Age effects on self-perceived communicative competence and language choice among adult multilinguals

Abstract

The present study focuses on the effects of age of acquisition (AoA) on dependent variables that have been traditionally overlooked in research on age effects: (1) self-perceived communicative competence in speaking, comprehending, reading and writing; (2) language choice for emotional speech in different situations; and (3) language choice for mental calculation and inner speech. We consider the effect of AoA on a large variety of L2s, L3s and L4s of 1,579 adult bi- and multilinguals. Data were collected through an on-line questionnaire (Dewaele and Pavlenko 2001–2003). Statistical analyses revealed very strong AoA effects on most of the dependent variables in the L2 and L3 of participants. However, these AoA effects were generally non-significant in their L4. The findings are discussed in relation to the current understanding of the research on age effects in Second Language Acquisition.