Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, Ruhr-University of Bochum, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: In 1967 Eric Heinz Lenneberg established his groundbreaking work "Biological Foundations of Language" in which he tries to push the biological view on language forward. One important point that is discussed is "language in the context of growth and maturation". The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) is the essence of this considerations. Lenneberg tries to find evidence for his theory in the study of retarded, aphasic or deaf children and in neurological studies. But at this time the most striking proof for the CPH, Genie, was still imprisoned in a small room in her parents home. Three years after Lenneberg published his work on the CPH, 131/2 years-old Genie was recovered by an eligibility worker and her case rapidly aroused the interest of neurologists, psychologists and linguists. Susan Curtiss, a graduate student of the UCLA Linguistic Department got the possibility to work with Genie for the years to come. Her work Genie - A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day ′Wild Child′ compiles her experiences on working with Genie added by a detailed case history. What Susan Curtiss found out about Genie′s linguistic development seems to be the evidence for the existence of a critical phase for first language acquisition. This paper gives a brief definition of Lenneberg′s Critical Period Hypothesis, summarizes the case history and the data of Genie′s linguistic development and, according to Susan Curtiss, relates Genie′s case directly to the CPH. Over and above that, it tries to explain, why Genie developed a certain amount of language and with this proved the ′strong′ version of Lenneberg′s hypothesis as wrong.

Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis is the only book on the market to provide a diverse collection of perspectives, from experienced researchers, on the role of the Critical Period Hypothesis in second language acquisition. It is widely believed that age effects in both first and second language acquisition are developmental in nature, with native levels of attainment in both to be though possible only if learning began before the closure of a "window of opportunity" – a critical or sensitive period. These seven chapters explore this idea at length, with each contribution acting as an authoritative look at various domains of inquiry in second language acquisition, including syntax, morphology, phonetics/phonology, Universal Grammar, and neurofunctional factors. By presenting readers with an evenly-balanced take on the topic with viewpoints both for and against the Critical Period Hypothesis, this book is the ideal guide to understanding this critical body of research in SLA, for students and researchers in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition.

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,5, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar), course: The Acquisition of English, language: English, abstract: Encounters with feral children have been attracting intellectual examination and curiosity since the early seventeenth century. Among others, Anthropologists, Psychologists and Linguists hoped to find answers to central questions of mankind: What makes us human beings? What distinguishes us from animals? Nature or nurture, what has greater impact on us? In linguistics these case studies are frequently cited. Especially with respect to the assumption of maturational constraints on language acquisition, scholars tried to draw conclusions from the success or failure feral children exhibited after discovery. Respectively, they were interpreted as evidence or counter-evidence for the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) which postulates that language can only be acquired normally up to a certain age. This term paper is organised as follows. In Section 2 a general de-scription of critical periods is given before turning to Lenneberg’s hypothesis. Section 3 focuses on two cases that are often taken as evidence for the CPH, namely Victor and Genie. Both didn’t master language acquisition to a satisfactory level. Section 4, on the other hand, deals with three children who are expounded as counter-evidence for the CPH because they caught up quickly on language learning close to age seven. In both sections, after a short description of the individual experiences prior to dis-covery, a detailed account of linguistic achievements and shortcomings is presented. Section 5 will discuss the outcomes and put them into a broader scientific context by adding results of further research. Section 6 offers a preliminary conclusion, namely that cases of feral children should be included as indirect evidence but that this needs to be done carefully.

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,5, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar), course: The Acquisition of English, language: English, abstract: Encounters with feral children have been attracting intellectual examination and curiosity since the early seventeenth century. Among others, Anthropologists, Psychologists and Linguists hoped to find answers to central questions of mankind: What makes us human beings? What distinguishes us from animals? Nature or nurture, what has greater impact on us? In linguistics these case studies are frequently cited. Especially with respect to the assumption of maturational constraints on language acquisition, scholars tried to draw conclusions from the success or failure feral children exhibited after discovery. Respectively, they were interpreted as evidence or counter-evidence for the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) which postulates that language can only be acquired normally up to a certain age. This term paper is organised as follows. In Section 2 a general de-scription of critical periods is given before turning to Lenneberg's hypothesis. Section 3 focuses on two cases that are often taken as evidence for the CPH, namely Victor and Genie. Both didn't master language acquisition to a satisfactory level. Section 4, on the other hand, deals with three children who are expounded as counter-evidence for the CPH because they caught up quickly on language learning close to age seven. In both sections, after a short description of the individual experiences prior to dis-covery, a detailed account of linguistic achievements and shortcomings is presented. Section 5 will discuss the outcomes and put them into a broader scientific context by adding results of further research. Section 6 offers a preliminary conclusion, namely that cases of feral children should be included as indirect evidence but that this needs to be done carefully.

Savage Girls and Wild Boys is a fascinating history of extraordinary children---brought up by animals, raised in the wilderness, or locked up for long years in solitary confinement. Wild or feral children have fascinated us through the centuries, and continue to do so today. In a haunting and hugely readable study, Michael Newton deftly investigates a number of infamous cases. He looks at Peter the Wild Boy, who gripped the attention of Swift and Defoe, and at Victor of Aveyron, who roamed wild in the forests of revolutionary France. He tells the story of a savage girl lost on the streets of Paris, of two children brought up by wolves in the jungles of India, and of a Los Angeles girl who emerged from thirteen years locked in a room to international celebrity. He describes, too, a boy brought up among monkeys in Uganda; and in Moscow, the child found living with a pack of wild dogs. Savage Girls and Wild Boys examines the lives of these children and of the adults who "rescued" them, looked after them, educated, or abused them. How can we explain the mixture of disgust and envy that such children can provoke? And what can they teach us about our notions of education, civilization, and man's true nature?

Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day “Wild Child reports on the linguistic research carried out through studying and working with Genie, a deprived and isolated, to an unprecedented degree, girl who was not discovered until she was an adolescent. An inhuman childhood had prevented Genie from learning language, and she knew little about the world in any respect save abuse, neglect, isolation, and deprivation. This book is organized into three parts encompassing 11 chapters. Part I provides a case history and background material on Genie's personality and language behavior. This part describes the interaction between the authors and this remarkable girl. Part II details Genie's linguistic development and overall language abilities, specifically her phonological development, as well as receptive knowledge and productive grammatical abilities of syntax, morphology, and semantics. This part also provides a comparison between her linguistic development and the language acquisition of other children. Part III presents a full description of the neurolinguistic work carried out on Genie and discusses the implications of this aspect of the case. This book will prove useful to neurolinguistics and pyscholinguistics.

As Genie began her life over with the rudiments - how to walk, how to chew, how to talk - her experience gave eloquent answer to those questions, and to a deeper mystery: what it means to be human.