of two alternatives to select, one of which will lead to a reward. For example, in a 70:30 task, one alternative will lead to a reward on 70% of trials while the other will yield a reward on the remaining 30% of trials. On probability learning tasks, adults are said to “probability match,” selecting each alternative with the relative frequency with which it has been reinforced. Children, on the other hand, are said to “maximize,” always guessing whichever alternative has been reinforced more often. The different patterns between adult and child behavior are thought to have implications for language learning, especially qualitative differences in child and adult language learning skills and developmental trajectories on a range of other cognitive tasks. However, a thorough review of the literature suggests that behavioral profiles of adults and children are not as straightforward as has been claimed. Crucially, there is little empirical support for a true probability matching strategy by any participants. Differences in features of the experimental task and in meta-task knowledge contribute to variability across tasks and participants in ways that only become evident when systematically reviewing the literature. Differences in probability learning across populations may not underlie or indicate causal differences in more complex cognitive behavior, but rather may themselves be another pattern of behavior that theories of learning and development must account for.
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Young children acquire language rapidly and effortlessly, without explicit training (Bonvillian et al., 2012; Gleitman and Wanner, 1982; Petitto et al., 2001a, 2001b; Gleitman and Newport, 1995; Lightbrown and Spada, 1993). By contrast, when language is acquired in adulthood, learning proceeds more slowly and plateaus at lower levels of proficiency (Johnson and Newport, 1989, 1991; Neville et al., 1992; Newport et al., 2001). This pattern is evident in second language learners and individuals born deaf who do not gain access to sign language until later in life (Emmorey et al., 1995; Mayberry et al., 2011; Mayberry and Eichen, 1991; Mayberry and Lock, 2003).
Congenital blindness modifies the neural basis of language: “visual” cortices respond to linguistic information, and fronto-temporal language networks are less left-lateralized. We tested the hypothesis that this plasticity follows a sensitive period by comparing the neural basis of sentence processing between adult-onset blind (AB, n = 16), congenitally blind (CB, n = 22) and blindfolded sighted adults (n = 18). In Experiment 1, participants made semantic judgments for spoken sentences and, in a control condition, solved math equations. In Experiment 2, participants answered “who did what to whom” yes/no questions for grammatically complex (with syntactic movement) and simpler sentences. In a control condition, participants performed a memory task with non-words. In both experiments, visual cortices of CB and AB but not sighted participants responded more to sentences than control conditions, but the effect was much larger in the CB group. Only the “visual” cortex of CB participants responded to grammatical complexity. Unlike the CB group, the AB group showed no reduction in left-lateralization of fronto-temporal language network, relative to the sighted. These results suggest that congenital blindness modifies the neural basis of language differently from adult-onset blindness, consistent with a developmental sensitive period hypothesis.

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^☆: This research was supported in part by NIH Training Grant no. HD07205 to the University of Illinois and by NIH Grant no. DC00167 to E. Newport and T. Supalla. We would like to thank Diane Lilo-Martin and Peter Cole for raising questions that helped stimulate this study, and Renee Baillargeon, Marie Banich, Dedre Gentner, Gabriel Hermon, Doug Medin and Lydia White and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful advice and comments, and Jeff Bettger for assistance in preparing the figures. This paper is based on a portion of the Ph.D. dissertation of J.S. Johnson (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1988, unpublished). Early portions of this work were presented at the 1987 Boston University Conference on Language Development. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jacqueline Johnson. Psychology Department, Gilmer Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, U.S.A.

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Critical period effects on universal properties of language: The status of subjacency in the acquisition of a second language☆

Abstract

Animal Behavior

Information and Control

Cognitive Psychology

The complex np constraint as a non-universal rule and some semantic factors influencing the acceptability of Swedish sentences which violate the CNPC

University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics

Review essay. A critique of Flynn's parameter setting model of second language acquisition

The accessibility of universal grammar in adult language learning

Second Language Research

Current issues in linguistic theory

Aspects of the theory of syntax

Language and mind

Lectures on government and binding

The availability of universal grammar to adult and child learners: A study of the acquisition of German word order

Second Language Research

Genie: A psycholinguistic study of a modern day “wildchild”

The case of Chelsea: A new test case of the critical period for language acquisition

UG or not UG, that is the question: A reply to Clahsen and Muysken

Second Language Research

On the nature of island constraints

MIT Dissertation

Differences between first and second language acquisition: Setting the parameters of universal grammar

A universal in L2 acquisition based on a PBD typology

Imprinting

Sensitive phases in development