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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 April 2008
AGE IN L2 ACQUISITION AND TEACHING.Christián Abello-Contesse, Rubén Chacón-Beltrán, M. Dolores López-Jiménez, and M. Mar Torreblanca-López (Eds.). Bern: Peter Lang, 2006. Pp. 220. $45.95 paper.
This volume deals with issues related to the effects of age in foreign language learning, immersion programs, and situations in which parents are trying to raise their children as bilinguals. The critical period hypothesis (CPH) receives a great deal of attention throughout the volume, and some attention is also given to more general effects of maturation that might occur independently of any critical period. A recurring thread throughout the work is the authors' reaction to the popular belief that children are superior to adults in their ability to acquire languages. Many of the chapters that address this claim point to research that shows that children's advantage is restricted to their ultimate levels of attainment in the target language, whereas adults quite often outperform children at particular stages of acquisition. Several of the authors also refer to empirical research that shows little or no advantage to having children begin their foreign language studies prior to adolescence.