Age Effects on the Acquisition of Nominal and Verbal Inflections in an Instructed Setting

Autor/in	Pfenninger, Simone E.
Titel	Age Effects on the Acquisition of Nominal and Verbal Inflections in an Instructed Setting
Quelle	In: Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 1 (2011) 3, S.401-420 (20 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2083-5205
Schlagwörter	Age Differences; Second Language Learning; Morphology (Languages); English (Second Language); Statistical Analysis; Qualitative Research; Accuracy; Receptive Language; Associative Learning; Semantics; Morphemes; Memory; German; Dialects; Middle School Students; Foreign Countries; Switzerland + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Morphology; Morphologie; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Statistische Analyse; Qualitative Forschung; Rezeptive Kommunikationsfähigkeit; Semantik; Morphem; Gedächtnis; Deutscher; Dialect; Dialekt; Middle school; Middle schools; Student; Students; Mittelschule; Mittelstufenschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Ausland; Schweiz
Abstract	This study examines evidence for the hypothesis (e.g., Muñoz, 2006) that an early starting age is not necessarily more beneficial to the successful learning of L2 inflectional morphology in strictly formal instructional settings. The present author investigated the quantitative and qualitative differences in the production and reception of 5 selected inflectional morphemes in English written performance and competence tasks by 100 early classroom learners and 100 late classroom learners of the same age. While an earlier age of first exposure and a longer instructional period was not associated with higher accuracy scores, the findings suggest distinct patterns in the productive and receptive knowledge abilities of inflectional morphology; the late classroom learners' superiority seems to be rooted in their greater reliance upon memory-based item-by-item associative learning, as they are significantly stronger on tasks that might cause semantic difficulties, whereas the early classroom learners are marginally better on pattern-based processes for certain morphemes. This finding possibly supports Ullman's (2005) proposal that, as procedural memory declines with age, older starters have difficulty in discovering regularities in the input and thus over-rely on the declarative memory system in L2 learning. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Adam Mickiewicz University Department of English Studies. Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts, Ul. Nowy Swiat 28-30, 62-800 Kailsz, Poland. e-mail: ssllt@amu.edu.pll; Web site: http://ssllt.amu.edu.pl/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01