News

Prof. Brian MacWhinney from Carnegie Mellon University was invited to give a speech about the limits of age differences on language learning. Brian MacWhinney is a Professor of Psychology and Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University, who is specializes in first and second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and the neurological bases of language. The speech was held on March 22nd under the initiation of Aim for the Top University office. The topic is “Biological(?) Limits on Success in Second Language Learning”, discussing the difference in language of people from different age groups. 

Prof. MacWhinney first talked about the limit of language learning for people in different age groups and compared the pros and cons between adults and children learning a foreign language. He also brought up the Critical Period Hypothesis by linguists Noam Chomsky. The audience raised questions and discussed about the topic. 

One student said that “Prof. MacWhinney is very humorous and he talked a lot about the Critical Period Hypothesis today, which is different from Chomsky’s view. I learned a lot from his speech.”