20.1741, Confs: Language Acquisition/USA

[LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List: Vol-20-1741. Wed May 06 2009. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 20.1741, Confs: Language Acquisition/USA

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1)
Date: 05-May-2009
From: Cynthia Clopper < clopper.1 at osu.edu >
Subject: Multiple Perspectives on the Critical Period
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 06 May 2009 11:38:30
From: Cynthia Clopper [clopper.1 at osu.edu]
Subject: Multiple Perspectives on the Critical Period

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Multiple Perspectives on the Critical Period 

Date: 05-Jun-2009 - 06-Jun-2009 
Location: Columbus, OH, USA 
Contact: Cynthia Clopper 
Contact Email: clopper.1 at osu.edu 
Meeting URL: http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~springsym/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition 

Meeting Description: 

The Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State University will host a symposium entitled Multiple 
Perspectives on the Critical Period for Language on June 5-6, 2009.

The traditional view of the critical period for language - going back to Lenneberg - is that it is part of a 
biological process: the decline in language ability reflects a maturational change in brain development.
This view makes two strong predictions, namely, that children will be better at acquiring language than 
adults and that short of some kind of brain disorder, there's no way to change that fact. This view has 
been challenged in recent years in a variety of ways. Work on second language acquisition has found 
that adults are not always worse than children in acquiring a language. Moreover, particularly in the 
domain of phonology, there is evidence that second language learning can influence first language 
representations, suggesting a continuity between the two processes. In addition, alternative 
mechanisms to biological maturation have been suggested as ways to account for differences between 
adults and children. Chief among these alternatives are computationally influenced models which appeal 
to the radical differences in terms of specific domain knowledge and processing capacities through 
development. 

We wish to address two related issues in this event: First, to what extent do language acquisition 
abilities decline in adulthood? Second, to the extent that adults are worse than children in acquiring 
language, what is the mechanism that causes this decline? The goal of the symposium is to bring 
together scholars with a range of views and thereby foster debate and discussion. 

The symposium will include invited talks by: 
James Flege, University of Alabama, Birmingham 
Silvina Montrul, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 
Ann Senghas, Barnard College 
Jason Zevin, Sackler Institute 







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