Acquisition of a new language: an enriched case study documents language growth without external input in a young Korean child’s acquisition of English
Name
fnhum-18-1456054.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.88 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
c012e9a136b1a54fb66105620d53f688
Author(s)
Lust, Barbara
Flynn, Suzanne
Kim, Ahyoung Alicia
Date Issued
2024
Journal
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Citation
Lust B, Flynn S and Kim AA (2024) Acquisition of a new language: an enriched case study documents language growth without external input in a young Korean child’s acquisition of English. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 18:1456054.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This paper explores a case of suspension of data input during the acquisition of a second language by a young Korean child acquiring English in an English-only nursery school in the United States. Data suspension occurred naturally when the child returned to Korea for a summer where only Korean was spoken. Systematic investigations using an enriched case study methodology which assessed the nature of the child’s English target language acquisition both before and after the Korean Summer revealed significant advances in his English after the Korean Summer despite the absence of English input during this time. Several hypotheses regarding the nature and explanation of this advance are tested. It is argued that significant internal linguistic integration leading to systematization of linguistic knowledge occurred in the absence of synchronous language data input, demonstrating the significance of internal computational processes over and above language data input in the language acquisition process. Results have implications for understanding the fundamental nature of language acquisition.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2024.1456054
