The Critical Period Hypothesis of Language Acquisition

TESOL Journal, 5(1): 8-11 O’Malley, J.M. & Valdez L.P. (1996). Authentic assessment for English language learners: Practical approaches for teachers. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley, Longman. Rea-Dickins, P. (2004).

(2003). How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. HARMER, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching.

(2000) "Introduction to psychology" vol 1, Psychology Press, East sussex Vygotsky, L.S. (1962) "Thought and Language", Cambridge (Mass. ), MIT Press. Cited in Lee V. and Gupta P.D. (2001) (eds) "Childs Cognitive and language development", Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford Vygotsky, L.S.

(2006). Nature and nurture in language acquisition: anatomical and functional brain-imaging studies in infants. Trends in Neuroscience, Vol. 29, No.7 Evans, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science.

Therefore, Chomsky claimed that children’s acquisition of... ... middle of paper ... ... Development: Six Stages of Language Development. USA from http://www.learninginfo.org/language-development.htm#top. 9) Mayberry, I. Rachel (1993). The Critical Period for Language Acquisition and The Deaf Child’s Language Comprehension: A Psycholinguistiic Approach. Canada: McGill University from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2374106 10) Kasper, F.

The interaction between genetic makeup and behavior or reaction is an interesting one. Some researchers contend that basic linguistic organization, or grammar, is a one, which is built into the human brain (McConnell, 1977). These researcher believe that humans... ... middle of paper ... ... is, inarguably, a tremendously important part of linguistic development and refinement. Obviously it is social interaction which determines the particulars of our language. It could be contended therefore that because animals have not been presented with the appropriate stimulus which would require the refinement of their language, they have not refined language skills to the degree which is evidenced in humans.

While the brain is still developing, during early childhood, many areas of the cerebral cortex are not yet committed to one function. This allows these areas to be more receptive of creating different neural pathways and acquiring new skills. However, as a child gets older, his or her brain becomes lateralized and neural plasticity decreases, making skills such as communication harder to acquire. Although language acquisition may become harder to acquire as a person gets older, it is not completely impossible. T... ... middle of paper ... ... adapt to the dialect of their new enviornment.

A critical period is defined as a period during an organism’s development in which a particular skill or characteristic is believed to be most readily acquired. Linguistic communication is a unique feature of human beings. Early in life, the human brain is malleable for organizing itself in response to language input. As age progresses, the human brain is not as flexible in learning language. Eric Lenneberg, who was a linguist and neurologist, was the first to propose a critical period for language acquisition in 1967.

Cambridge MA: MIT Press [18] Happe, F (1995) 'The role of age and verbal ability in the ToM performance of subjects with autism'. Child Development, 66:843-855 [19] Smith, N.V and Tsimpli, I.-M. (1995) The Mind of a Savant: Language Learning and Modularity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell [20] Papafragou, A (2002) 'Mindreading and verbal communication'. Mind & Language 17:55-67 [21] Papafragou, A. (1998) 'The acquisition of modality: Implications for theories of semantic representation'.

Cognition, 40(3), 159-201. Johnson, J. S., & Newport, E. L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of instructional state on the acquisition of english as a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 60-99. Merriam-Webster.