Salvaging a childhood language

@article{citeulike:2621474, abstract = {Childhood experience with a language seems to help adult learners speak it with a more native-like accent. Can analogous benefits be found beyond phonology? This study focused on adult learners of Spanish who had spoken Spanish as their native language before age 7 and only minimally, if at all, thereafter until they began to re-learn Spanish around age 14 years. They were compared with native speakers, childhood overhearers, and typical late-second-language (L2)-learners of Spanish. Both childhood speakers and overhearers spoke Spanish with a more native-like accent than typical late-L2-learners. On grammar measures, childhood speakers--although far from native-like--reliably outperformed childhood overhearers as well as typical late-L2-learners. These results suggest that while simply overhearing a language during childhood could help adult learners speak it with a more native-like phonology, speaking a language regularly during childhood could help re-learners use it with more native-like grammar as well as phonology.}, author = {Au, Terry K. and Oh, Janet S. and Knightly, Leah M. and Jun, Sun-Ah and Romo, Laura F. }, citeulike-article-id = {2621474}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2007.11.001}, journal = {Journal of Memory and Language}, keywords = {bilingualism}, month = {May}, number = {4}, pages = {998--1011}, posted-at = {2008-04-02 01:29:46}, priority = {2}, title = {Salvaging a childhood language}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2007.11.001}, volume = {58}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2621474 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2621474 TI - Salvaging a childhood language JF - Journal of Memory and Language VL - 58 IS - 4 SP - 998 EP - 1011 N2 - Childhood experience with a language seems to help adult learners speak it with a more native-like accent. Can analogous benefits be found beyond phonology? This study focused on adult learners of Spanish who had spoken Spanish as their native language before age 7 and only minimally, if at all, thereafter until they began to re-learn Spanish around age 14 years. They were compared with native speakers, childhood overhearers, and typical late-second-language (L2)-learners of Spanish. Both childhood speakers and overhearers spoke Spanish with a more native-like accent than typical late-L2-learners. On grammar measures, childhood speakers--although far from native-like--reliably outperformed childhood overhearers as well as typical late-L2-learners. These results suggest that while simply overhearing a language during childhood could help adult learners speak it with a more native-like phonology, speaking a language regularly during childhood could help re-learners use it with more native-like grammar as well as phonology. KW - bilingualism AU - Au, Terry AU - Oh, Janet AU - Knightly, Leah AU - Jun, Sun-Ah AU - Romo, Laura PY - 2008/05// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2007.11.001 ER -