Systematic Review
Neurological and Cognitive Factors Shaping Second Language Acquisition: A Systematic Review
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The process of second language acquisition (SLA) is subject to various neurological and cognitive factors, including the age of the learner, brain plasticity, memory, and executive function. The flexibility of the neural networks that characterizes young learners allows them to acquire a native-like fluency, while adult learners attain a reasonable level of L2 proficiency if particular cognitive strategies are deployed. The current review scrutinizes adults’ SLA from the perspective of psycholinguistics, bilingualism, and cognitive neuroscience. A qualitative investigation was carried out to reveal SLA related themes discussed by academic articles in PubMed, WoS, and Scopus between 2001 and 2024. The study incorporated aspects such as the learner’s memory function, adaptation to phonology, age, stimulus, intelligence, cognitive processing, and L2 anxiety. This review demonstrates that the differences in neural stimulation and bilingual brain processes influence SLA. The evidence illustrates that young learners are more naturally and cognitively equipped to acquire the L2 effectively, but Adult learners can enhance their acquisition of L2 by adopting certain cognitive strategies. Understanding the cognitive and neural factors that influence SLA aids in improving proficiency. The conclusions are meant to positively impact multilingual education, shaping the teaching process, policy making, and SLA academic research.
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Keywords
Cognitive Neuroscience; Psycholinguistics; Bilingualism; Multilingualism; Second Language Acquisition
Author(s) Information
Publisher’s Note
The claims, arguments, and counter-arguments made in this article are exclusively those of the contributing authors. Hence, they do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the authors’ affiliated institutions, or EUROKD as the publisher, the editors and the reviewers of the article.
Acknowledgements
Not applicable.
Funding
This study has received no funding.
CRediT Authorship Contribution Statement
Rania Mjahad: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing - Original Draft, Funding Acquisition
Ahmed Boukranaa: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project Administration, Funding Acquisition
Generative AI Use Disclosure Statement
Generative AI was not used at any stage of the preparation of the manuscript.
Ethics Declarations
World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki–Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Participants
This study adhered to the ethical principles of the World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki. As a systematic review based on previously published studies and publicly available data, it did not involve human participants. Ethical approval and informed consent were therefore not required.
Competing Interests
The authors of this study acknowledge that they have no conflict of interest to declare.
Data Availability
All data associated with this study are included in the manuscript.