LIGN 148 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Prelingual Deafness
Document Summary
Critical period for language: when the environment has its greatest. Is there a critical period for language: lenneberg"s observations, consistency of language milestones. Across languages: age effects of learning l2 without accent, age effects of brain damage on language (lh vs rh) Children have a resiliency: age effects of sudden deafness on speech intelligibility, age effects of cognitive deficits on language acquisition stops. Children with downs syndrome acquire language at an extremely slow rate. Whichever level they"re at upon reaching adolescence is the level they will stay at: sign languages as a means to investigate links between acquisition onset and development. Infant l1 infant language learning is critical for all subsequent language learning: adolescent l1, adult late l2 adult late l1. Nature of late l1 acquisition: two alternative hypotheses: late l1 acquisition looks child-like, linguistic novice, little vocabulary, little syntax, late l1 acquisition looks l2-like, mature learner, cognition, communication. Early vs late l1 acquisition: early childhood, synchronous with brain maturation.
