ERIC Number: EJ790552
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008-May
Pages: 14
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0749-596X
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Salvaging a Childhood Language
Au, Terry Kit-fong; Oh, Janet S.; Knightly, Leah M.; Jun, Sun-Ah; Romo, Laura F.
Journal of Memory and Language, v58 n4 p998-1011 May 2008
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.
Descriptors: Phonology, Child Language, Native Speakers, Pronunciation, Adult Students, Spanish, Comparative Analysis, Grammar, Second Language Learning, Measures (Individuals), Oral Language, Language Acquisition
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
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Language: English
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