Second Language Acquisition and Second ... - Stephen Krashen

Notes
1 This schema leaves two unresolved problems. First, Molfese (1976) reports no change in degree of
AER asymmetry with age for his infant subjects. This may not conflict with the hypothesis that
lateralization develops with age; measured laterality in the infant brain may relate quite differently
to "true" underlying laterality (see Krashen, 1975c, for detailed discussion). Another possible
problem is Lenneberg's observation that recovery from aphasia is better for those injured before
puberty, a finding that seems to imply right hemisphere participation in the language function until
that age. Here there are two possibilities: first, recovery need not involve the right hemisphere but
may be due to undamaged tissue on the left side assuming the language function (see, for example,
Roberts, 1958). Second, if it is indeed the right hemisphere that is responsible for this superiority in
recovery, perhaps those late-lateralized aspects of language posited in the text play some role.
2 A very recent study conducted by my associates Linda Galloway and Robin Scarcella, unpublished
at the time of this writing, suggests that early second language acquisition may be just as left
hemisphere lateralized as first language. Galloway and Scarcella administered dichotic stimuli
(words in English and Spanish) to "informal" beginning adult acquirers of English as a second
language. These performers were "picking up" English without the benefit of formal instruction and,
presumably, without using conscious learning. Galloway and Scarcella found no significant
difference in ear advantage for the first language (Spanish) and the second language (English), with
both English and Spanish stimuli yielding a right-ear advantage.
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