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1、..SecondLanguageAcquisitionandtheCriticalPeriodHypothesisEditedbyDavidBirdsongUniversityofTexasLAWRENCEERLBAUMASSOCIATES,PUBLISHERS1999Mahwah,NewJerseyLondonICHAPTERSEVENConfoundedAge:LinguisticandCognitiveFactorsinAgeDifferencesforSecondLanguageAcquisition
2、EllenBialystokYorkUniversityKenjiHakutaStanfordUniversityTHENATUREOFTHEPROBLEMInspiteofwhatwealllearnedinourfirststatisticscourse,wejustcannotresistattributingcausalitytocorrelation.Wehavetoremindourselveseverytimeweseetwoeventscontiguouslylinkedintimeandsp
3、acethatthemostnaturalexplanationfortheirco-occurrence,namely,thatonecausestheother,mightsimplybefalse.Theassumptionofcausalityisoneofthebasictenetsofcommonsenselogic:Springrainsleadtoflowers,knockingoverthejuicecontainerresultsinspilledliquid,andclickingthe
4、powerbuttononasmallhandheldinstrumentcausespicturestoappearonthetelevisionscreen.Weallknow,too,thatitiscounterexamplesthatcompelcautioninassumingtheinterpretationofcausality:Superstitionnotwithstand.ing,carryingornotcarryinganumbrellahasnocausalconsequencef
5、orlocalmeteorologicalconditions.Howarewetodiscoverthecorrectlogicalrelationbetweentwoeventsthatsharepatternsofoccurrence?Thesimplestexplanation,thatoneeventcausestheother,isoftentakenattheexpenseofdetailsthatdonotfiteasilyintotheinterpretationbutareoverlook
6、ed,setaside,ordiscounted.Indeed,itwasthefinalefforttodealwiththeinconsistencies'inthePtolemeicdescriptionofplanetarymotionthatledtotheoverthrowofthatexplanation,butittook14centuriesand1617.FACTORSINAGEDIFFERENCES163outoftheequationandthenstudyingtherelation
7、betweentheseenduredaslongasitdidwasthatprimafacieitseemedtobecorrect.linguisticandcognitivefactorsintheabsenceofage.IfourexplanationToanobserver,itdoesindeedappearasthoughtheearthisthecenteriscorrect,thenthepartialcorrelationsbetweenlinguisticandcognitiveof
8、theplanetarysystem.Discoveringthecorrectlogicalmodelrequiressourcesofvarianceandproficiencyshouldremainsignificantwhenageisnotincludedintheequation.Alternatively,ifitcouldbeshownthatlinguisticorcogniti
