Age and second language acquisition

Abstract

The idea that there is an age factor in language development has long been — and continues to be — a hotly debated topic. This review begins by briefly revisiting some of the early perspectives on this issue; it goes on to sketch some of the relevant findings which emerged in the three decades following the onset in the late 1960s of serious empirical investigation of the age factor in L2 acquisition; and, finally, in the third section of the survey, it hones in on the results of some more recently published age-related research. The article concludes with a short discussion — in the light of the foregoing — of (a) the degree of absoluteness of the age factor in L2 acquisition; and (b) the notion that there may be not one, but a number, of age-related factors at work.