Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2013

Since seminal work in the late ‘80s the general consensus in the literature is that children who are regularly exposed to two languages from birth or soon after can acquire them as largely independent systems. In recent years the focus has shifted from the issue of language differentiation to the degree of interaction between the two systems, and to the factors affecting such cross-linguistic influence. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of current proposals about the determinants and the manifestation of language interaction in young simultaneous bilinguals.

This chapter reviews current work on child second language acquisition from a generative perspective. The primary goal is to identify characteristics of child L2 acquisition in relation to child first language (L1) acquisition and adult second language (L2) acquisition and to discuss its contribution to these sister fields both in typical and atypical domains. The chapter is organized into three sections, covering L1 influence in child L2 acquisition, the acquisition of functional architecture in child L2 acquisition, and the issue of morphological variability. Also included in the last section are the relatively new and fast developing areas of research in atypical child L2 acquisition research.

This review article selects and elaborates on the important issues of adult second language acquisition research in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The fundamental question of whether adult second language acquisition and child first language acquisition are similar or different is addressed throughout the article. The issues of a critical period for acquisition, the importance of the linguistic input, and processing are discussed. Generative as well as usage-based perspectives are considered. Future research concerns and promising areas of investigation are proposed.

Up until around ten years ago, third language acquisition (L3A) research was generally subsumed under the umbrella term of second language acquisition (L2A). In this short space of time, however, L3A has established itself as an independent strand of linguistic research, providing an invaluable source of information into language and language acquisition. This paper emphasises the crucial differences between L2A and L3A. It provides a snapshot of the current state of cognitive research into L3A, discussing studies in the domains of morphology, syntax, phonology and lexicon. Recently proposed (specific L3) generative models are discussed, such as Cumulative Enhancement Model (Flynn, Foley & Vinnitskaya, 2004), L2 Status Factor (Bardel & Falk, 2007) and Typological Primacy Model (Rothman, 2011) together with an alternative proposal (Contextual Complexity Hypothesis, Hawkins & Casillas, 2007). Finally this paper highlights the gaps in our knowledge and the direction for future research in this fast-growing area of research.

The overwhelming bias for investigations of bilingualism is to focus on the increase of knowledge and crosslinguistic traffic from the L1 to the L2. Developments which concern loss, deterioration or reduced accessibility of knowledge and traffic from the L2 to the L1 are much less well-studied and understood, and are usually treated as a somewhat marginal issue. The present contribution provides an overview of research in first language attrition and argues that changes to the first language system are part and parcel of the development of bilingual knowledge and processing. As such, they can help provide additional insight into controversial issues, such as questions about the existence of maturational constraints in L2 learning, and potentially help resolve these matters.