Age Effect on the L2 Interpretation of English Multiple Wh-questions

The current study examined whether and how Korean-native L2 English speakers’ interpretation of English multiple wh-questions varies according to the L2 speakers’ different ages of initial exposure. A special focus was given to the investigation of the relationship between L2 speakers’ age of immigration and their accessibility to the syntactic principle Attract Closest. Thirty-four Korean L1 immigrants and students with different ages of immigration, along with 11 native-English speakers, participated in an experimental study designed to find out the subjects’ interpretation of a moved wh-word in English bi-clausal multiple wh-questions. The results of the study found no evidence of age effect for the L2 speakers’ accessibility to the Attract Closest principle. Instead, an age effect was found for the L2 speakers’ ability to identify the ambiguity in the interpretation of a certain type of multiple wh-questions: For this type of questions, those who immigrated in their early childhood hold a reliably higher ability to identify the ambiguity than those who immigrated in their late childhood, who, in turn, generally hold a better ability than those who immigrated later. A possible cause of these results was discussed.