The Likelihood of a Critical/Sensitive Period for the Acquisition of Subjacency with Korean and Chinese L2A’ers of English

Abstract

This paper looks at the plausibility of the existence of a critical or sensitive period for the acquisition of Subjacency for adult Korean and Chinese L2A’ers of English. By comparing several studies on WH-island violations and Relative Clause violations, general scores were calculated. It was found that non-native speakers of English overall performance was somewhere between chance and native-like; this meant that the existence of a critical period is unlikely, because adult L2A’ers showed at least some understanding of Subjacency. If there was a critical period for the acquisition of Subjacency, they could not have performed so well.