Salvaging a childhood language
Salvaging a childhood language
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DOI：
10.1016/j.jml.2007.11.001
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发表时间：
2008-05-01
影响因子：
4.3
通讯作者：
Romo, Laura F.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Au, Terry Kit-fong;Oh, Janet S.;Romo, Laura F.
童年学习一门语言的经历似乎有助于成年学习者用更像母语的口音说这门语言。在音系学之外，还能发现类似的好处吗？这项研究的重点是那些在7岁之前以西班牙语为母语的成人西班牙语学习者，此后直到他们在14岁左右开始重新学习西班牙语，如果有的话，只有很少的西班牙语学习者。他们与西班牙语母语者、儿童偷听者和典型的晚二语言（L2）西班牙语学习者进行了比较。童年时期说西班牙语的人和无意中听到的人说西班牙语的口音都比典型的l2晚期学习者更像母语。在语法方面，童年时期的说话者——尽管与母语相去甚远——确实比童年时期的偷听者和典型的l2晚期学习者表现得更好。这些结果表明，虽然在童年时期简单地无意中听到一门语言可以帮助成年学习者用更像母语的音韵来说这门语言，但在童年时期经常说一门语言可以帮助再学习者用更像母语的语法和音韵来使用它。(C) 2007爱思唯尔公司版权所有。
Childhood experience with a language seems to help adult learners speak it with a more native-like accent. Can analogous benefits be found beyond phonology? This study focused on adult learners of Spanish who had spoken Spanish as their native language before age 7 and only minimally, if at all, thereafter until they began to re-learn Spanish around age 14 years. They were compared with native speakers, childhood overhearers, and typical late-second-language (L2)-learners of Spanish. Both childhood speakers and overhearers spoke Spanish with a more native-like accent than typical late-L2-learners. On grammar measures, childhood speakers-although far from native-like-reliably outperformed childhood overhearers as well as typical late-L2-learners. These results suggest that while simply overhearing a language during childhood could help adult learners speak it with a more native-like phonology, speaking a language regularly during childhood could help re-learners use it with more native-like grammar as well as phonology. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.