Thesis
In order for successive bilinguals to attain native-like performance, the learning of L2 phonology might impose a stricter and earlier time constraint compared to that of lexicon or grammar.
Speech Learning Model by Flege (1995)
L2 learners establish new phonetic categories according to their similarity to already existing L1 categories
--> it is easier to establish new categories for sounds that are completely unrelated
Ayoma et al. (2004): purpose
show that it is very difficult to establish new phonetic categories in L2 and that children are better than adults
Ayoma et al.
(2004): experiment
Japanese children and Japanese adults have to produce /r/ and /l/ sounds and are judged by native speakers of English
Ayoma et al. (2004): results
- both children and adults do worse on the /l/ than on the /r/ sounds
- after 1 year, children have improved significantly, adults only slightly
- children have improved more on the /r/ than on the /l/ sounds
Ayoma et al. (2004): conclusions
- it is easier to establish new categories for sounds that are more different
- children are better at establishing new categories
Achilla-Suerte et al. (2012): purpose
show that A0A for native-like pronunciation is much stricter and earlier than for native-like grammar or lexicon
Achilla-Suerte et al. (2012): experiment
three different age groups
- early (3.6)
- intermediate (6.
9) - late (14.5) similarity judgment task on English vowels that are not distinguished in their L1
Achilla-Suerte et al. (2012): results
only the early group (3.6) performed like native speakers!
Achilla-Suerte et al.
(2012): conclusions
- general evidence for a critical period, but much earlier than Lenneberg or Johnson & Newport
- inconsistent with studies on early infants: language-general perception in monolingual babies becomes language-specific after age 1
- considerable plasticity for learning in early childhood
