Three perspectives on non-uniform linguistic attainment

Abstract

D^hrowska's target article comes at a time when the study of individual diflerences is a more prominent thing than ever in both native and non-native language studies. For example, the cover of the most recent research report of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics proclaims: differences are a hallmark of our language faculty, and an upcoming issue of Language Learning is devoted to individual differences in second language learning. The variable of literacy, which D^browska considers a key element of a range of language-experiential influences on grammar development and language processing, is receiving renewed attention. For example, Huettig, Singh and Mishra (2011) find that high-literate Indian participants are faster than low-literates in directing their gaze to images of objects referenced in spoken sentences. Highliterates may be better able than low-literates to use grammatical and semantic information from sentence context to predict upcoming words. The skills that might underlie language development — and individual differences in the trainability of such skills — are actively investigated these days as well. Chandrasekaran et al. (2010), looking at the L2 acquisition of Mandarin pitch tone, found that individuals who were successful in the task attended to the direction of pitch contour change, and were also more trainable in pitch direction detection than less successful participants. Individual differences in the acquisition of L2 linguistic tones appear to be related to superior neural representation of pitch patterns in the inferior colliculus (Chandrasekaran et al., 2011). ^ Of course, inter-individual variability in language skills, academic achievement, intelligence, trainability, and literacy has not been ignored over the years. With respect to the literacy factor, for example, Fletcher (1981) showed in a picture