Bilingualism – an Exclusive Benefits Package for Children?

Abstract

The present paper debates whether bilingualism in an exclusive advantage that children have when it comes to learning languages. After a theoretical overview of bilingualism, we discuss how age impacts language acquisition through the perspective of the critical period hypothesis. Adults and children are inherently different when it comes to acquisition and control of foreign languages. While adults have access to metacognitive resources, it is debatable whether these constitute an advantage in terms of language acquisition.

Keywords

• bilingualism
• adults
• children
• language acquisition
• metacognition