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Effects of age of L2 acquisition on L1 event conceptualization patterns*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2009

EMANUEL BYLUND
EMANUEL BYLUND*
Affiliation:
Centre for Research on Bilingualism Stockholm University
*
Address for correspondence: Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, Universitetsvägen 10 C, SE–106 91 Stockholm, Sweden [email protected]
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Abstract

This study explores the effects that the age of onset (AO) of second language (L2) acquisition exerts on the attrition of first language (L1) event conceptualization patterns. The subjects studied are L1 Spanish–L2 Swedish bilinguals living in Sweden. The specific research questions addressed in the study concern the role of AO in endpoint encoding and temporal perspectivation in goal-oriented motion events. In view of previous findings on age effects in attrition, it is hypothesized that deviations from Spanish monolingual patterns of conceptualization would be limited basically to subjects whose AO is below 12 years of age. The analyses show that subjects with AO > 12 converge with Spanish monolingual controls on both endpoint encoding and temporal perspectivation strategies, whereas deviations from the controls' performance are found exclusively in subjects with AO < 12. It is suggested, in view of these findings, that subjects with early AO are more dependent on advantageous socio-psychological circumstances such as L1 contact and use in order to fully acquire/maintain Spanish event conceptualization patterns, while L1 maintenance in subjects with late AO is less dependent on these factors. It is concluded that patterns of event conceptualization are affected by age in the same way as formal language skills.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , July 2009 , pp. 305 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council, grant no. 421-2004-1975 (Niclas Abrahamsson, Kenneth Hyltenstam, Emanuel Bylund and Katrin Stölten) and by the Swedish Graduate School in Romance Languages (FoRom). A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the annual conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Costa Mesa, CA, April 22 2007. The author wishes to express his gratitude to Kenneth Hyltenstam, Scott Jarvis, Panos Athanasopoulos, Johan Falk and two BLC reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper; to Christiane von Stutterheim, Barbara Schmiedtová and Mary Carroll for sharing their endpoint test; to Jorge Murcia Serra for providing the Spanish quaestio; and to Jon Buscall for correcting the author's English writing. None of these persons, however, is responsible for any remaining errors of fact or interpretation.

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