Should it stay or should it go? : A critical reflection on the critical period for language
Balari, Sergio (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Catalana)
Lorenzo González, Guillermo (Universidad de Oviedo. Departamento de Filología Española)

Date:	2015
Abstract:	This paper tries to shed light on traditional and current observations that give support to the idea that language is subject to critical period effects. It is suggested that this idea is not adequately grounded on a view on language as a developmental phenomenon which motivates the suggestion of moving from the now classic concept of language as a 'faculty' to a new concept of language as a 'gradient': i. e. an aggregate of cognitive abilities, the weight of which is variable from one to another developmental stage, and which exercise crucial scaffolding effects on each other. Once this well-supported view is assumed, the idea of 'critical period' becomes an avoidable one, for language can instantiate different forms of gradation, none of which is inherently normal or deviant relatively to each other. In any event, a notion of 'criticality' is retained within this view, yet simply to name the transitional effects of scaffolding influences within the gradient.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Critical period ; Faculty of language ; Behavioral gradients ; Cognitive hybridization ; Scaffolding
Published in:	Biolinguistics, Vol. 9 (2015) , p. 8-42, ISSN 1450-3417

Adreça alternativa: https://www.biolinguistics.eu/index.php/biolinguistics/article/view/363

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Arts and Humanities > Center for Theoretical Linguistics (CLT)
Articles > Research articles
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