文档介绍：1 Introduction
The world is developing at an astonishing speed and the communication especially the cross-cultural cogeneral description of CPH and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) that will be referred to through this thesis. By utilizing the physiology, sociology, cognitive psychology and some convictive experiments, the central part of this thesis gives a whole view of children’s superiorities and offers the corresponding suggestions in learning a second language. Finally, the thesis draws the conclusion that children are good learners in learning a second language. Based on the superiorities of children in learning languages, proper and correct methods should be adopted to make foreign language learning of children more effective and scientific
2 The Critical Period Hypothesis and Second Language Acquisition
The foreign language learning of young children is often based on the Critical Period Hypothesis. This part tells about theoretical background of the Critical Period Hypothesis, outlines the theoretical framework of CPH and classifies the definition of some key items related to the theory of CPH.
The General Description of Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH)
As an interdisciplinary concept, the CPH, originates from the biology. Lorenz discovered that the ducklings of goslings think of any mobile objects as their mothers during the space of 8-9 hours since they are given birth to. But such phenomenon, imprinting, will die away after 30 hours.
In 1950s, Penfield, a neurolinguistist, according to the study of aphasia of children, put forward that the children’s ability in learning language is closely related to the growth of brain. In 1960s, Lenneberg, a psycholinguistist, further developed that viewpoint and firstly formally advanced the famous CPH in his book The Biological Foundation of Language. According to Lenneberg,
the biologist, the critical period lasts until puberty (around age 12 or 13 years). That leads to a heated discussion