Symposium: Critical Period for Language

Multiple Perspectives on the Critical Period for Language will be hosted by The Ohio State University Department of Linguistics.

June 5-6, 2009
10 Page Hall
The Ohio State University

The traditional view of the critical period for language - going back to Lenneberg - is that it is part of a biological process: the decline in language ability reflects a maturational change in brain development. This view makes two strong predictions, namely, that children will be better at acquiring language than adults and that short of some kind of brain disorder, there's no way to change that fact.

We wish to address two related issues in this event: First, to what extent do language acquisition abilities decline in adulthood? Second, to the extent that adults are worse than children in acquiring language, what is the mechanism that causes this decline? We plan to consider these
questions from many different perspectives that include different dimensions of language (Phonology, Syntax), different empirical approaches (Linguistics, Psychology, Neuroscience), and different empirical domains (L1 acquisition, L2 acquisition, Computational Linguistics). The goal of the symposium is to bring together scholars with a range of views and thereby foster debate and discussion.

Featuring invited talks by:
JAMES FLEGE, University of Alabama, Birmingham
SILVINA MONTRUL, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
ANN SENGHAS, Barnard College
JASON ZEVIN, Sackler Institute

Registration is FREE! Please pre-register by sending an e-mail containing your name and affiliation to springsym@ling.osu.edu

For more information, please visit:
www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~springsym/

The Symposium is made possible through the generous support of the Targeted Investment in Excellence in the College of Humanities, The Ohio State University.