Is early age of exposure crucial for successful ultimate attainment of morphosyntax? Comparing Turkish-American returnees and L2 learners residing in Turkey

The content of the seminar:

Is early age of exposure crucial for successful ultimate attainment? The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) postulates the existence of an optimal time frame in early development during which language acquisition occurs more effortlessly and completely. Support for CPH comes from studies showing differences in the ultimate proficiency of adults who learn a second language later in life. However, we know that heritage speakers, who are early bilinguals acquiring a minority (heritage) language at home from birth alongside the majority societal language, also exhibit significant structural variability in their heritage language. In this talk, Aylin raise the question of whether full acquisition is possible if heritage speakers and second language learners are tested in a naturalistic setting, when they are fully immersed in and using their heritage/second language in a majority language context. To this end, Aylin present data from four groups: i) Turkish heritage speakers residing in the United States, as well as ii) second language learners of Turkish, iii) Turkish-American returnees, and iv) Turkish monolinguals residing in Turkey. All participants completed an Acceptability Judgement Task and a Sentence Repetition Task on passives, relative clauses, and anaphora in Turkish. First, she will show that Turkish-American returnees pattern with monolinguals and show significantly better accuracy rates than heritage speakers, who in turn outperform second language speakers in both tasks. She will then present correlations between accuracy, age of return to Turkey, length of residence in Turkey, and contact with English/Turkish after return of returnees and second language learners. By doing so, Aylin will demonstrate that the earlier these groups relocated to Turkey, the better they performed in both tasks. She take these findings to suggest that complex morphosyntax remains malleable in adulthood, and that early age of exposure is crucial but not sufficient for successful ultimate attainment; maximal input is also required at some point in life.