Ill-defined constructs in SLA research using event-related potentials

Abstract

An emerging trend in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research is that proficiency is more important than the age of acquisition (AoA) to account for L2 ultimate attainment. An increasing number of researchers play down the role – or in some cases even deny the very existence – of a critical period (or ‘window of sensitivity’) and state that learners’ proficiency – and its various determinants – may trump age. There is a serious methodological issue with such a stance though. While AoA is easily factorised consistently across most experimental studies, participants’ proficiency is not. Authors of Event-Related Potentials (ERP) studies in particular are extremely vague and discordant as to how they rate participants’ proficiency. This makes the construct ‘proficiency’ unreliable, the results of ERP studies hard to compare, and the claims based on the primacy of proficiency in respect to AoA much weaker. This paper suggests more caution in general and in particular the need for collaboration between neurolinguists and SLA experts in the field of foreign language teaching and testing.