First Language Attrition

My purpose in this paper is to examine the psychological nature of forgetting (parts of) a language by individuals involved in language change across the lifespan. The objectives of the article are (1) to summarize psychological theories and hypotheses about forgetting and memory failure, and (2) to evaluate their relevance for the explanation of individual language attrition. By reviewing linguistically and psycholinguistically oriented language attrition studies that appear to implicate mechanisms of forgetting, I seek to contribute to the interdisciplinary study and discussion of language attrition phenomena.

Despite abundant evidence of malleability in speech production, previous studies of the effects of late second-language learning on first-language speech production have been limited to advanced learners. This study examined these effects in novice learners, adult native English speakers enrolled in elementary Korean classes. In two acoustic studies, learners' production of English was found to be influenced by even brief experience with Korean. The effect was consistently one of assimilation to phonetic properties of Korean; moreover, it occurred at segmental, subsegmental, and global levels, often simultaneously. Taken together, the results suggest that cross-language linkages are established from the onset of second-language learning at multiple levels of phonological structure, allowing for pervasive influence of second-language experience on first-language representations. The findings are discussed with respect to current notions of cross-linguistic similarity, language development, and historical sound change.

The primary aim of this study was to determine whether native speakers of German living in either Canada or the Netherlands are perceived to have a foreign accent in their native German speech. German monolingual listeners (n = 19) assessed global foreign accent of 34 L1 German speakers in Anglophone Canada, 23 L1 German speakers in the Dutch Netherlands, and five German monolingual controls in Germany. The experimental subjects had moved to either Canada or the Netherlands at an average age of 27 years and had resided in their country of choice for an average of 37 years. The results revealed that the German listeners were more likely to perceive a global foreign accent in the German speech of the consecutive bilinguals in Anglophone Canada and the Dutch Netherlands than in the speech of the control group and that nine immigrants to Canada and five immigrants to the Netherlands were clearly perceived to be non-native speakers of German. Further analysis revealed that quality and quantity of contact with the native German language had a more significant effect on predicting global foreign accent in native speech than age of arrival or length of residence. Two types of contact were differentiated: (i) C−M represented communicative settings in which little code-mixing between the L1 and L2 was expected to occur, and (ii) C+M represented communicative settings in which code-mixing was expected to be more likely. The variable C−M had a significant impact on predicting foreign accent in native speech, whereas the variable C+M did not. The results suggest that contact with the L1 through communicative settings in which code-mixing is inhibited is especially conducive to maintaining the stability of native language pronunciation in consecutive bilinguals living in a migrant context.

Previous findings on adult second-language (L2) learners showed systematic phonetic changes in their production of the native language (L1) starting in the first weeks of L2 learning [Chang, C. B. (2012). Rapid and multifaceted effects of second-language learning on first-language speech production. Journal of Phonetics, 40, 249–268]. This "phonetic drift" of L1 production in novice L2 learners was consistent with reports of phonetic drift in advanced L2 learners; however, the fact that novice learners showed relatively pronounced drift was unexpected. To explore the hypothesis that this pattern is due to a novelty effect boosting the encoding and retrieval of elementary L2 experience, the current study compared the inexperienced learners analyzed previously (learners with no prior knowledge of the L2) to experienced learners enrolled in the same language program. In accordance with the hypothesis, experienced learners manifested less phonetic drift in their production of L1 stops and vowels than inexperienced learners, suggesting that progressive familiarization with an L2 leads to reduced phonetic drift at later stages of L2 experience. These findings contradict the assumption that L2 influence on the L1 is weakest at early stages of L2 learning and argue in favor of viewing the L1 and L2 both as dynamic systems undergoing continuous change.

... Furthermore, the factors that appear to play a role in their case marking behavior and, more ... Van de Berg, Buursen & Claassen 1985) on the loss of a second language in children ... In particular,idiomatic expressions (" it's kinda hot") and social fillers (" let me see,"" for that matter ...

Aims and objectives: This study investigates the extent to which young heritage speakers' oral narratives in their first language (L1) differ from monolinguals' narratives with regard to lexical richness (lexical diversity and lexical sophistication). It also explores which demographic factors (age, age at emigration and length of emigration) and/or socio-linguistic factors (frequency of heritage language use and parental attitudes toward heritage language maintenance) account for the differences. Data and analysis: The participants were a group of 25 young speakers of Persian as a heritage language, who were either born in or emigrated to New Zealand, and a group of 25 monolingual counterparts in Iran. Demographic information about the heritage speakers as well as information about parental attitude and practices regarding heritage language acquisition and maintenance were collected through semi-structured interviews with their parents. A film-retelling task was used to elicit the oral narratives, and these were analyzed for lexical diversity (by means of the Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity) and for lexical sophistication (by counting the incidence of low-frequency words). Findings and conclusion: As expected, the monolinguals' narratives tended to manifest greater lexical richness than the heritage speakers', especially according to the measure of lexical sophistication. Against expectation, frequency of heritage language use and parental attitude toward heritage language acquisition and maintenance were not found to be significant predictors of the young heritage speakers' results. For the heritage speakers who were born in New Zealand, the results were predicted best by their age, while for those who arrived in New Zealand at a later age, the best predictors were both their age and how old they were at the time of emigration. This suggests that the demographic factors overrode the potential influence of the socio-linguistic variables examined. Originality: This study sheds light on (factors that contribute to) young heritage speakers' L1 lexical competence, a topic that has hitherto been under-investigated. Significance and implications: A major implication of this study is showing the association of age and heritage speakers' lexical richness. Although the statistical analyses did not show the effect of socio-linguistic variables, this finding indirectly supports the effect of parental input on heritage language proficiency in young bilinguals. Limitations: Limitations of the study include the relatively small number of participants, the use of only one task to elicit speech samples and the reliance on parents' self-reported family language habits.

This study investigates whether young heritage speakers, either simultaneous or sequential bilinguals, have limited vocabulary knowledge in their family language compared to matched monolingual counterparts and, if so, what factors help to account for this difference. These factors include age, age at emigration, length of emigration, frequency of heritage language use, and parents' attitude toward heritage language acquisition and maintenance. Thirty young Persian-English bilinguals (aged 6-18) living in New Zealand took a productive and a receptive vocabulary test. These tests were also administered to thirty monolingual speakers of Persian who were matched with the bilinguals for age, gender, number of siblings, and their family's socioeconomic status. Information about the heritage speakers' language use and their parents' attitude toward heritage language maintenance was collected through semistructured interviews. The results showed that the heritage speakers were outperformed by the monolinguals in both vocabulary tests, but the gap was wider in the case of the simultaneous bilinguals. Of the factors investigated, the parents' attitude was found to be the strongest predictor of the simultaneous bilinguals' vocabulary knowledge, which highlights the role parents can play in the heritage language development of their children if they are exposed to a majority language early on in life. On the other hand, the sequential bilinguals' vocabulary knowledge was associated mostly with age at emigration-the older the children were when they moved to the second language environment, the better their family language vocabulary tended to be.

How stable or how permeable to attrition are a multilingual’s first and second languages during life periods characterized by dynamic changes in language-use frequencies? This longitudinal study sheds some light on this issue by investigating changing patterns in a multilingual speaker’s tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states. Over a period of 10 years, the multilingual recorded more than 100 TOT states, together with 400 non-target word associations, as they occurred with words from the speaker’s five languages (L1 German, L2 Russian, L3 English, L4 Spanish, and L5 Portuguese). During the period, the L1 was consistently used less than the L3 and L4, providing a setting in which L1 attrition might occur. Data were analyzed with respect to the changing frequencies of TOT state occurrence in the different languages, the contribution of each language to the word associations generated during word search, the typological relatedness of targets and associates, and the linguistic context of initial learning of each language. Rates of TOT states and percentages of cross-language word associations and within-language word associations fluctuated in response to dynamic patterns of language use and maintenance, demonstrating the value of data on word-retrieval failure for studies of language attrition. The data reveal that the speaker’s L1 appeared to gain stability after an early period suggestive of attrition, despite low frequency of use overall. This finding supports the view that the L1 is exceptional, highly resistant to attrition, but also suggests that temporary impairment of L1 can occur when a multilingual speaker’s overall set of interacting language systems comes out of balance.

The following retrospective overview looks back twenty years to the first series of reports from the field on a study of bilingualism and literacy learning. Continuing research in the same community during this period allows today for a reassessment of the claims, proposals and overall approach of the project. The particular language contact situation, that of indigenous language (IL)-national language (NL) bilingualism, adds an important dimension to the discussion, one that has attracted much attention in recent years: the problem of language erosion/language shift in the context of widespread mastery of, and expanding literacy in, the national language. This condition of language replacement still requires further study for the purpose of gaining clarity on important theoretical questions as well as pressing practical applications related to the development of language abilities among the new generation of school-age bilinguals.

Studies of proficient second-language (L2) learners have often noted phonetic drift of their native language (L1) vis-à-vis monolingual norms. Such drift has been attributed to perceptual linkage between similar sounds in L1 and L2. This study provides evidence that L1 phonetic drift is limited neither to advanced L2 learners, nor to cross-language influence at a segmental level. During the first weeks of an elementary Korean class, adult native English speakers were found to shift their English vowel space in approximation to the Korean vowel space, suggesting that in adult L2 learners phonetic drift of L1 vowels occurs in a rapid, systemic, and assimilatory fashion.

O presente trabalho visa a investigar, a partir de uma concepção de Língua como Sistema Adaptativo Complexo, a multidirecionalidade da transferência vocálica em falantes de espanhol (L1), inglês (L2) e português (L3). Conduziu-se um estudo transversal que contou com cinco grupos. O primeiro foi formado por 5 falantes de espanhol (L1), inglês (L2) e português (L3); o segundo, por 5 falantes de espanhol (L1) e português (L2), o que possibilitou a verificação do papel do inglês no desenvolvimento do português por falantes de espanhol, quando as vogais do português (L2) desses aprendizes foram comparadas com as dos aprendizes do grupo anterior, que possuem, além do português, o inglês. O terceiro grupo foi composto por 5 falantes de espanhol (L1) e inglês (L2), residentes na Argentina. A comparação das vogais do inglês (L2) dos participantes desse grupo, que não possuem o português (L3), com as vogais em inglês (L2) dos participantes do grupo 1, que possuem o português (L3), possibilitou a análise quanto ao papel da L3 sobre a L2, em termos de valores formânticos e duração. Os quarto e quinto grupos serviram como grupos-controle, constituídos por 5 falantes monolíngues de espanhol, residentes na Argentina, e por 5 monolíngues brasileiros, residentes em Porto Alegre, de modo a proverem os valores formânticos e de durações referentes às vogais do sistema-materno e do sistema-alvo, respectivamente. Os resultados aqui encontrados, em consonância com a Teoria dos Sistemas Adaptativos Complexos, indicam que a fala dos participantes parece sofrer múltiplas alterações devido à interação dos diversos sistemas linguísticos. Além disso, as realizações vocálicas encontradas pelos participantes multilíngues neste experimento não parecem mais refletir fielmente a L1 dos sujeitos monolíngues, e tampouco se mostram idênticas às formas da língua-alvo, uma vez que se caracterizam como formas híbridas, que mesclam características de todos os sistemas envolvidos e também de outros fatores (linguísticos e “extra-linguísticos”) envolvidos. Os dados apresentados, portanto, confirmam a complexidade do processo de desenvolvimento multilinguístico.

In this article, aiming to investigate the effects of language attrition among Brazilian learners (from the city of Porto Alegre) of Spanish (L2), we analyze the production of the word-final unstressed vowel /e/ in both their L1 and L2 systems. We verify their acoustic patterns (F1 and F2, as well as absolute and relative durations) in comparison to the vowels produced by Brazilian Portuguese monolinguals (from the city of Porto Alegre-Brazil) and Spanish monolinguals (from the city of Montevideo – Uruguay). We hypothesized (i) significant differences in F1, F2 and (absolute and relative) durational values between the two languages of the bilingual participants (L1: Portuguese, L2: Spanish); (ii) no significant differences in the productions of Spanish word-final unstressed /e/ by the L2 learners and the native speakers; (iii) significant differences, in terms of formant frequencies (F1 and F2 values) and duration (absolute and relative values), in the productions in Brazilian Portuguese by monolinguals and L2 leaners of Spanish. The data were collected in a sentence reading task. Our results show that the L2 leaners are able to produce a difference between Brazilian Portuguese (L1) /e/ and Spanish (L2) /e/, even though the target L2 pattern has not been fully developed. As for the L1 productions , significant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals have not been found. However, when analyzed individually, some learners show some signs of language attrition in their F1 and F2 values.

Despite abundant evidence of malleability in speech production, previous studies of the effects of late second-language learning on first-language production have been limited to advanced learners. This dissertation examines these effects in novice learners, finding that experience in a second language rapidly, and possibly inexorably, affects production of the native language. In a longitudinal study of Korean acquisition, native English-speaking adult learners (n = 19) produced the same English words at weekly intervals over the course of intensive elementary Korean classes. Results of two acoustic case studies indicate that experience with Korean rapidly influences the production of English, and that the effect is one of assimilation to phonetic properties of Korean. In case study 1, experience with Korean stop types is found to influence the production of English stop types (in terms of voice onset time and/or fundamental frequency onset) as early as the second week of Korean classes, resulting in the lengthening of VOT in English voiceless stops (in approximation to the longer VOT of the perceptually similar Korean aspirated stops) and the raising of F0 onset following English voiced and voiceless stops (in approximation to the higher F0 levels of Korean). Similarly, in case study 2, experience with the Korean vowel space is found to have a significant effect on production of the English vowel space, resulting in a general raising of females' English vowels in approximation to the overall higher Korean vowel space. These rapid effects of second-language experience on first-language production suggest that cross-language linkages are established from the onset of second-language learning, that they occur at multiple levels, and that they are based not on orthographic equivalence, but on phonetic and/or phonological proximity between languages. The findings are discussed with respect to current notions of cross-linguistic similarity, exemplar models of phonology, and language teaching and research practices.

1. INTRODUCCIÓN En las últimas décadas el fenómeno de la erosión lingüística experimentada por inmigrantes en su lengua materna (L1) viene despertando un creciente interés académico debido al aumento de los movimientos migratorios en el mundo entero. Junto con el aprendizaje de la lengua del país de acogida, la lengua madre de los inmigrantes sufre cambios inevitables, algunos de los cuales serían indicadores de un desgaste lingüístico. Cuando los inmigrantes son también profesores que enseñan su lengua materna, esta cuestión tiene repercusiones no solo personales sino también sociales, que pueden afectar su desempeño profesional. En el caso particular que nos ocupa, el carácter binacional, migratorio y plurilingüe de Israel, junto con la carga histórica e ideológica del hebreo, hacen que esta sociedad sea un entorno ideal para estudiar la erosión lingüística entre los inmigrantes, sobre todo si se trata de profesores de lengua. Por lo tanto, el propósito de este artículo es presentar algunos resultados de una investigación mayor que se llevó a cabo entre profesionales del español (docentes de ELE, periodistas y traductores) oriundos de Argentina, que emigraron a Israel a partir de 1980. Se comparará a estos profesionales con inmigrantes argentinos de ocupaciones varias, con el fin de observar si el hecho de ser la L1 su principal herramienta de trabajo vuelve a los primeros menos vulnerables a la erosión lingüística que a los segundos. El presente trabajo está estructurado de la siguiente manera: primero, se caracterizará el proceso de erosión lingüística, señalando sus principales factores. Luego, se describirá a la comunidad hispanohablante en Israel y el lugar de la lengua española en la sociedad en general. A continuación se presentarán los resultados obtenidos de una investigación que apuntaba a medir el grado de erosión lingüística de los participantes en el nivel morfológico; y por último, se harán algunas reconceptualizaciones sobre el debate entre el profesor nativo/no nativo de lenguas extranjeras. 1 1 Este artículo es una versión ampliada de un trabajo presentado en el XXX Congreso Internacional de ASELE, en septiembre de 2019.

Linguistics and the science of Anthropology have much in common. In fact, to a large
extent the two fields overlap. Field workers utilize research models of the ethnographic type
as well as approaches that are experimental, methods that are qualitative as well as
quantitative, for example. The study of language contact and bilingualism, topic of this paper,
presents a good opportunity for drawing on contributions from the two overlapping fields.
The focus of the following review of current research will be mainly from the cognitive
science point of view, divided into four areas of recent work: (1) bilingual development, first
and second language learning and language loss, (2) creolization and convergence, (3)
codeswitching and borrowing, and (4) problems related to the distinction between language
and dialect.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo discutir evidências de atrito linguístico do português (L1) em falantes bilíngues (português e inglês-L2) e trilíngues (português, inglês-L2 e alemão-L3). Investigamos, neste estudo, os diferentes padrões de produção de Voice Onset Time (VOT) das plosivas surdas (bilabiais, alveolares e velares) em posição inicial de palavra nas línguas referidas. Os resultados encontrados sugerem a ocorrência de atrito linguístico mesmo em um ambiente onde a L2 ou a L3 não é dominante, além de trazerem evidências sobre a multidirecionalidade da transferência linguística e a importância da tipologia no desenvolvimento de línguas adicionais, de modo a ressaltar o seu caráter dinâmico.

This paper is one part of the ongoing research by the presenter. The purpose of the paper is to focus on the L1 attrition of people who live in dominant L2 environment, in this case Omanis, and explore the areas of attrition. The paper begins with a brief review of earlier research studies, tailed by description of data gathering instruments and data analysis procedures. Finally, the findings of the initial data will be shared to alert people to this phenomenon, initiate a discussion and create a database for further research.