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instead of claiming toform a defining Consideringadifferentiation be- points out, differences exist between
’catalogue’of ’fixed’differences. tween adult and child SLA pre-school and school age children:
Perhaps the best way to define SLA "...second language learning in the
before concentrating on the differ- According to Gass & Selinker classroom is likely to be a different
ences observed between adults and (1994:234) one of the facts that SLA process from language learning that
children as our area of inquiry, is to theoriesseek toexplain is the general occurs in the preschool or on play-
consider what SLA is not. According belief that "children are better lan- ground. If nothing else, the children
toKlein,(1986:4)"[f]irst language ac- guage learnersin thesense that young are older and have more cognitive and
quisition occurs when the learner - children typically can gain mastery of mnemonic devices at their disposal".
usually a child- has been without a lan- asecond language whereas adultscan- Adult SLAcan also be argued to vary
guage so far and now acquires one. If not." On the other hand, from the apparently hopeless to the
it is one language,we speak of mono- ”[m]any adults can in a matter of perfect (sec Gethin & Gunnemark,
lingual FLA. The less frequent case monthsorveryfewyears become ’bet- op.cit.:15). Having stressed this out,
[...] of a child learning two languages ter’ at a language than a ten-year- old we have to conclude that at least in
in parallel is knownas bilingual FLA". speaking it as their mother tongue. someareas,a differentiation between
Principally thus, SLA (especially in adult and child SLA must exist.It has
adults) isfundamentallydifferent from to be stated, in advance of consider-
bilingualism, as well as from FLA, ing some explanations in more detail,
since the latter is in this way "primary that although there is no agreement
in at least two ways: in terms of se- about other areas of language, abili-
quence (’first’) and in terms of (mostly ties for the acquisition of syntax and
life-long)importance" (Klein,op.cit.:3, phonology are considered to decline
author’s italics). Conceptual distinc- with age: unless exposed to it from an
tions such as the above present us early age, "older individuals cannot
though with problems in practice, reasonably hope to ever achieve a na-
where "since the acquisition process tive accent in a second language" (see
extends over a long period of time, Gass&Selinker,1994:240f).
there are all sorts of intermediate
cases",and when "if a second language SomeTheoriesofandmajordifferences
is learned before the acquisition of the betweenadultandchildSLA-
first, the distinction becomes blurred"
(ibid.). A distinction has also to be A: Cognitive, psycholinguistic and
drawn between spontaneous and biological aspects of a differentiation
guided (usually bya tutor)SLAwhere between adultandchild SLA
thefirst, takes place "in everydaycom-
munication, in a natural fashion, free Some arguments towards an explana-
from systematic guidance"(Klein, tion of the differences between adult
op.cit.:16). Another distinction has to They can understand far more words and child SLA can be located in ac-
be pointed out, since a second lan- than the native children and they can counts of cognitive development.Ac-
guage in contrast to foreign language use far more words. The only way in cording to Ellen Bialystok (in
learning"isone that becomes another which children may besuperior is the Phillipsonet.al.,1990:75),children:
tool of communication alongside the accuracy of their grammar and "have two tasks to face when learning
first language; it is typically acquired pronunciation"(Gethin & a language. They must build up both
in a social environment in which it is Gunnemark,1996:15). their knowledge of the world, includ-
actually spoken", something which In advance of considering the validity ing the language to refer to that world,
points out the importance of a differ- and some explanations for these and their knowledge of the structure
entiation between ’learning’ and ’ac- claims, it has to be pointed out that a of the linguistic system [...] Adults
quisition’, as the former refers to distinction between adult and child learning a second language have es-
guided, and the later to spontaneous SLAoften overlooks the fact that vari- sentially only to master the analysis
learning (Klein,op.cit.:19f). ation in the acquisition of asecond lan- and control relevant to the language
guage exists also between children and system [...] Children must develop the
adults. As McLaughlin (1985:17) underlying skills in conjunction with
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