A Psycholinguistic Note on the Critical Period Hypothesis in Second Language Acquisition

The goal of this note is to offer a brief, critical assessment of the critical period hypothesis for second language acquisition. Four key elements as put forward by Hakuta (2003) are discussed: (1) clearly defined beginning and end points of the period, (2) an abrupt discontinuity at the end (3) the shutting down of the specific language learning mechanism at the end, and (4) the robustness to environmental variation within the period. It is argued that the debate over this issue reflects the fact that the existence of a critical period may be taken as an argument in favor of the modular organization of the mind.