Yang Li- Psychology, Department of Social Sciences and Nursing, Solent University, Southampton, United Kingdom
Introduction
Although nowadays many individuals are learning another language, achieving native-like competence is still a challenge for many. Previous research suggests various factors influencing the final achievement of second language acquisition, including the similarity between L1 and L2 (e.g., White, 2003), the age of L2 acquisition (e.g., Singleton and Ryan, 2004), the quality and length of L2 input (e.g., Long, 1996), and so on. In 1967, Lenneberg proposed the critical period hypothesis, which states that the ability to learn language to a native-like proficiency is lost after a particular age. Previous research has demonstrated that grammar, compared with other domains of language, is more vulnerable to the critical period hypothesis (e.g., Yuan, 2010). This article aims to consolidate evidence from linguistic, behavioral, and neuroscience methods to provide a comprehensive summary of the topic.
Linguistic evidence
One group of researchers (e.g., Lardiere, 2000; Prévost and White, 2000a) proposed that late L2 learners can acquire second language grammatical features, since interlanguage grammar is subject to the constraints of Universal Grammar in the functional domain. Therefore, L2 grammar can fully utilize functional categories.
Lardiere (1998a,b, 2000) conducted a series of studies examining an adult Chinese learner of English, Patty, who had been staying in America for many years. Although Patty's performance in supplying English morphology is low (e.g., 17% 3rd person singular agreement), Lardiere still argues that Patty had acquired the functional categories associated with verb inflection that don't exist in her native language. This argument is supported by three pieces of evidence. Firstly, Patty demonstrates the ability to accurately assign case to pronouns and indicate the function of finiteness, which suggests the presence of Tense in Patty's syntactic representation. In addition, Patty does not produce thematic verb-raising sentences, indicating her correct understanding that T in English has weak inflectional properties. The final piece of evidence is based on an assumption: the presence of a Complementizer Phrase (CP) implies the existence of all lower functional projections. Patty demonstrates the ability to produce various types of CP clauses. Lardiere concluded that Patty's syntactic feature development was complete and that she could acquire Tense Phrase and Agreement Phrase.
So, what caused Patty's poor performance when producing English inflectional morphology? Lardiere (2000) proposed that Patty's difficulty lies in the “mapping” of morphology to her previously acquired syntactic representations. It is within the mappings from morphology to Phonetic Form that are most likely to encounter “fossilization.” Furthermore, Lardiere (1998a) suggested that phonological transfer from Patty's first language may also contribute to the challenge of morphological spell-out since Mandarin does not permit final consonant clusters. Patty frequently deleted -t/-d in both inflected and monomorphemic forms.
Lardiere's explanation has laid the foundation for two later proposed hypotheses, the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (Haznedar and Schwartz, 1997; Lardiere, 2000; Prévost and White, 2000a,b), and the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis (Goad et al., 2003; Goad and White, 2004). These two hypotheses believe that late L2 learners' syntactic representations are intact. In terms of variation in inflection production by late L2 learners, the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis suggests it was due to the mapping problem while the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis suggests it was due to the influence of L1 prosodic phonology.
Other researchers (e.g., Hawkins and Chan, 1997) state that late L2 learners' interlanguage representation is defective and therefore it is unlikely to achieve native-like competence level. For example, Hawkins and Chan (1997) proposed the Failed Functional Feature Hypothesis, arguing that adult learners are unable to acquire second language functional categories that are unavailable in their native language. In 1995, Chomsky introduced the Minimalist Program, which categorizes syntactic features into interpretable (with semantic meaning) and uninterpretable (without semantic meaning) features. Correspondingly, Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007) make more precise claims about the representational deficit in L2 interlanguage grammar in the Interpretability Hypothesis. According to the Interpretability Hypothesis, uninterpretable features are subject to critical period constraints, while interpretable features, even those not presented in L1, remain available to late L2 learners.
In conclusion, the point of controversy for researchers in the fields of linguistics lies in whether late L2 learners can acquire features that don't exist in their native language.
Behavioral evidence
The research discussed earlier relied on grammaticality judgment and oral production tasks. However, researchers argue that data from these two methods do not directly reflect individuals' language competence (Gass, 1994). To address this, researchers have employed the self-paced reading task to explore this question. In these studies, participants read both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences word by word. Detecting slower reaction times for critical words/phrases in ungrammatical sentences compared to their grammatical counterparts indicated participants' detection of syntactic violations and acquisition of relevant syntactic features. Given that the time to process the critical words/phrases is short, participants are less likely to apply metalinguistic knowledge (Carreira and Kagan, 2011).
Research using self-paced reading has yielded differing opinions on whether late L2 learners can acquire second language grammar, even when testing the same group with identical syntactic features. For instance, Wen et al. (2010) found that late advanced Chinese and Japanese English learners, whose native languages lack inflectional morphemes, could acquire English inflectional morphemes. However, Jiang (2004, 2007) found that advanced Chinese English learners failed to demonstrate the acquisition of English number agreement. This prompts the question of why Jiang (2004, 2007) and Wen et al. (2010) obtained conflicting results. According to Wen et al. (2010), they used simpler Noun Phrases (NPs) while Jiang's (2007) used more complex NPs. Additionally, Wen et al. (2010) questioned whether all participants in Jiang (2004, 2007) studies had reached an advanced level of English proficiency since Jiang used TOEFL scores to recruit participants and these scores might outdated. Table 1 summarizes previous research, showing diverse findings on whether late L2 learners can acquire L2 grammar.
Table 1. Summary of research using self-paced reading to study second language grammar acquisition by late L2 learners.
Neuroscience evidence
Accumulating electrophysiological studies have also been conducted to investigate whether late L2 learners can acquire second language grammar (e.g., Weber-Fox and Neville, 1996; Hahne and Friederici, 2001). Two Event-Related Potentials (ERP) components have been frequently used: P600 and Left Anterior Negativity (LAN). The P600 is a late positivity occurring between 500 and 1,000 ms with a posterior scalp distribution (e.g., Osterhout and Holcomb, 1992; Coulson et al., 1998). It reflects syntactic reanalysis processes followed by the detection of apparent ungrammaticality (Friederici, 1995; Münte et al., 1997). The LAN is a negative evoked component elicited between 300 and 600 ms after the presentation of a target word in a sentence. The LAN can be interpreted as a direct response to syntactic or morphosyntactic ungrammaticality (e.g., Osterhout and Holcomb, 1992; Münte et al., 1993), and this process is distinguished by a high level of automaticity (Gunter et al., 2000). The scalp topography of LANs has been varied across studies (Tanner and Van Hell, 2014).
The results obtained from ERP methods concerning whether late L2 learners can acquire L2 grammar are controversial, mirroring findings from linguistic and behavioral methods. Steinhauer et al. (2006) studied late French and Chinese learners of English processing syntactic word category violations. English native speakers exhibited a biphasic LAN/P600 response. High proficiency French and Chinese learners of English, similar to English native speakers, also exhibited a biphasic LAN/P600 response. Therefore, Steinhauer et al. (2006) concluded that late L2 learners can exhibit native-like ERP patterns provided they achieve proficiency in their second language. However, in other studies, Sabourin and Stowe (2008) found that late learners can only exhibit native-like brain patterns for second language grammar features similar to their first language. For second language grammar features that operate differently from their first language, even late second language learners who have achieved high proficiency still struggle to generate native-like brain patterns. Similar findings have been obtained in other studies (e.g., Ojima et al., 2005; Chen et al., 2007). Previous research also found late L2 learners receive implicit input during language learning and achieve L2 high proficiency, they can achieve native-like ERP patterns for L2 grammar errors (Short, 2007; Bowden et al., 2013).
Studies utilizing fMRI have highlighted the significance of whether a learner acquires their second language early or late in life in determining how their brain processes second language grammar (Wartenburger et al., 2003; Rüschemeyer et al., 2005; Liu and Cao, 2016; Oh et al., 2019). Particularly noteworthy, Wartenburger et al. (2003) found that only early L2 learners showed identical brain activity as native speakers while late L2 learners, independent of their second language proficiency, demonstrated increased activity in the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus. These results have been confirmed by later research, which suggested there is more activity in the prefrontal cortex when late L2 learners process L2 grammar, compared with native speakers or early L2 learners (Luke et al., 2002; Oh et al., 2019). These results are consistent with the idea that there is a “critical period” for second language grammar and provide empirical research support for the sensorimotor/emergentist model (Hernandez and Li, 2007; Hernandez et al., 2007) and the declarative/procedural model (Ullman, 2004, 2016) as both models suggest that different brain areas are involved in processing early acquired and late acquired grammar.
However, differing opinions exist in the field. For instance, Abutalebi (2008) argued that neural representation for second language acquisition is identical to that of first language acquisition, even for late L2 learners. As to why some of the research found that late L2 learners use different neurocognitive structures from native speakers, Abutalebi (2008) argued that it is because participants in these studies have low second language proficiency.
Discussion
The fields of linguistics, behavioral studies, and neuroimaging have yielded conflicting findings on the acquisition of second language grammar by late learners. However, findings in the fields of neuroscience and traditional linguistic methods agree that even late L2 learners can acquire L2 syntactic features that exist or operate similarly to those in their native language (e.g., Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou, 2007; Sabourin and Stowe, 2008). Therefore, more research should be conducted on whether late L2 learners can acquire L2 syntactic features that do not operate in their first language and do not contain any semantic meaning.
Supporters of the accessibility of second language grammar to late learners often challenge proponents of the critical period, arguing that their participants' proficiency in the second language may not be sufficiently high to demonstrate comparable performance to native speakers (e.g., Abutalebi, 2008; Wen et al., 2010). This is difficult to assess since most of the previous research lacks an independent proficiency test. The absence of independent proficiency research is a common issue in psycholinguistic studies. Lemhöfer and Broersma (2012) found that only five out of 18 studies published in top experimental psychology journals between 2009 and 2011 used independent proficiency tests. Previous research primarily relied on language background questionnaires and self-assessment measures, which researchers questioned as sufficient for objectively measuring participants' language proficiency (e.g., Delgado et al., 1999). Therefore, future research should incorporate independent proficiency tests or even a test assessing their knowledge of specific grammar features under investigation to validate participants' language proficiency.
Apart from that, another factor that needs attention is the difficulty of the research materials. Even when testing the same syntactic features, the difficulty of research materials varies across studies (e.g., Jiang, 2007; Wen et al., 2010), leading to contrasting findings. McDonald (2006) suggests that late second language learners perform worse than native speakers in tasks involving working memory, decoding, and speed, which are correlated with the accuracy of L2 grammaticality judgment tasks. Furthermore, the ERP component P600, frequently used to index syntactic processing, is also influenced by processing difficulty (e.g., Brouwer et al., 2012) and working memory (e.g., Alatorre-Cruz et al., 2018). Therefore, research adopting difficult materials may risk attributing their conclusions to the processing difficulties rather than the critical period.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the question of whether late L2 learners can acquire second language grammatical features remains crucial. With the increasing available research methods, future research should consider employing combined methods. For example, integrating grammaticality judgment tasks with neuroimaging studies and correlating results from different research methods could provide deeper insights into this issue.
Author contributions
YL: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
References
Abutalebi, J. (2008). Neural aspects of second language representation and language control. Acta Psychol. 128, 466–478. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.03.014
Alatorre-Cruz, G. C., Silva-Pereyra, J., Fernández, T., Rodríguez-Camacho, M. A., Castro-Chavira, S. A., and Sanchez-Lopez, J. (2018). Effects of age and working memory load on syntactic processing: an event-related potential study. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 12:185. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00185
Bowden, H. W., Steinhauer, K., Sanz, C., and Ullman, M. T. (2013). Native-like brain processing of syntax can be attained by university foreign language learners. Neuropsychologia 51, 2492–2511. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.09.004
Brouwer, H., Fitz, H., and Hoeks, J. (2012). Getting real about semantic illusions: rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension. Brain Res. 1446, 127–143. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2012.01.055
Carreira, M., and Kagan, O. (2011). The results of the National Heritage Language Survey: implications for teaching, curriculum design, and professional development. For. Lang. Ann. 44, 40–64. doi: 10.1111/j.1944-9720.2010.01118.x
Chen, L., Shu, H., Liu, Y., Zhao, J., and Li, P. (2007). ERP signatures of subject-verb agreement in L2 learning. Bilingualism 10, 161–174. doi: 10.1017/S136672890700291X
Coughlin, C. E., and Tremblay, A. (2013). Proficiency and working memory based explanations for non-native speakers' sensitivity to agreement in sentence processing. Appl. Psycholinguist. 34, 615–646. doi: 10.1017/S0142716411000890
Coulson, S., King, J. W., and Kutas, M. (1998). Expect the unexpected: event-related brain response to morphosyntactic violations. Lang. Cogn. Process. 13, 21–58. doi: 10.1080/016909698386582
Delgado, P., Guerrero, G., Goggin, J. P., and Ellis, B. B. (1999). Self-assessment of linguistic skills by bilingual Hispanics. Hispan. J. Behav. Sci. 21, 31–46. doi: 10.1177/0739986399211003
Foote, R. (2011). Integrated knowledge of agreement in early and late English-Spanish bilinguals. Appl. Psycholinguist. 32, 187–220. doi: 10.1017/S0142716410000342
Friederici, A. D. (1995). The time course of syntactic activation during language processing: a model based on neuropsychological and neurophysiological data. Brain Lang. 50, 259–281. doi: 10.1006/brln.1995.1048
Gass, S. (1994). “The reliability of second-language grammaticality judgments,” in Research Methodology in Second Language Acquisition, eds. E. Tarone, S. Gass, and A. Cohen (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 303–322.
Goad, H., and White, L. (2004). “Ultimate attainment of L2 inflection: effects of L1 prosodic structure,” in EUROSLA Yearbook 4, eds. S. Foster-Cohen, M. Sharwood Smith, A. Sorace, and M. Ota (Amsterdam: John Benjamins), 119–145.
Goad, H., White, L., and Steele, J. (2003). Missing inflection in L2 acquisition: defective syntax or L1-constrained prosodic representations? Can. J. Linguist. 48, 243–263. doi: 10.1353/cjl.2004.0027
Gunter, T. C., Friederici, A. D., and Schriefers, H. (2000). Syntactic gender and semantic expectancy: ERPs reveal early autonomy and late interaction. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 12, 556–568. doi: 10.1162/089892900562336
Hahne, A., and Friederici, A. D. (2001). Processing a second language: late learners' comprehension mechanisms as revealed by event-related brain potentials. Bilingualism 4, 123–141. doi: 10.1017/S1366728901000232
Hawkins, R., and Chan, C. (1997). The partial availability of Universal Grammar in second language acquisition: the ‘failed functional features hypothesis'. Second Lang. Res. 13, 187–226. doi: 10.1191/026765897671476153
Haznedar, B., and Schwartz, B. D. (1997). “Are there optional infinitives in child L2 acquisition?” in Proceedings of the 21st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, eds. E. Hughes and A. Greenhill (Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press), 257–268.
Hernandez, A. E., Hofmann, J., and Kotz, S. A. (2007). Age of acquisition modulates neural activity for both regular and irregular syntactic functions. NeuroImage 36, 912–923. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.02.055
Hernandez, A. E., and Li, P. (2007). Age of acquisition: its neural and computational mechanisms. Psychol. Bullet. 133, 638–650. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.133.4.638
Jegerski, J. (2016). Number attraction effects in near-native Spanish sentence comprehension. Stud. Sec. Lang. Acquisit. 38, 5–33. doi: 10.1017/S027226311400059X
Jiang, N. (2004). Morphological insensitivity in second language processing. Appl. Psycholinguist. 25, 603–634. doi: 10.1017/S0142716404001298
Jiang, N. (2007). Selective integration of linguistic knowledge in adult second language learning. Lang. Learn. 57, 1–33. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9922.2007.00397.x
Lardiere, D. (1998a). Case and tense in the 'fossilized' steady state. Sec. Lang. Res. 14, 1–26. doi: 10.1191/026765898674105303
Lardiere, D. (1998b). Dissociating syntax from morphology in a divergent end-state grammar. Sec. Lang. Res. 14, 359–375. doi: 10.1191/026765898672500216
Lardiere, D. (2000). “Mapping features to forms in second language acquisition,” in Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory, ed. J. Archibald (Oxford: Blackwell), 102–129.
Lemhöfer, K., and Broersma, M. (2012). Introducing LexTALE: a quick and valid Lexical Test for Advanced Learners of English. Behav. Res. Methods 44, 325–343. doi: 10.3758/s13428-011-0146-0
Liu, H., and Cao, F. (2016). L1 and L2 processing in the bilingual brain: a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Brain Lang. 159, 60–73. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2016.05.013
Long, M. H. (1996). “The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition,” in Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, eds. W. Ritchie and T. Bhatia (New York, NY: Academic Press), 413–468.
Luke, K. K., Liu, H. L., Wai, Y. Y., Wan, Y. L., and Tan, L. H. (2002). Functional anatomy of syntactic and semantic processing in language comprehension. Hum. Brain Map. 16, 133–145. doi: 10.1002/hbm.10029
McDonald, J. L. (2006). Beyond the critical period: processing-based explanations for poor grammaticality judgment performance by late second language learners. J. Mem. Lang. 55, 381–401. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2006.06.006
Mueller, J., and Jiang, N. (2013). The acquisition of the Korean honorific affix (u) si by advanced L2 learners. Modern Lang. J. 97, 318–339. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2013.12005.x
Münte, T. F., Heinze, H. J., and Mangun, G. R. (1993). Dissociation of brain activity related to syntactic and semantic aspects of language. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 5, 335–344. doi: 10.1162/jocn.1993.5.3.335
Münte, T. F., Matzke, M., and Johannes, S. (1997). Brain activity associated with syntactic incongruencies in words and pseudo-words. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 9, 318–329. doi: 10.1162/jocn.1997.9.3.318
Oh, T. M., Graham, S., Ng, P., Yeh, I. B., Chan, B. P., and Edwards, A. M. (2019). Age and proficiency in the bilingual brain revisited: activation patterns across different L2-learner types. Front. Commun. 4:39. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2019.00039
Ojima, S., Nakata, H., and Kakigi, R. (2005). An ERP study on second language learning after childhood: effects of proficiency. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 17, 1212–1228. doi: 10.1162/0898929055002436
Osterhout, L., and Holcomb, P. J. (1992). Event-related brain potentials elicited by syntactic anomaly. J. Mem. Lang. 31, 785–806. doi: 10.1016/0749-596X(92)90039-Z
Prévost, P., and White, L. (2000a). “Accounting for morphological variation in second language acquisition: truncation or missing inflection?” in The Acquisition of Syntax, eds. M. A. Friedeman and L. Rizzi (London: Longman), 202–235.
Prévost, P., and White, L. (2000b). Missing surface inflection or impairment in second language? Evidence from tense and agreement. Sec. Lang. Res. 16, 103–134. doi: 10.1191/026765800677556046
Roberts, L., and Liszka, S. A. (2013). Processing tense/aspect-agreement violations on-line in the second language: a self-paced reading study with French and German L2 learners of English. Sec. Lang. Res. 29, 413–439. doi: 10.1177/0267658313503171
Rüschemeyer, S. A., Fiebach, C. J., Kempe, V., and Friederici, A. D. (2005). Processing lexical semantic and syntactic information in first and second language: fMRI evidence from German and Russian. Hum. Brain Map. 25, 266–286. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20098
Sabourin, L., and Stowe, L. A. (2008). Second language processing: when are first and second languages processed similarly? Sec. Lang. Res. 24, 397–430. doi: 10.1177/0267658308090186
Short, K. M. (2007). A Neurolinguistic Investigation of Late-Learned Second Language Knowledge: the Effects of Explicit and Implicit Conditions. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest.
Singleton, D., and Ryan, L. (2004). Language Acquisition: The Age Factor, 2nd Edn. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Steinhauer, K., White, E., Cornell, S., Genesee, F., and White, L. (2006). The neural dynamics of second language acquisition: evidence from event-related potentials. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 25(Suppl.):99. doi: 10.1177/0267658308098995
Tanner, D., and Van Hell, J. G. (2014). ERPs reveal individual differences in morphosyntactic processing. Neuropsychologia 56, 289–301. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.02.002
Tsimpli, I. M., and Dimitrakopoulou, M. (2007). The interpretability hypothesis: evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition. Sec. Lang. Res. 23, 215–242. doi: 10.1177/0267658307076546
Ullman, M. T. (2004). Contributions of memory circuits to language: the declarative/procedural model. Cognition 92, 231–270. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2003.10.008
Ullman, M. T. (2016). “The declarative/procedural model: a neurobiological model of language learning, knowledge, and use,” in Neurobiology of Language, eds. G. Hickok and S. Small (Cambridge, MA: Academic Press), 953–968.
Wartenburger, I., Heekeren, H. R., Abutalebi, J., Cappa, S. F., Villringer, A., and Perani, D. (2003). Early setting of grammatical processing in the bilingual brain. Neuron 37, 159–170. doi: 10.1016/S0896-6273(02)01150-9
Weber-Fox, C. M., and Neville, H. J. (1996). Maturational constraints on functional specializations for language processing: ERP and behavioral evidence in bilingual speakers. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 8, 231–256. doi: 10.1162/jocn.1996.8.3.231
Wen, Z., Miyao, M., Takeda, A., Chu, W., and Schwartz, B. D. (2010). “Proficiency effects and distance effects in nonnative processing of English number agreement,” in BUCLD 34: Proceedings of the 34th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, eds. K. Franich, K. M. Iserman, and L. L. Keil (Somerville: Cascadilla Press), 445–456.
White, L. (2003). “The initial state,” in Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar, ed. L. White (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 58–99.
Yao, P., and Chen, B. (2017). Cross-linguistic differences affect late Chinese-English learners on-line processing of English tense and aspect. Int. J. Bilingual. 21, 268–290. doi: 10.1177/1367006915624248
Keywords: second language (L2) acquisition, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, late language learners, Universal Grammar (UG)
Citation: Li Y (2024) Can late language learners acquire second language grammar? Evidence from linguistic to neuroscience methods. Front. Psychol. 15:1421072. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1421072
Received: 21 April 2024; Accepted: 19 June 2024;
Published: 03 July 2024.
Edited by:
Zhengdong Gan, University of Macau, ChinaReviewed by:
Feng Gu, Sichuan University, ChinaCopyright © 2024 Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Yang Li, yang.li@solent.ac.uk