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Dissertation Information
| Title: | The Limits of Eventual Lexical Attainment in Adult-Onset Second Language Acquisition | Add Dissertation |
| Author: | Andrea Hellman | Update Dissertation |
| Email: | click here to access email | |
| Institution: | Boston University, Literacy, Language, and Cultural Studies | |
| Completed in: | 2008 | |
| Linguistic Subfield(s): | Applied Linguistics; | |
| Subject Language(s): |
English
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| Director(s): |
John Read Shanley Shanley Mary O'Connor Marnie Reed |
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| Abstract: | This study examined the ultimate attainment of adult-onset second language (L2) learners in the lexical domain. A substantial body of research has documented age of acquisition effects on the ultimate attainment of L2 learners in the domains of phonology and morphosyntax; however, only limited data exist regarding the ultimate achievement of adult-onset L2 learners in the area of the lexicon, particularly vocabulary size and depth of word knowledge. This study probed the upper limit of eventual L2 lexical achievement by comparing a group of highly proficient adult-onset L2 learners with 10-52 years of significant exposure to the English (N = 33) to two groups of comparably educated native speakers of English, a monolingual group (N = 30) and a bilingual group (N = 30). Measures included two vocabulary size tests (aural and written), and a depth of word knowledge test. The results indicated that the L2 learner group was significantly different from both native speaker groups due to lower mean achievement on the aural vocabulary size measure. However, the rate of native level achievement among the adult-onset L2 learners was 76%. Five (15%) obtained scores above the native speaker mean on all three lexical tasks; their characteristics were reported in case studies. Follow-up exploratory analyses suggested that for the adult-onset L2 learners, 46% of the variance on test scores was related to the linear combination of three predictor variables: caregivers' education, verbal ability and literacy in the native language, interest in new words and daily reading. For L2 vocabulary size and depth of word knowledge, the data in this study did not signal the existence of a critical period for acquisition. The data showed that the upper limit of L2 lexical achievement was native level vocabulary size and depth of word knowledge even for those individuals who did not start acquiring their second language until the third or fourth decade of life. In addition, the study detected no effect for bilingual status on the lexical measures among the native speakers. The findings constitute evidence that the lexical domain may be the most successful area of adult-onset L2 acquisition. |
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