Early child L2 acquisition: Age or input effects? Neither, or both?

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Child Language Acquisition
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Investigating age and input effects is crucial for understanding second language acquisition (L2A) in children.
• Previous research suggests a critical period for language learning, particularly in early childhood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine age of onset and input effects on L2 Dutch acquisition in English-speaking children.
• To compare L2 acquisition across morphosyntax, vocabulary, and syntax-semantics domains.

Main Methods:

• Compared two groups of child L2 learners of Dutch: early (1-3 years) and later (4-7 years) onset.
• Assessed acquisition of verb morphology, verb placement, vocabulary, and direct object scrambling.

Main Results:

• No significant differences were found between early and later onset groups in most linguistic areas.
• Input amount, rather than age of onset, was significantly correlated with L2 acquisition scores, except for scrambling.

Conclusions:

• Findings challenge the strong critical period hypothesis for L2 acquisition ending in early childhood.
• Input quantity appears to be a more critical factor than age of onset in child L2 development for the studied domains.