Doctoral Dissertation Research: Child/Adult Differences in Implicit/Explicit Knowledge of a Second Language

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It is thought that children "pick up" languages naturally, whereas adults must study grammar in order to learn a second language (L2). Adult L2 learners typically develop extensive explicit knowledge about the L2 (knowledge that is conscious and can be verbalized), but may lack implicit knowledge (knowledge that cannot be verbalized, but can be accessed quickly and easily.) The reverse is typical of children. But children also experience a very different learning environment from adults. Are age differences in implicit/explicit language knowledge maturational, or environmental?This dissertation research explores how adults and children in different learning conditions develop implicit and explicit L2 knowledge, specifically asking (1) whether children favor implicit knowledge, (2) whether adults favor explicit knowledge, and (3) whether this still holds when children and adults are under the same controlled training conditions. Such research has not been done to date, since research on implicit/explicit knowledge only tests adults, and research on children has not included task comparisons. With support from the National Science Foundation, two studies addressing explicit and implicit knowledge in children and adults will be carried out. The first tests child and young adult L2 learners of Spanish who have had similar instructional experiences on their implicit and explicit knowledge of verb morphology. The second study trains adults and children to speak an artificial mini-language; half the subjects receive explicit rule instruction, and the other half do not. The goal of these studies is to examine whether age or instruction is the primary factor in determining reliance on explicit vs. implicit knowledge. This research contributes to the discussion of whether child and adult language learning are fundamentally similar or different, helping to develop theories of language learning across the lifespan. Results are expected to have implications for the development of effective pedagogy for different age groups.