The Critical Perido Hypothesis

Patknowski (1980) also discovered that those arriving in the United States before the age of 15 were the most indigenous people (p. 449). These investigations have found an important advantage of early arrival. Other studies support age restrictions for second language acquisition. Asher and Garcia (1969) and Oyama (1976) examined the relationship between age and pronunciation. Both studies concluded that young subjects are thought to work better and have natural abilities. Asher and Garcia (1969) reported that subjects aged 1 to 6 rated the most mother tongue accented (337).

Key period duration assumptions have traditionally been used to explain why mastery of second language is difficult for older children and adults. Johnson and Newport (1989) studied the hypothesis that the critical period might explain the second language acquisition. They distinguish between the two hypotheses assuming that human beings have the ability to learn languages ​​early in their lives. According to the assumption of maturity, this ability disappears or decreases with maturity regardless of other factors. The movement hypothesis further states that if this ability is not exercised quickly it will be lost. Both of these assumptions predict that children are better suited for mastering their mother tongue than adults. The hypothesis of exercise predicts that the ability to master other languages ​​remains the same and can be used at any age, as long as a child learns the first language as a child.

In language acquisition, there is a hypothesis that children have a "critical time" or a time to learn the best words. A part of this hypothesis is that if a child is not exposed to the language in the first few years of his life, he or she will never completely acquire the first language. If there is no brain, there is no word. There are several areas specific to language processing and production in the human brain. If these areas are damaged or injured, the ability to talk and understand may be lost. These fields must cooperate to enable people to develop, use and understand language