Paper Summary:

This paper examines how in his fundamental work, "Biological Foundations of Language", the biolinguist Eric Lenneberg presents his critical period hypothesis on the idea that a certain age is appropriate for learning a language, so that it is impossible to achieve full competence before or after it. It attempts to demonstrate through the author's own survey how some teenagers are able to learn a foreign language and to talk accent-free, contrary to Lenneberg's hypothesis.
Outline
Introduction to the Critical Period Theory
When Does the Critical Period Start and Finish?
Russian Accent in Immigrants to Germany
Reference to Lenneberg
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Lenneberg subdivides the ongoing process of lateralization into five levels: an infant up to 20 months has identical hemispheres without functional differences; a toddler up to 36 months develops a preference for either the right or the left hand, but the responsibility for language still can easily switch an other hemisphere; a child up to 10 years is still able to reactivate language functions in the right hemisphere; in the early puberty - up to 14 years - the equipotentiality rapidly declines, and after that it is lost completely. Lenneberg talks about a "reactivation", not "creation" of the language function in the right hemisphere."

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