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four Individual Differences: Age, Sex, Working Memory, and Prior Knowledge harriet wood bowden cristina sanz catherine a. stafford key words Aptitude ■ bilingualism ■ critical period hypothesis ■ gender ■ metalinguistic awareness ■ rate ■ route ■ sex ■ short-term memory ■ ultimate attainment ■ working memory. 1. Introduction While incomplete acquisition of a first language (L1) is rare and related to cases of severe language deprivation and concomitant problems in cognitive development, achieving nativelike proficiency in a second language (L2) seems to be the exception rather than the norm. Different explanations have been proposed for this significant difference between L1 and L2 acquisition and include type and frequency of input, access to Universal Grammar (or lack thereof), and differential use of general cognitive capacities. Whatever the reason for the difference, there is general agreement that individual differences (IDs) seem to have a greater effect on the acquisition of an L2 than the L1. The nature of the specific IDs and the degree to which they affect specific aspects of L2 acquisition—syntax versus vocabulary, for example—are still debated in the literature.1 The present chapter focuses on IDs because this is the area where scholarship has grown the most in recent years. The list of IDs relevant to second language acquisition (SLA) is long and continues to grow as a result of the deconstruction of broad concepts such as aptitude and motivation that took place in the 1990s. Larsen-Freeman and Long’s (1991) chapter on IDs includes the following IDs: age, aptitude, motivation, attitude, personality (including self-esteem, extroversion, anxiety, risk-taking, sensitivity to rejection, empathy, inhibition, and tolerance of ambiguity), 105 cognitive style (which includes field independence or dependence, category width, reflectivity or impulsivity, aural or visual learning style, and analytic or gestalt learning style), hemisphere specialization, memory, awareness, will, language disability, interest, sex, birth order, and prior experience.2 Obviously, a chapter that covers all of these variables would be too long and broad for this volume, thus the need to focus. We have chosen age, sex, working memory, and prior language experience for different reasons. Age has particular relevance for a discussion of IDs because it is the most obvious difference between first and second language acquisition and it is also the one that has produced the highest level of interest and the most research. Sex was selected because new potential explanations are beginning to emerge for behavioral patterns that have been anecdotally observed in the past. Working memory has become a focus of research on what has been referred to historically as aptitude.3 Finally, prior language experience has been selected because, in our view, it deserves more attention than it has received to date, particularly when one considers that bilingualism has become the norm rather than the exception in an age of migration and supranational entities such as the European Union. And, in light of recent research regarding the levels of proficiency at which particular aspects of language are processed (e.g., Gass, Svetics, and Lemelin, 2003) as well as the influence of experience with language study abroad on vocabulary acquisition (e.g., Collentine, 2004), further inquiry in the area of prior language experience certainly appears to be justified. 2. Age Achieving nativelike competence in an L2 requires that you begin learning as a child. This is an idea that is widely and unquestioningly accepted, and it is echoed around us every day: We assume that immigrant children will speak their L2 much better than their parents, we advocate that foreign language programs begin earlier in schools, our neighbors hire au pairs who speak another language to care for their children. Assumptions and anecdotes following these same lines formed the basis of much early writing on age and SLA from the 1920s until as recently as the 1960s. Singleton’s (2001) review article on age and SLA mentions several such papers, where conclusions are based on impressionism, folk wisdom, and personal experience rather than empirical evidence. In scientific terms, these assumptions would point to a critical period for age “beyond which the process of acquiring another language changes in both quality and quantity of presumed success” (Bialystok, 2001, p. 72). Empirical research, however, has not painted nearly so clear a picture. Terminology related to age effects can be confusing, and some clarification before proceeding is thus in order. A critical period necessarily includes an onset and an offset, and it is believed that beyond this period, nativelike success in 106 internal factors [52.14.253.170] Project MUSE (2024-04-20...

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