Sible Andringa
THE USE OF NATIVE SPEAKER NORMS IN CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS RESEARCH
University of Amsterdam
critical period hypothesis cph research native speaker ns norm groups often used determine whether nonnative speakers nnss able score within ns range scores one goal article investigate ns samples used previous cph research literature review shows ns control groups tend small highly educated detailed background information usually provided another goal article investigate ns norm group may affect incidence nativelike performance nnss end 124 nss 118 nnss dutch completed five comprehension tasks vocabulary task basis mean scores standard deviations norms determined representative nonrepresentative highly educated subsample nss also separate norms constructed high lowfrequency items within task exact mcnemar tests used establish incidence nativelike performance nnss significantly higher representative sample norm used results also showed insofar effects frequency norms based lowfrequency test items tended inclusive results imply selection nss cph research deserves consideration received past also suggest ns ceiling performance potentially useful determining nativelike performance