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Whether a critical period exists for acquiring language is a matter of controversial issue. Korean‐English bilingual subjects with variable age of arrival (AOA) constitute an ideal model to investigate this issue. Self‐paced reading task was used to examine the effects of AOA on ambiguous relative clause processing (in Korean) for Korean -English bilinguals who arrived at English spoken environment at different ages. Bilinguals were divided into two different groups: one is early bilingual group and the other is late bilingual group. The AOA effect was less clear‐cut in processing RCs in Korean between early and late bilinguals. When bilinguals were compared with Korean monolinguals, however, the accuracy and the pattern in resolving ambiguity toward HA was noticeably different from Korean monolingual speakers. When reading in Korean, bilinguals were significantly less efficient than Korean monolinguals. In addition, the NP1 attachment preference (Korean parsing routine) was less favored and NP2 attachment preference (English parsing routine) was more preferred than Korean monolinguals.
