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1st A' GUIORA ANNUAL ROUNDTABLE CONFERENCE IN THE COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF LANGUAGE: THE COGNITIVE

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Title: 1st A' GUIORA ANNUAL ROUNDTABLE CONFERENCE IN THE COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF LANGUAGE: THE COGNITIVE


1
1st A. GUIORA ANNUAL ROUNDTABLE CONFERENCEIN
THE COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF LANGUAGE THE
COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF L2ANijmegen, September
20, 2005 Age and L2AAn Overview
  • David Birdsong
  • University of Texas
  • Visitor MPI-Nijmegen

2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  • Organizers and Steering Committee of the
    Roundtable Conference Series
  • Language Learning
  • Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

3
Preliminaries
  • Overview (selective) of facts and issues relating
    to age and L2A
  • Theory Evidence Methodology
  • L2A end-state data
  • Behavioral brain-based evidence
  • L2 attainment L2 processing

4
Organization
  • I. Age and Nativelike Attainment in L2A
  • II. Interpreting Age-Related Effects
  • III. The Aging Brain and L2A
  • IV. The Nature of Age Effects

5
Terminology
  • gt Ultimate attainment ? nativelikeness
  • attainment at end state/asymptote
  • gt Nativelikeness experimental performance like
    that of native controls
  • gt AoA Age of Acquisition/Arrival (immersion in
    L2 context)

6
I. Age and Nativelike Attainment in L2A
7
Age of Acquisition/Arrival (AoA) and
nativelikeness received views
  • Bley-Vroman (1989 44) Insignificant incidence
    of nativelikeness in late L2A ineluctable
    failure Fossilization Fundamental Difference
    Hypothesis
  • Johnson Newport (1989 255) for AoA gt 15
    later AOA determines that one will not become
    nativelike or near-nativelike in a language
    CPH/L2A

8
Age of Acquisition/Arrival (AoA) and
nativelikeness received views
  • Hyltenstam Abrahamsson (2003 575) If we look
    at overall L2 proficiency we will find that
    perfect proficiency and absolute nativelike
    command of an L2 may in fact never be possible
    for any late learner
  • Deficient language-learning mechanism

9
Nativelikeness in late L2A
  • 1. Not typical, but not rare
  • 20 studies / 13 years gt3 - 45 of subjects
    perform like native controls (median gt 11)
  • morphosyntax pronunciation
  • most learner samples not composed of pre-screened
    L2 high-proficients

10
Nativelikeness in late L2A
  • 2. Not restricted to a narrow or single domain
  • Birdsong (2003) Marinova-Todd (2003) Multiple
    tasks covering segmental global pronunciation,
    vocabulary knowledge, morphosyntactic
    production/judgment, language use, etc.
  • Marinova-Todd 3/30 subjects indistinguishable
    from native controls across 9 tasks.
  • Birdsong 3/22 like natives on 5/7 tasks

11
Nativelikeness in late L2A
  • 3. Heuristic No limits on what is learnable
  • There is no task involving L2 linguistic
    knowledge (or pronunciation accuracy) where
    nativelikeness is out of reach for all late L2
    learners at end state.

12
Nativelikeness in late L2A
  • 4. Heuristic Limits on what is processable
  • L2 processing tasks where all late learners fall
    short of nativelikeness (e.g., Clahsen Felser,
    in press Dussias, 2004 Dupous Peperkamp,
    2002 Frenck-Mestre, 2005 Juffs, 2004
    Papadopoulu Clahsen, 2004)
  • gt lexical retrieval
  • gt structural ambiguity resolution
  • gt detection of acoustic distinctions in syllable
    stress, vowel length, consonant voicing
  • gt sentence processing - eyetracking
  • Quantitative differences speed accuracy
  • Qualitative differences shallow/deep
    processing local /non-local parsing mishearing
  • ? Trainability

13
Nativelikeness (L1-likeness) in late L2A
  • 5. Neurofunctional similarities
  • Abutalebi et al. (2005) Green (2005) Stowe
    Sabourin (in press) In terms of where (fMRI)
    and when (ERP), similarities with L1 in brain
    activation among L2 high-proficients, even late
    learners.
  • to be continued

14
Nativelikeness in late L2A
  • 6. Incidence of nativelikeness derivable from
    slope of AoA function (Birdsong, 2005)

15
Slope predicts incidence of nativelikeness
shallow slope
16
Slope predicts incidence of nativelikeness
steeper slope
17
Nativelikeness in late L2A
  • 7. Incidence of nativelikeness affected by
    exogenous factors
  • Bialystok Hakuta (1999) Flege et al. (1999)
    inter alia Slope of the age function (gt rate of
    nativelikeness) depends on L2 input / interaction
    / use / training education task etc.

18
Nativelikeness in late L2A
  • 8. Incidence of nativelikeness affected by
    linguistic factors
  • Flege et al. (1999) Slope of age function (gt
    rate of nativelikeness) steeper for
  • - knowledge of ungrammaticality than
    grammaticality
  • - knowledge of lexical / morphosyntactic
    irregulars than regulars

19
Flege et al. (1999)Korean L1 / English L2 (n
240) subset of Johnson Newport (1989) items
grammaticality judgment accuracy
20
Nativelikeness in late L2A
  • 8. (cont) Incidence of nativelikeness affected
    by linguistic factors
  • Geometry of age function varies by L1-L2 pairing

21
Johnson Newport (1989) (broken lines
squares)vs. Birdsong Molis (2001) (solid lines
circles)JN Chinese/Korean L1 BM Spanish
L1English L2 grammaticality judgment accuracy
22
Non-Nativelikeness
  • Bilingualism effects ? learning deficits

23
Bilingualism effects
  • L1 -gt L2
  • L2 -gt L1
  • Grosjean (1989) A bilingual ? 2 monolinguals in
    1 person
  • Flege (2002) No perfect bilinguals

24
Bilingualism effects
  • L2 effects in the L1
  • Pronunciation VOT (Flege Hillenbrand,1984)
  • Lexis Collocations (Laufer, 2003)
  • Syntax Middle voice (Balcom, 2003)
  • Syntactic processing (Cook et al., 2003)
  • Lexical decision (Van Hell Dijkstra, 2002)
  • gt Grammaticality judgments Ungrammatical L1
    sentences that are grammatical in the L2 are
    judged more acceptable than sentences that are
    ungrammatical in both languages. (Altenberg
    1991 Pelc 2001)

25
Bilingualism effects
  • L2 effects in the L1
  • The L1 of a bilingual is not the language of a
    monolingual, but differences lt? shortcomings in
    language learning ability. L2 effects in L1 are
    routine and normal in bilingualism (early
    late).

26
Bilingualism effects
  • L1 effects in the L2
  • The L2 of a bilingual is not the language of a
    monolingual, but differences lt? shortcomings in
    language learning ability. L1 effects in L2 are
    routine and normal in bilingualism (early
    late).

27
Bilingualism effects
  • L1 effects in the L2
  • GENERAL L1 effect Cognitive repercussions as a
    function of entrenchment maintenance of L1 Ex.
    Slower processing (segmentation, parsing)
    grammatical convergence lexical
    interpenetration
  • GENERAL L1 effect High L1 use gt lower L2
    proficiency than high L2 users

28
Bilingualism effects
  • L1 effects in the L2
  • SPECIFIC L1 effect Slope of age function (gt
    rate of nativelikeness) varies by L1-L2 pairing
    signatures of non-nativelikeness (types of
    accent) vary by L1
  • Ex. Spanish L1 / English L2 shorter VOT lags
    than monolingual English English L1 / Spanish L2
    longer VOT than monolingual Spanish (Flege
    Eefting, 1988)

29
Bilingualism effects
  • Conceptual/theoretical implications
  • All non-nativelikeness lt? learning failure
  • (Some non-nativelikeness lt nature of
    bilingualism)
  • ? Utility of nativelikeness (resemblance to
    monolingual) as a criterion for falsification of
    CPH/L2A
  • X Utility of non-nativelikeness in support of
    CPH/L2A

30
L2 Dominance nativelikeness
  • ? Upper limits of late attainment seen in
    L2-dominants
  • Flege, MacKay Piske (2002). Italian L1/English
    L2 bilinguals (1) L1-dominants, (2) balanced
    bilinguals, (3) L2 dominants. Detectable accents
    among 1 2 3 like native controls

31
L2 Dominance nativelikeness
  • Upper limits of late attainment seen in
    L2-dominants ASYMMETRY
  • Golato (2002) English L1, late L2 French
    English dominants parse French words like French
    natives and English words like English natives.
    French dominants (L2 dominants) parse both
    English and French words like French monolinguals
    (open-syllable segmentation routine)

32
L2 Dominance nativelikeness
  • Conceptual/theoretical implications
  • Age effects and L1 effects are confounded. If we
    could minimize L1 effects (i.e., study L1
    attriters or L2-dominants), what would the
    residual age effects be?

33
L2 Dominance nativelikeness
  • Conceptual/theoretical implications
  • ? Dominance a predictor of attainment (a better
    predictor than AoA)
  • H Degree of dominance (continuous construct,
    psycholinguistically operationalized see Flege,
    Grosjean, Golato, etc.) predicts degree of
    monolingual-like experimental performance.

34
L2 Dominance nativelikeness
  • Conceptual/theoretical implications
  • ? AoA function (timing slope of decline) for
    those whose L1 is not dominant
  • H Reduced L1 dominance / reduced L1 use predicts
    later offset and shallower slope of decline.

35
L2 Dominance nativelikeness
  • Conceptual/theoretical implications
  • ? Brain-based data for L2-dominants
  • H More similarities with native monolinguals
    than observed for high L2-proficients.

36
L1-likeness in late L2A
  • Neurofunctional similarities
  • Abutalebi et al. (2005) Green (2005) Stowe
    Sabourin (in press) In terms of where (fMRI)
    and when (ERP), similarities with L1 in brain
    activation among L2 high-proficients, even late
    learners.
  • continuation

37
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness
  • Imaging studies
  • Production tasks word repetition Klein et al.,
    1994 cued word generation Chee et al., 1999
    sentence generation Kim et al., 1997 cognate-non
    cognate naming De Bleser et al., 2003
  • gt L2 proficiency, not AoA, predicts similarity in
    areas of activation between late L2 and L1
  • gt Degree of similarity varies among studies
  • gt Exposure differences and degree of proficiency
    differences

38
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness/early
bilingual-likeness
  • Imaging studies
  • Comprehension tasks Perani et al. (1996) PET
    Dehaene et al. (1997)
  • gt Differential activation between L1 and L2
    low-proficients
  • Comprehension tasks Perani et al. (1998) PET
  • gt Overlapping patterns for high-proficiency late
    and early bilinguals

39
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness
  • Imaging studies
  • Comprehension judgment tasks Chee et al. 2001
    fMRI
  • gt Late high proficients had relatively reduced
    brain activity in left prefrontal parietal
    areas
  • Comprehension judgment tasks Wartenburger et
    al. 2003 fMRI DESIGN It/Ger early biling/hi
    prof late biling/hi prof late biling/low prof
  • gt Activation for grammar judgments related to
    AoA, among high proficients (though groups may
    have actually differed in proficiency).
    Activation for semantic judgments similar for the
    high proficiency groups but more activation in
    bilateral BA 47 insula for late vs. early high
    proficients

40
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness
  • Imaging studies
  • Word-level meaning reference Chee et al.,
    (2000) Ding et al., (2003), Xue et al., (2004)
  • gt Similar activation in L1 and L2 even in
    relatively low proficient, latish learners (Xue
    et al., 2004) (fusiform gyrus, Brocas, left
    parietal)

41
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness
  • Imaging studies
  • Degree of activation More voxels in a given
    area or more signal change for same voxels in L2
    versus L1, both early and late bilinguals.
    Increased neural activity interpreted as more
    effortful processing in L2 (Stowe Sabourin, in
    press).

42
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness
  • NB Methodology
  • Potential confounds with chronological age.
    Speed, accuracy, effort (Park, 2000) and
    ambiguity resolution (Kemper Kemptes, 2000)
    affected by age. Activation varies by
    chronological age Older adults may activate
    less, more, or even different neural structures
    (Park Gutchess, 2005 219).

43
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness
  • ERP studies
  • General observation Timing components of
    high-proficient L2 use are similar to those of L1
    use, AoA gt 12, (e.g., Ojima et al., 2005
    Proverbio et al., 2002 Stowe Sabourin, in
    press.)
  • ? ELAN for word category violations not observed
    for late L2A (Hahne, 2001 Hahne Friederici,
    2001 Weber-Fox Neville, 1996)
  • ? P600 effects found in some studies (Hahne,
    2001 Sabourin, 2003) but not in others (Ojima et
    al., 2005)

44
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness
  • ERP studies
  • L2-L1 similarities appear early in the course of
    L2A.
  • McLaughlin et al. (2004) P600 effects for
    syntactic violations after 4 months of L2
    learning.
  • Osterhout et al. (2004) Word vs. pseudo-word
    N400 effect after 14 hours of instruction.

45
Age/Proficiency/Task L1-likeness
  • ERP / fMRI
  • ? Non-native behavioral results nativelike
    brain-based results gt amount of L2 learning
    understated in behavioral measures
  • ERP Osterhout colleagues P600 N400
  • fMRI Indefrey et al. (2005)
  • gt However, Ojima et al. (2005) Late learners
    (Japanese L1/English L2) detected S-V agreement
    errors in GJT but did not show P600 effect

46
II. Interpreting Age-Related Effects
47
The age function
  • Negative correlation of AoA and attainment
    measures
  • Over AoA span linear function (other models not
    much improvement)
  • Correlations between -.45 and -.77 median -.64

48
The age function
  • Disaggregation analyses yield mixed results
  • JN sig overall sig early, random late
  • BM sig overall ceiling early, sig late

49
The age function
  • Disaggregation analyses yield mixed results
  • DeKeyser (2000) sig overall ns early, ns late

50
The age function
  • Summary of meta-analysis (Birdsong, 2005)
  • gt Pooled data age effects persist indefinitely
    (not bounded, no period)
  • gt Late AoA Typically significant
    postmaturational declines
  • gt Early AoA Inconsistent effects, some flat,
    some random, some declining

51
Age function in L2A critical period function?
  • Definitional logic if (maturationally-based)
    critical period, then
  • gt Age effects should be finite (1) if confined
    to a period (2) maturation is a discrete
    process/phase within aging
  • gt Age function should look different pre- vs.
    post-maturationally (discontinuity synchronized
    with end of maturation) gt

52
Age function in L2A critical period function?
  • Stretched 7 Stretched L

53
Maturationally-Based Critical PeriodGeometric
and Temporal Features
  • 1 peak sensitivity 2 beginning of offset
  • 3 end of offset 4 baseline
    sensitivity
  • gt 3 coincides with end of maturation
  • gt Age effects do not persist past 3

1
2
STRETCHED Z (Johnson Newport, 1989) (Pinker,
1994)
4
3
54
STRETCHED Z (Newport, 1991)
55
JN89 Early vs. Late AoA
56
Age function in L2A critical period function?
  • Stretched L illusory
  • Stretched 7 elbow as late as 27.5

57
Age function in L2A critical period function?
  • X Conceptual Age effects end at end of
    maturation (L geometry) age effects begin at
    end of maturation (7 geometry)
  • X Typical linear function over span of AoA
  • X Persistent age effects
  • v Evidence of 7 geometry / window of
    opportunity age non-effect
  • X But with 7 geometry the window of opportunity
    extends past end of maturation
  • X Not much evidence of L geometry

58
Age function in L2A critical period function?
  • Minimal necessary feature of gradient
    Discontinuity at some point in the overall age
    function. (Stevens, Bialystok colleagues,
    Flege, inter alia)

59
Discontinuity via disaggregation
60
Single linear model vs. elbow modelRe-analysis
of results of Flege et al. (1995) (Jan-Pieter de
Ruiter)
61
III. The aging brain and L2A
62
The aging brain
  • Neurocognitive organizational analytic levels,
    relevant to language use/learning
  • Functional/processing lexical encoding/retrieval
    processing speed/depth concatenation/coordinatio
    n of grammatical units in real time, etc.
  • Functional/learning Hebbian learning
    explicit/explicit learning declarative/procedural
    memory etc.
  • Brain structure hippocampus, striatum, etc.
  • Cellular neurotransmission, regional volumes,
    etc.

63
Cognitive aging
  • Mechanisms of cognitive aging (Park, 2000
    Rogers, 2000)
  • gt Decreases in processing speed
  • gt Deficits in working memory
  • (Decreases in suppression, i.e, focus on relevant
    material--possibly tied to working memory)

64
Cognitive performance, by decade (Park, 2000)
65
Cognitive aging
  • General patterns (Bäckman, Craik, Park,
    Salthouse, inter alia)
  • gt Tasks involving working memory or episodic
    memory performance declines start in young
    adulthood
  • gt Associative memory incremental learning
    declines start in young adulthood
  • gt Tasks involving priming, recent memory,
    procedural memory, semantic memory age effects,
    if observed, are mild
  • gt Implicit memory in tasks involving lexical
    recall milder effects than for explicit memory
  • All related to L2 use / L2 learning

66
Cognitive aging
  • General patterns, cont
  • gt Fluid intelligence involving speeded solutions
    to novel problems (e.g. Digit Symbol) Steady
    decline over adulthood
  • gt Crystallized intelligence Declines begin in
    late adulthood performance increase between
    early and middle adulthood

67
L2A and cognitive aging
  • NB Language processing
  • Vocabulary knowledge (in high proficient L2 and
    L1) is crystallized intelligence serving language
    comprehension gt low effort, little error less
    so in low proficient L2
  • Assumption gt conclusion In the typical case
    (low-L2 proficient / L1 dominants) the proportion
    of fluid intelligence involved in L2 use is
    greater than in L1 use gt impact of age in L2 use
    is greater than in L1 use

68
L2A and cognitive aging
  • NB Vocabulary knowledge vs. retrieval of
    phonological form in real time

69
L2A and cognitive aging
  • NB Where speed efficiency demands are made
  • (A) declines begin in early adulthood
  • (B) declines are typically linear and all are
    continuous Bäckman Farde 2005
  • (?) Patterns consistent with L2 processing
    declines
  • The early onset and gradual nature of the
    age-related cognitive decline could inform
    attempts to determine its biological origins.
    Specifically, whatever the proposed origin may
    be, it would strengthen the case if the causative
    factor(s) would show a similar onset and
    trajectory as the behavioral data (68)

70
Age and brain volume
  • General patterns (Raz, 2005) in vivo MRI
  • gt Brain volume decreases with age, with degree
    and timing of declines varying by structure
  • gt Typically linear, always continuous no
    leveling off

71
Age, brain volume L2A
  • General patterns, cont
  • gt Gray matter volume linear decline beginning in
    childhood
  • gt White matter volume linear increase up to
    early 20s plateau into 60s linear decline
    into old age
  • gt Degree of decline (slope) varies with
    cardio-vascular health other biographical /
    lifestyle factors

72
Age Effect Size by Region of Interest
(ROI)cross-sectional studies 20-80 yoa
magnitude of effect as age-volume rmean, median
interquartile range of r (Raz, 2005)
73
Age Effect Size by ROI (Raz, 2005)
  • Magnitude of effects (approx. coefficients)
    cross-sectional observation
  • Prefrontal cortex r -.54
  • Putamen r -.46
  • Caudate r -.42
  • Hippocampus r -.36
  • Temporal cortex r -.32

74
Age Effect Size by Region of Interest
(ROI)longitudinal studies volume decline per
year(Raz, 2005)
75
Age Effect Size by ROI(Raz, 2005)
  • Median annual declines (approx.)
  • Entorhinal cortex 1.4
  • Hippocampus 1.2
  • Caudate nucleus 1.1
  • Frontal lobe 1

76
Striatum volume decline per year(Raz et al.,
2003)
  • Median annual decline (approx.)
  • Healthy adults (n 53) 20-77 yoa
  • Caudate nucleus .83
  • Putamen .73
  • Globus palidus .51
  • Shrinkage
  • gt begins in young adulthood
  • gt linear declines (same rate of decline for
    younger and older subjects)
  • gt parallels dopamine declines in these areas

77
Age, brain volume L2A
  • NB Correlative w/ L2 behavioral data,
    volumetric declines not bounded
  • Also Timing geometry by ROI
  • Caudate, cerebellum cortical structures linear
    decline starting in adolescence, throughout
    lifespan
  • Entorhinal cortex hippocampus greatest annual
    shrinkage, but not linear decline controversy
    w/r/t timing of onset (probably midlife)

78
Age, brain volume L2A
  • NB Timing cognitive aging
  • In neocortical areas, timing of volume declines
    // timetable of associated cognitive task
    declines however, not well synchronized with MT
    declines - episodic/associative memory declines
    (Reuter-Lorenz, 2000)
  • gt Neural resources (for which volume is a proxy)
    in some brain regions are better predictors of
    performance than in others

79
Dopamine systems language
  • Generalities
  • Nigrostriatal dopamine (DA) role in efficient
    motoric function
  • D1 D2 receptors diffusely distributed
    throughout the neocortex, esp. dense in caudate
    putamen areas of striatum.
  • Bäckman Farde (2005) DA role in higher-order
    cognitive functions, some of which are implicated
    in language learning processing switching
    between attentional targets, motoric sequencing
    (verbal fluency), working memory modulation.
    NB Role of each in bilingualism

80
Dopamine systems language
  • DA in basal ganglia functions
  • BG in syntax, lexicon phonology production
    (Crosson et al., 2003) and processing (Friederici
    Kotz, in press Moro et al., 2001 Newman et
    al., 2001), processing of rules vs. words
    (Teichmann et al., in press)

81
Dopamine systems L2A
  • DA in basal ganglia functions
  • BG in L2A motivation reinforcement (Schumann
    1997, 2001, 2004) contribution to
    proceduralization (Lee, 2004), defossilization of
    automatized procedures (Lee, 2004) gt minimizing
    L1 influence / intrusion

82
Age dopamine systems
  • DA decrements with age when where
  • Li et al., (2001) D2 receptor declines begin in
    early 20s and continue over lifespan. D2
    declines in BG hippocampus, amygdala, FC, ACC.
  • Kaasinen et al., (2000) Extrastriatal D2
    binding losses TC, PC, OC, hippocampus, thalamus

83
Age dopamine systems
  • DA decrements performance
  • Volkow et al. (1998) PET study (adults 24-86
    yoa) of striatal D2 binding potential behavioral
    measures on motoric, perceptual executive
    speed D2 receptor decline with age in caudate (r
    -.62) putamen (r -.7) similar correlations
    for performance measures
  • Prull et al., (1999) Declining nigrostriatal DA
    system gt impoverished input to frontal lobes gt
    reduced executive capacity of working memory
    also attention inhibitory processes (Braver et
    al, 2001)
  • Bäckman Farde (2005) With DA loss neural noise
    increases gt less distinctive neural
    representations gt declines in working memory
    executive function

84
Age, dopamine systems L2A
  • DA role in a variety of cognitive functions
    underlying L2 processing and learning.
    Age-related DA declines candidate mechanism
    underlying age effects in L2 learning
    processing
  • Age and other biochemical culprits (later life)
  • gt Age-related declines in other
    neuromodulators/receptors, esp. ACh
  • gt Age/Stress gt increases in cortisol levels gt
    hippocampal atrophy (Lupien et al., 1997, 2001)
  • gt Aging and estrogen / testosterone mediating
    role in verbal production, memory, processing
    (Resnick Maki, 2001 Kimura, 1995)

85
IV. The Nature of Age Effects
86
Causal mechanisms mediating factors
  • MacWhinney (in press) 10 concrete proposals
    relating AoA to ultimate attainment in L2
  • Singleton (in press) 14 versions of CPH/L2A
  • Birdsong (1999) 6 major variants of CPH/L2A,
    plus experiential endogenous factors in
    attainment

87
Causal mechanisms mediating factors
  • Classes of explanation
  • Neurobiological
  • Neurocognitive
  • Cognitive-developmental
  • Affective
  • Experiential

88
Causal mechanisms mediating factors
  • Most factors/mechanisms are consistent with
    research
  • All could be at work in some fashion in L2A, some
    accounting for more variance than others in the
    aggregate
  • also individual differences
  • Multidimensional, multifactorial, idiosyncratic
    nature of age effects

89
Summary
  • Behavioral evidence
  • 1. Unbounded L2 attainment declines ? period
  • 2. Bounded age non-effects up to AoA 27.5
  • 3. Timing of declines lt? maturational effects
  • 4. Slope of function lt external factors
  • 5. Non-(monolingual)nativelikeness lt
    bilingualism effects
  • 6. Decline in cognitive processes underlying L2A
    use synchronized with behavioral declines
  • 7. Despite 1,2,5,6 non-trivial incidence of
    nativelikeness among late L2 learners

90
Summary
  • Brain-based evidence
  • 8. L1-like where when of brain activation
    usually better predicted by L2 proficiency than
    by AoA
  • 9. Linear, unbounded volumetric declines in ROI
    comparable to gradients for L2 use/learning
  • 10. Volume declines synchronized with cognitive
    function declines for some but not all ROI
  • 11. Dopamine system declines synchronized with
    decrements in cognitive function underlying L2
    use/learning

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Summary
  • Further study
  • 12. Non-nativelike processing vs. nativelike
    attainment in late L2A
  • 13. L2 attainment processing among L2-dominants
    gt subtraction of general specific L1 effects
  • 14. Linkage of cognitive aging to neural aging
    linkage of both to L2 declines over age
  • 15. Factors/mechanisms of age-related declines

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  • THANK YOU

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Causal mechanisms mediating factors
  • Some factors/mechanisms not consistent with
    research
  • Maturational accounts
  • Implicit knowledge not acquirable past puberty
  • Less is More (mixed support)
  • Biological accounts predicting zero
    nativelikeness

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Dekeyser figure
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Specific L1 effectsEx. Van Boxtel (2005)
  • L1 French LATE
  • L1 German LEARNERS OF
  • L1 Turkish DUTCH L2
  • Sentence preference tasks and imitation tasks
    dummy subjects in Dutch
  • - L1 French L1 German scores more often in
    native range than L1 Turkish scores
  • - more French German L1ers at near-nativelike
    levels

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Age function in L2A critical period function?
  • Finite effects elbow at puberty gt

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Young vs OldImplicit vs Explicit Memory(Park,
2000)
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