A Study on the Influence of Critical Period Hypothesis on the English Level of Chinese English Majors关键期假说对中国英语专业学生英语水平的影响研究

1、闽江学院本科毕业论文(设计) 题 目a study on the influence of critical period hypothesis on the english level of chinese english majors 学生姓名 学 号 120080201227 系 别 外语系 年 级 08级 专 业 英语教育 指导教师 职 称 完成日期 2012年5 月 18 日 闽江学院毕业论文（设计）诚信声明书本人郑重声明：兹提交的毕业论文（设计） a study on the influence of critical period hypothesis on the englis

2、h level of chinese english majors，是本人在指导老师 林庆英 的指导下独立研究、撰写的成果；论文（设计）未剽窃、抄袭他人的学术观点、思想和成果，未篡改研究数据，论文（设计）中所引用的文字、研究成果均已在论文（设计）中以明确的方式标明；在毕业论文（设计）工作过程中，本人恪守学术规范，遵守学校有关规定，依法享有和承担由此论文（设计）产生的权利和责任。声明人（签名）：2012年5月17日摘 要对于儿童期开始学习外语是否比少年、成人期开始学习外语更具有优势，关键期假说在二语习得领域究竟有多少解释力，语言研究者和外语教学界长期以来没有达成共识。因此，本文试从英语专业学生的

3、英语水平与其学习英语的起始年龄的关系角度来研究关键期对中国英语专业学生英语水平的影响，探讨了以下两个问题：（1）是否在关键期内开始学习英语会不会影响英语专业学生的英语综合水平？（2）是否在关键期内开始学习英语会不会影响英语专业学生的口语水平？该研究通过问卷调查从闽江学院外语系大三、大四两个英语专业年级的学生中筛选出322名受试，并根据他们的初始英语学习年龄（小学学习者、初中学习者）将其分成两组比较各自的综合英语水平和口语水平。然后，对所收集到的两组调查数据进行了定量分析比较。研究结果表明是否在关键期内开始学习英语对英语专业学生的英语水平有一定的影响。因此，本研究在一定程度上证明了关键期假说在中

4、国外语学习环境中的可行性，这对二语习得领域的研究是一个有意义的补充。关键词：关键期假说；英语专业学生；英语水平；起始年龄 abstract there has been a heated debate among linguists and researchers on the critical period hypothesis and on whether children have absolute advantages over teenagers and adults in second language acquisition. therefore, this thesis set

5、s out to explore the influence of the critical period hypothesis on the english level of chinese english majors through the relationship between the english level and the age onset of english learning of english majors. it mainly discusses the following two questions: (1) whether starting learning e

6、nglish within the critical period will influence the comprehensive english level of english majors? (2) whether starting learning english within the critical period will influence the oral english skills of english majors? by virtue of a questionnaire survey, 322 subjects were first selected from th

7、e juniors and seniors of english majors in foreign language department of minjiang university. then the selected subjects were divided into two groups according to the age onset of english learning (elementary school starters, secondary school starters) so as to compare their comprehensive english l

8、evel and oral english skills. at last, quantitative analyses were employed to interpret the collected statistics. as is shown by the results of the study, there is certain difference between the english level of students who started english learning within or after the critical period. thus, this fi

9、nding lent some support to the applicability of critical period hypothesis in the foreign language learning in china, which is a meaningful supplement for the research in the second language acquisition.key words：the critical period hypothesis; english majors; english level; onset agecontents1. intr

10、oduction.(1)2. literature review.(1) 2.1 the critical period hypothesis.(1) 2.2 relevant studies on critical period hypothesis.(2) 2.2.1 studies abroad.(2) 2.2.2 studies home.(3)3. the current study.(4) 3.1 research questions.(4) 3.2 questionnaire design.(5) 3.3 method.(5) 3.4 subjects .(5)4. result

11、s and analyses.(6) 4.1 comparison of comprehensive english level.(6) 4.2 comparison of oral english skills.(8) 4.3 comparison of personal views on the critical periods influence.(10) 5. conclusion.(12) 5.1 conclusions of the study.(12) 5.2 limitations and recommendations.(12)references.(14)appendix.

12、(15)acknowledgements.(16)a study on the influence of critical period hypothesis on the english level of chinese english majors1. introduction with the increasing number of english learners, many psychologists, applied linguists and educators show great interest in the study of effects of age on seco

13、nd language acquisition. they have spent a great deal of time on the research of the relationship between age factor and second language acquisition from various aspects. however, the results are not in agreement, even contradictory. among the theories and hypotheses they have put forward, the most

14、controversial one about second language acquisition is the critical period hypothesis by lenneberg (1967), who states, there is a period when language acquisition can take place naturally and effortlessly, but after a certain age the brain is no longer able to process language input in this way.”1(p

15、176) according to the critical period hypothesis, there exists a common conception that the younger the children start to learn a foreign language, the better. some scholars have done a lot of research and experiments to support this hypothesis. in recent years, there has been a heated discussion ab

16、out whether the age factor has an effect on foreign language learning in china. hence this thesis focuses on the influence of critical period hypothesis on the english level of chinese english majors and presents the authors views on some issues concerned. to further explore such doubts is both of t

17、heoretical significance for the system of foreign language teaching and of practical significance for implementation of educating plan in our country with a large number of foreign language learners.2. literature review 2.1 the critical period hypothesis the critical period hypothesis (cph) refers t

18、o a period in ones life extending from about age two to puberty, during which the human brain is most ready to acquire a particular language and language learning can proceed easily, swiftly, and without explicit instruction2. penfield, a canadian neurosurgeon, was the first to propose the concept o

19、f the optimum age, that is, the optimum age for the acquisition of language is before 10 years of age, during which time the brain remains its plasticity; but when puberty comes, the brain loses plasticity, which is caused by lateralization3. later, in 1967, lenneberg improved and introduced cph int

20、o the process of foreign language learning. lenneberg argued that language was the output of brain. before puberty, when both hemispheres of the brain participate in language learning, language can be acquired naturally effortlessly because of the plasticity of brain. after puberty, most peoples bra

21、in is lateralized and their neurological system loses such plasticity, which makes language acquisition more and more difficult1. cph was primarily concerned with first language acquisition, and it was generally accepted among psycholinguists that a critical period for first language acquisition exi

22、sts. but since the testing of cph was moved into second language acquisition, it has aroused great controversy4.2.2 relevant studies on critical period hypothesis2.2.1 studies abroad penfield and roberts are responsible for pointing out the notion of critical period initially. as stated by penfield

23、and roberts, a childs brain was more plastic by comparison with an adult. a child could learn two to three languages as easily as one before the age of nine. however, the brain gradually became inflexible and tough when one was at the age of nine to twelve3. patkowsky suggested that a critical perio

24、d for second language learning did indeed exist from his study which meant to find out the likelihood of a critical period for learning a second language. patkowsky found that learners under the age of fifteen achieved higher syntactic proficiency than those who were over the age of fifteen at the o

25、nset of exposure. thus, patkowsky posited that among all the factors he examined in his study, age was the factor that had the most significant impact on success in learning a second language5. his findings were fully consistent with the critical period hypothesis. as the critical period hypothesis

26、proposes, there are also lots of opposed views accompanying with its supporting views in the field of linguistics. snow clearly expressed her points of view that there was no critical period for second language learning, in that there was no biologically determined constraint on language learning ca

27、pacity that emerged at a particular age, nor any maturational process which required that older language learners functioned differently than younger language learners6. since ervin-tripp showed some of the ways in which older children learnt certain aspects of language more efficiently than younger

28、 children, a good deal of evidence was accumulated that being young was no more an advantage in language learning than in many other aspects of life. likewise, swain was surprised to find that late immersion learners had many better results than early immersion learners4. with the development of the

29、 medical science in the world, some points of the critical period hypothesis are also under criticism. some research work has challenged the precise age when lateralization takes place, resulting in doubts about the neurological basis of the critical period hypothesis. actually, seliger, krashen and

30、 ladefoged did a study in 1975, showing that puberty may be an important turning point in language learning. but this confirmation of lennebergs critical period does not imply that its basis is the development of cerebral dominance.2.2.2 studies home the cph has also attracted much attention of the

31、scholars in china. but it seems that many of them have negative opinions. gui shichun expressed his points of view: it is hard to get a definite answer of what is the best age of foreign language learning, so we cannot simply draw any conclusion whether there exists a cph; instead we should study th

32、e learning features of different age stages, and then make full use in our teaching and learning.7(p54) he declared that the mythical event was just an assumption without reasonable proof in theoretical and practical evidence in formal school context, so the idea should not be accepted as a basis fo

33、r a decision by policy-makers7, which was later approved by liuzhenqian8. shu dingfang believes that learners at any age onset could succeed in foreign language learning9. given fine language surroundings and scientific teaching methods, children who started learning a foreign language at twelve can

34、 also have their foreign language abilities and reach the level of the native-speaking students. similarly, dai weidong commented that the age onset had little effect on the acquisition procedures; learners at any age onset can learn a foreign language well. besides, the different study time would a

35、ffect the success degree of the acquisition. he also suggested the best age for the chinese students to study a foreign language should be between twelve and fifteen10. actually, recent studies revealed that those who were exposed to english at an early age did have some advantages over those at an

36、older age41112. nevertheless, su yunhua put forward that the critical period hypothesis was too absolute and it still needed further exploration13. to sum up, it is still lack of a persuasive answer to whether there is inevitable relation between the critical period and the second language acquisiti

37、on. thus, it is of necessity to further explore the issue from a new perspective-english majors with a view to supplement and enrich the research of cph in second language acquisition. that is, the relationship between english majors english level and the onset age of english learning will be invest

38、igated in details in this paper.3. the current study 3.1 research questions as the above-mentioned in this thesis, critical period hypothesis still has many approval as well as disapproval opinions. and there is a growing tendency to start english learning and teaching at a lower age in china. thus

39、the study on age factors of language learning has an important theoretical and practical significance. this research sets out to examine, by data collecting and statistics analyzing, whether english majors have significant differences between the elementary school starters and the secondary school s

40、tarters in their english level. that is to find out the answers to the following questions:(1) whether starting learning english within the critical period will influence the comprehensive english level of english majors? (2) whether starting learning english within the critical period will influenc

41、e the oral english skills of english majors?3.2 questionnaire design the questionnaire here is a self-report inquiry, including eight items (see appendix) which were designed for collecting three kinds of statistics: comprehensive english level, oral english skills and personal viewpoints. the infor

42、mation of question 1, about the age onset of english learning, is of great importance, for the feedback of when to start his/her english learning will be adopted for the classification of the two different groups of learners in the coming study, while the answers to question 2, 3 and 4 are set for j

43、udging the learners comprehensive english level, and the answers to question 5, 6 and 7 are set for evaluating the learners oral english skills; then the last question aims at collecting the subjects personal views on the critical periods influence on the english level of english-major students.3.3

44、method when conducting the questionnaire, we show our deep expectation of receiving the honest and serious answers; besides, in order for the subjects to answer conveniently and quickly, all the questions are concise multiple-choice questions, along with some blanks for complementary answers.the ans

45、wer to question 1 was thought to be most believable, since everyone would remember clearly when they started learning english. and the different scores of different groups of subjects, that is, the scores of college entrance examination and the scores of tem-band 4 were chosen by different sections

46、to ensure the truth and accuracy. so the reliability of the research can be greatly improved. 3.4 subjectsaltogether 322 english majors handed in the answered questionnaires that were all effective. originally, it was hoped that the students could be classified into four groups: kindergarten or grad

47、e one starters, grade three or grade four starters, grade five or grade six starters and secondary school starters. however, as english teaching before secondary school was not so popular ten years ago, only 7 kindergarten starters were found, hence much fewer than the original expectation (i.e. 30

48、for each group). since there are only 87 students who started learning english before puberty, also 87 subjects were randomly selected from the 235 secondary school starters in order to keep reliable of the study. besides, the research is based on the critical period hypothesis, so the data of the f

49、ormer three groups was collected into group 1 (n=87), the elementary school starters, and the data of the last group was collected into group 2 (n=87), the secondary school starters.4. results and analyses in the research, the comprehensive english level of the subjects from group 1 and group 2 was

50、evaluated by collecting the scores of college entrance examination and the scores of tem-band 4 and the number of students who participated in the national english contest for college students. similarly, their oral english skills were evaluated by the number of students who participated in the spee

51、ch contest, by the case of achieving spoken english certificates and by their own assessment of their communication skill in english. finally, the subjects were required to express their personal views on the critical periods influence on the english level of english majors. the results and analyses

52、 are to be shown in the following three sections. 4.1 comparison of comprehensive english level note: group1= elementary school starters group2= secondary school starters figure 4.1 scores of group 1 and group 2 in college entrance examination (cee)figure 4.1 illustrates that the number of students who got lower scores in cee is less in group 1 than that in group 2, while the number of students who got higher scores is larger in group 1 than that in group 2. although the numerical gaps between group 1 and group 2 are not quite obvious from figure 4.1, a conclusion ca