WHAT'S AGE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Georgette Ioup
University of New Orleans
gioup@uno.edu

Monday, March 24, 2003, 11:30 AM-12:30 PM plenary
Room: Commonwealth South

Abstract
Why do some L2 learners succeed more than others? Is age or the environment of learning the more important factor? Some argue that there is a biologically ordained period and only within its confines can any language, first or second, be learned naturally. Others maintain that once a mother tongue is acquired, continued successful language acquisition is still possible. They claim that the lack of success seen in late onset learners is the result of such non-maturational individual variables as the natural decline in learning ability with normal aging, environmental factors like the amount of input available to the learner or access to instruction, the motivational/attitudinal disposition of the learner, cross-linguistic influence, and finally, the learner’s aptitude for language learning.
I contend that although these variables can influence the degree to which late learners reach their full potential, they cannot explain why, given the same conditions, there is so much variability, and why, in the best of circumstances, the full potential of most adult acquisition falls short of nativelike ultimate attainment. With the exception of aptitude, these individual variables are viewed as necessary but not sufficient to ensure nativelike outcomes. It is my position that there is a fundamental difference between child and adult language learning. Children possess an ability that is lost in most adults -- the ability to intuit the rule structure of the language without paying attention to it. While it is true that a small number of adults do appear to realize near-native ultimate attainment, only the variable of aptitude can ultimately shed light on how these learners are different. Support for this position will be drawn from the details found in case studies of child and adult second language learners that have appeared in the literature.

Biography
Georgette Ioup received an M.A. and Ph. D. in linguistics from New York University and the City University of New York: Graduate Center. She has been a member of the linguistics faculty at the University of Washington, the University of Texas at Austin, and currently, the University of New Orleans and an invited professor in the Middle East at Mohamed V University in Morocco and The American University in Cairo. Her research explores the cognitive aspects of language acquisition and loss, especially in relation to maturation. Her publications include a co-edited anthology (with Steven Weinberger), Interlanguage phonology: The acquisition of a second language sound system, and articles in the major linguistic and second language journals, as well as in numerous anthologies. Topics range from the efficacy of formal instruction to research on unusual language learners. She has been invited to share her research in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Italy, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. She has served on the boards of the TESOL affiliates in Washington State and Louisiana, and served as president of the latter.