Paei Punye Kajian Konon
Transcript of Paei Punye Kajian Konon
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Critical age
Patkowsky found that learners under
the age of fifteen achieved higher
syntactic(connected with syntax)
proficiency than those who were over
the age of fifteen at the onset of
exposure.
The study sought to discern if learners
who were exposed to second language
learning before the age of 15 actually
received higher syntactic proficiency
than older learners.
Johnson and Newport believe that after
the age of six, the ability to learn a
second language begins to decline.
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The results also show a correlation
between the age of acquisition and
the variance in the ultimate
performance in adults.
In the exercisehypothesis, it is believed
that humans easily learn languages at
an early age.
This hypothesis states that even though
humans have a capacity to learn
languages early in life, they are unable
to do so with the same outcome if
learning a second language commences
in the future
Lennebergs original proposal of a
critical period in language acquisition
seemed to predict a rectangular
function in the relationship between
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age of acquisition and ultimate
performance. That is, Lenneberg
hypothesized that normal language
learning was possible between the
period from infancy to puberty, with a
loss of abilities after puberty (p. 95)
In response to these and many other
empirical studies, Long (1990), in his
seminal paper, reviewed the second
language research on agerelated
differences. In this paper he draws
several conclusions that are relevant to
this topic: 1. Both the initial rate of
acquisition and the ultimate level of
attainment depend in part on the ageat which learning begins. 2. There are
sensitive periods governing both first
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and second language development,
during which both the acquisition of
different linguistic domains is
successful and after which it is
incomplete. 3. The age-related loss of
ability is cumulative, not a one-time
event. 4. Deterioration in someindividuals begins as early as six.
Starting after age six appears to make
it impossible for many learners (and
after age 12 for the remainder) to
achieve native-like competence in
phonology; starting later than the early
teens, more precisely after age 15,
seems to create the same problems inmorphology and syntax. (p. 274)
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there is an ideal 'window' of time to
acquire language in a linguistically rich
environment, after which this is no
longer possible due to changes in
the brain.
Various ages have been proposed for
the supposed end of the CPH; those
that point to pre-adolescent ages such
as 12 have been vulnerable to
alternative theories which
invoke psychological or social factors
applying as children move
into adolescence.
The hypothesis was developed by Eric
Lenneberg in his 1967 Biological
Foundations of Language, which set the
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end of the critical period for native
language acquisition at 12
In SLA, a weaker version of the CPH
emerged in the 1970s. This refers to
a sensitive periodin which nativelike
performance is unlikely but not ruled
out.[2] The strongest evidence for the
CPH is in the study of accent, where
most older learners seem not to reach
a native-like level.
First language acquisition
For more information, see: First
language acquisition.
Children without language
The CPH as applied to first language
acquisition proposes that a child
deprived of exposure to natural
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language would fail to acquire it if
exposure commenced only after the end
of the critical period. Because testingsuch a theory would be unethical, in
that it would involve isolating a child
from the rest of the world for several
years, researchers have gatheredevidence of the CPH from a few victims
of child abuse. The most famous
example is the case of Genie (a
pseudonym), who was deprived of
language until the age of 13. Over the
following years of rehabilitation,
improvement in her ability
to communicate was noted, but during
this time she did not develop thelanguage ability common to other
children.[5] However, this case has been
criticised as a firm example of the
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critical period in action, and data has
not been gathered from Genie since the
1970s.[6]
Although there are several cases on
record of deaf children being deprived
of sign language, this could also count
as abuse. One case in which no abusetook place is that of Chelsea, whose
deafness was left undiagnosed until the
age of 31. Once hearing aids had
apparently restored her hearing to near-
normal levels, she seemed to develop a
large vocabulary while her phonology
and syntax remained at a very low
level.[7] The implications of this have
been disputed, given the apparently
unlikely circumstances of Chelsea's
diagnosis.[8]
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Many researchers hold opposing beliefs
about the Critical Period Hypothesis
put forth by Lenneberg (1967). The
hypothesis cited in Lightbown and
Spada (1999) states that there is a
specific and limited time period for
language acquisition (p. 19).Lenneberg believed that the language
acquisition device, like other biological
functions, works successfully only when
it is stimulated at the right time (p.19).
2.2 The critical period hypothesis
for language acquisition
In the field of language acquisition,the hypothesis that there is a critical
or
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sensitive period for language
acquisition plays an important role.
In the latefifties and sixties, Penfield and
Roberts (1959) and Lenneberg
(1967) were
the first to propose that there was acritical period for language
acquisition.
They based this proposal on
different types of evidence:
- evidence from feral and abused
children who grew up without being
exposed to human language in
childhood and who did not acquire
language normally after they werefound
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- evidence from deaf children whose
development in spoken language
stopped after puberty- evidence that children with aphasia(
recovered much better than adults
with aphasia
All this evidence comes from first
language acquisition.
2.2. Studies of a Human Brain and its
Lateralization
If a language develops with the
increase of the brain cell connections,
the development of language and brain
should bear some relation to each
other. Physiological functions of
neuronal cells, circuits, or connections
themselves have not been identified
clearly so far, but some specified fields
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of linguistic functions have been
reported. Geschwind (1980:62-63)
claims:
Although the content, that is, the
specific language learned, is completely
determined by the environment, the
capacity to acquire language isbiologically determined. Indeed, one
should not speak about a contrast
between language and general
cognitive ability.
Earlier studies show that the brain
seems to have special-purpose
computers for limited functions, and
there is at present no evidence of any
all-purpose computer for any generalcognition. If a language is acquired in
parallel with the development of the
human brain as children grow, it is
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reasonable to postulate(to suggest /
accept the existence,fact,or truth of
something as a basis of reasoning ortheory)some language function in the
brain. Consequently, the critical period
for language learning is considered to
be the biologically determined period
in which the brain keeps its plasticityfor acquisition of any language.
At first it was expected that the
function of human language acquisition
was clarified by exploring a specialstructure, which all other animal brains
lack. The brain of human beings
consists of a left hemisphere and a
right hemisphere, and different
functions are said to develop graduallyin different parts of the brain as
children grow older. The parts of brain
which control a language are placed in
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the left hemisphere after its
lateralization(. One of the parts is called
the Broca's area and the other part iscalled the Wernicke's area. The study
of aphasia has revealed that the Broca's
area controls spoken language. The
Wernicke's area is, on the other hand,
said to be the center of languageunderstanding.
Lenneberg posits that the development
of language is the result of brain
maturation. Although bothhemispheres of the brain are equal at
birth, the function of language
gradually settles in the dominant left
hemisphere of the brain after biological
maturation or the critical period. Thatis, the critical period for language
learning has been considered to agree
with the period of the lateralization of
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brain. Research on people who have
suffered brain damage also supplies the
evidence for the lateralization ofbrains. Lenneberg viewed clinical data
and claimed that children younger than
nine years old had a higher incidence of
right hemisphere lesions (damage
caused by injury or illness) causingaphasia than adults (Villiers & Villiers
1978:211). Another support of
lateralization is an experimental report
of speed and accuracy in language
acquisition by Kimura (1973). He
examined speech sounds heard in each
ear. His result is that speech sound
through the right ear is processed more
quickly than through the left earbecause the left hemisphere is
connected to a right ear.
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A brain is said to lose its plasticity after
the lateralization, and some case
studies are reported on the impairedbrains before and after the critical
period. Adults who have suffered brain
damage in their left hemisphere fail to
recover their language if they don't
recover in five months, but childrenshow an ability to recover over a longer
period, and have sometimes made a
full recovery if they were very young at
the time of damage (Crystal 1987:263).
Even total removal of the left
hemisphere did not preclude children's
reacquisition of language. Lenneberg's
argument is based on this period of
lateralization, of which completionmeans the end of the critical period.
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2.4. Criticism of the Critical Period
Hypothesis
2.4.1. Critical Period Hypothesis
reexamined
As medical science has progressed, some
points in Lenneberg (1967) are under
criticism. Firstly, his claim that the CPHcould be supported by the study of Down's
syndrome cases is attacked. According to
his argument, the development of children
with Downfs syndrome is so slow that
they pass their critical period for language
learning. However, a recent survey
disputes his claim because children with
Down's syndrome have a build-in endpoint
to their ability (Gleitman 1984).
Secondly, the theory of brain's
lateralization at the age of two, with the
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critical period set by Lenneberg (1967), is
also criticized. He claimed that children
before their critical period were lessseverely impaired by brain damage.
However, Krashen (1973) reexamined the
data used in Lenneberg (1967) and found
all the cases of complete recovery from
aphasia were under the age of five.
Surprisingly, the number of cases of
recovery at the age of more than five or
over was nearly the same number as the
adults'. Kinsbourne (1975) pointed out the
difficulty in deciding whether only half of
the hemisphere was injured or not.
Another piece of counter evidence is seen
inMacKain et. al. (1983). Their experiment
with babies of six months or less shows
that lateralization begins much earlier
than two years old. If so, lateralization
cannot be the evidence of the critical
period. Reports of dichotic listening,
experiments in which different stimuli are
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presented simultaneously to the two ears,
also show that language functions are
lateralized much earlier than the criticalperiod. Regrettably, no conclusive
evidence for right ear advantage based on
the lateralization has not been reported.
Thirdly, the case studies of three
linguistically isolated children have someproblems. Because the early research in
Isabelle's case was not written by a
specialist in language (Aitchson 1989:86),
her speech may have been less sufficient
than reported. There is also a report thatGenie's left hemisphere was atrophied
because of the brain damage. This implies
that she used only the right hemisphere of
the brain, the part which is said to have
little function in language processing.Curtiss, et. al. (1974) writes:
The result of the dichotic tests using
environmental sounds also show a left-ear
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advantage, but only to a degree found in
normal subjects. This 'normal' result
shows that Genie is not simply one ofthose rare individuals with reversed
dominance, but instead is one in whom all
auditory processing currently appears to
be taking place in the right hemisphere
(Curtiss, Fromkin, Krashen, Rigler, and
Rigler 1974:542).
Isabelle was deaf and Chelsea had hearing
problems too (Aitchson 1989:87). A
difference between deaf and normal
children should have been taken intoconsideration in the case studies. Since no
further case of feral children will be
reported, the data have been reanalyzed.
All of these criticisms of the past studies
show how difficult it is to connect brainfunctions and language acquisition.
Moreover, the different methods for the
research on the CPH have also resulted in
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varieties of inconsistencies. For example,
native speakers were asked to rate the
performance or naturalness of theutterances of learners in one study (Scovel
1981, cited in Ellis 1984:485), whereas
grammatical judgments made by learners
of different ages were examined in
another study (Coppetiers 1987). Birdsong
(1992) designed a grammaticality
judgment test for twenty native English
speakers who spoke French with native-
like fluency in order to examine Long's
question (1990:281) of 'whether the very
best learners actually have native-like
competence.'
The critical period hypothesis (CPH) refers
to a long-standing debate
in linguistics and language acquisition over
the extent to which the ability to
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acquire language is biologically linked
to age. The hypothesis claims that there is
an ideal 'window' of time to acquirelanguage in a linguistically rich
environment, after which this is no longer
possible due to changes in the brain. The
hypothesis has been discussed in the
context of both first (FLA) and second
language acquisition (SLA), and is
particularly controversial in the latter. In
FLA, it seeks to explain the apparent
absence of language in individuals whosechildhood exposure was very limited, and
in SLA it is often invoked to explain
variation in adults' performance in
learning a second language, which is very
often observed to fall short
of nativelike attainment. Various ages
have been proposed for the supposed end
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of the CPH; those that point to pre-
adolescent ages such as 12 have been
vulnerable to alternative theories whichinvoke psychological or social factors
applying as children move
into adolescence
History
The critical period hypothesis is associated
with Wilder Penfield, whose 1956
Vanuxem lectures at Princeton
University formed the basis of his 1959
work with Lamar Roberts, Speech andBrain Mechanisms. Penfield and Roberts
explored the neuroscience of language,
concluding that it was dominant in the left
hemisphere of the brain on the basis of
hundreds of case studies spanning manydecades. The review focussed on how
individuals with brain damage evidenced
atypical linguistic performance, rather
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than examining neurotypical cases of
'normal' language acquisition, and the
authors' conclusions were also based onthe prevailing tabula rasa view that
children were born without any
real innate language ability; however,
linguistic "units", once "fixed", would
affect later learning.[1]
Their
recommendations for language schooling
recommended starting early in order to
avoid fixed effects; though these claims
did not form the core of the book, being
confined to the last chapter, other
researchers and popular opinion were
much-influenced by them. The hypothesis
was developed by Eric Lenneberg in his
1967 Biological Foundations of Language,
which set the end of the critical period for
native language acquisition at 12. The
hypothesis has been fiercely debated since
then, and has continued to inform popular
assumptions about the presumed
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(in)ability of adults to fluently learn a
second language.
In SLA, a weaker version of the CPHemerged in the 1970s. This refers to
a sensitive periodin which nativelike
performance is unlikely but not ruled
out.[2]
The strongest evidence for the CPH
is in the study of accent, where most olderlearners seem not to reach a native-like
level. This leads some researchers to apply
the CPH only to second
language phonology rather than all
aspects of language; indeed, a CPH wasnot seriously considered for syntax until
the 1990s, in research that remains a
minority view.[3]
However, under certain
conditions, native-like accent has been
observed, suggesting that accent in SLA isaffected by multiple factors, such
as identity and motivation, rather than a
biological constraint.
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Children without language
The CPH as applied to first language
acquisition proposes that a child deprivedof exposure to natural language would fail
to acquire it if exposure commenced only
after the end of the critical period.
Because testing such a theory would be
unethical, in that it would involve isolatinga child from the rest of the world for
several years, researchers have gathered
evidence of the CPH from a few victims
of child abuse. The most famous example
is the case of Genie (a pseudonym), whowas deprived of language until the age of
13. Over the following years of
rehabilitation, improvement in her ability
to communicate was noted, but during
this time she did not develop the languageability common to other
children. However, this case has been
criticised as a firm example of the critical
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period in action, and data has not been
gathered from Genie since the 1970s.
Although there are several cases on recordof deaf children being deprived of sign
language, this could also count as abuse.
One case in which no abuse took place is
that of Chelsea, whose deafness was left
undiagnosed until the age of 31.Once hearing aids had apparently restored
her hearing to near-normal levels, she
seemed to develop a large vocabulary
while her phonology and syntax remained
at a very low level. The implications of thishave been disputed, given the apparently
unlikely circumstances of Chelsea's
diagnosis.