English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Language attrition refers to the loss of any language or any portion of a language by an individual or a speech community. It is often considered as the reverse process of language acquisition. Based on related literature analysis on language attrition at home and abroad, the paper gives an overview on the theoretical system of language attrition and deeply explores nine factors of affecting language attrition, that is, time of attrition, foreign language level before attrition, contact with attrition language, age, language acquisition mode, social emotional factors, reading and writing ability, target language and gender. Through the analysis of these nine factors, the author hopes to have a further understanding to language attrition, clarify the development direction and provides a theoretical basis for effective foreign language teaching. Keywords-overview; language attrition; language attrition theory; affecting factors; language teaching Language attrition plays an important role in the study of second language acquisition and has indispensable relation with it. Language acquisition contains not only learning and gains, but also loss and attrition; not only rising and development, but also fossilization and deterioration. In some sense, language attrition is the reverse process of language acquisition and an important factor restricting foreign language learning ability. About the definition of language attrition, the mostly accepted one in the field of the study of language attrition is defined by Freed in his book The Loss of Language Skills. "Broadly defined, language attrition may refer to the loss of any language or any portion of a language by an individual or a speech community. It may refer to the declining use of mother tongue skills by those in bilingual situations or among ethnic minorities in (some) language contact situations where one language, for political or social reasons, comes to replace another. Language attrition also refers to the deterioration of language skills in neurologically impaired patients and to the decline of certain types of language usage by the elderly. Likewise, language attrition may be used to describe the death of an entire language. There is yet another sense in which the term language skill attrition is used which has received considerably less attention. That is the loss of language skills by those who have studied and then discontinued the use of a second language. The study of language attrition is paid more and more attention at abroad but still remains a relatively new research field at home. Either the amount of the first-hand research papers on it or the second-hand ones are relatively few. Based on collecting and sorting to the papers of language attrition research published at home and abroad during these years, the paper makes a systematical overview and analysis on language attrition theory, aiming to give inspiration to the study of language attrition. I. RETROSPECT OF LANGUAGE ATTRITION RESEARCH AT HOME AND ABROAD A. Foreign language attrition research The earliest introduction of the concept of language attrition to linguistic research was made by Lambert. Lambert called on a conference about “The Loss of Language Skills” at the University of Pennsylvania in 1980. The Loss of Language Skills published after the conference has been recognized as the very witness of the establishment of the subject: language attrition and it becoming an independent discipline. The meeting about the language loss was hold in Kekelade and the paper presented in this meeting further distinguished the differences among language loss, dialect distinction and second language attrition. The opening of the meeting “World Applied Linguistics Conference” in Sidney marked the study transition of language attrition from single theory to applied research and researchers concentrated their study on the first language attrition in foreign language environment. Later some language attrition works had been appeared. Such as Seliger and Vago, they paid attention to the first language attrition in foreign language environment and firstly used the term “attrition” in their papers. After that language attrition research experienced several ups and downs. The holding of “Second Language Research Forum” in Wisconsin and “The Third International Bilingual Thesis Seminar” in Bristol marked the integration of language attrition research. Language attrition research became an independent research field. The early theory perspective of language attrition research were mainly based on the memory and forgetting theory in psychology, in the 90’s on the cognitive linguistics, and during these years on sociolinguistics. Researchers analyzed the rules and phenomena of language attrition and put forward systematic language attrition theories and explanatory framework, such as language dynamic system theory, language retrieval failure, inverse hypothesis, language distortion and interference, critical threshold etc.. It is particularly worth mentioning that under the guidance of these theories, lexical attrition study yielded many fruits ranged from early introspective study to later series of quantitative analysis study. Some researchers International Conference on Education, Management, Computer and Society (EMCS 2016) © 2016. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 1515 concentrated on the differences of attrition in lexical and other language system, such as Anderden(1982), Bahrick(1984), Mooncraft & Gardner (1987), Weltens (1989), Altenberg (1991), Weltens & Grendel (1993), Kopke (2002), Al-Dabbous(2002), Hutz(2004). And others focused on the lexical itself, such as Cohen (1986), Olshtain & Barzilay (1991), Ellis & Beaton (1993), Laufer (1997b), de Groot & Keijzer (2000), Ross (2002), Russell (2005), Ferguson & Grainger (2005), Fliessbach (2006). B. Domestic language attrition research Compared with the study of foreign language attrition, Chinese researchers started late. Language attrition study didn’t rise to a trend until the coming of the new century. Zhong Shuneng in 2003 and Cai Hansong in 2004 started to sort and synthesize foreign advanced research findings. Zhong Shuneng translated “attrition” into “liusun” in Chinese, regarding it to be different from pathological language attrition and referring to the loss of any language or any portion of a language by an individual or a speech community. Cai Hansong and Zhou Rong translated “attrition” into “haosun”, thinking of it to be the phenomenon of the loss or degradation of foreign language knowledge and skill by those who had studied but disused for some time (e.g. several months or years or even decades), or the phenomenon of the loss or degradation of the first language skills by those who lived in second language environment. Based on the sorting and his own practice and combining the characteristics of Chinese language study with language attrition, Ni Chuanbin at Nanjing Normal University has made some achievements from the following aspects: foreign language level before language attrition is a key factor of foreign language attrition; time of language attrition is a decisive factor; contact with foreign language is the most primitive presupposed motivation. He held the opinion that language attrition was a reverse process of language acquisition, referring to bilingual or multilingual users’ ability of using the language gradually decreased because of reducing or discontinuing to use the language over time. The conclusion changed the long-term blank situation, which greatly promoted the development of domestic language attrition research. In recent years, domestic language attrition research has entered a stage of the close combination of theoretical study with empirical study. Ni Chuanbin and Yan Junrong(2009)studied the influential factors of foreign language attrition, that is, foreign language level before attrition, time of attrition, age, acquisition mode, social emotional factors, writing and reading ability and so on. They also improved that there was an existence of “Inverse Hypothesis” in foreign language level before attrition, that is, foreign language level before attrition is inversely proportional to the amount and speed of attrition; the time of attrition presents the characteristics of “fast-slow-fast”; foreign language attrition of children is faster than that of adults, younger than older; the foreign language class teaching mode, focus and intensity are all have a certain influence on foreign language learners; social and emotional factors are also indirect factors of foreign language attrition; the ability of reading and writing can effectively prevent foreign language attrition. Wang Xiangyun(2011) studied the external and internal mechanisms of foreign language attrition. In internal mechanisms, the degree and speed of language attrition will be slower with the more active attitude and the stronger motivation; language will be kept better with higher degree of education and stronger ability of reading and writing; language attrition will be less with higher contact frequency of target language. In external mechanisms, language attrition will be less with the more extensive culture atmosphere; language interference can eliminate and attrition the inferior language. Ni Chuanbin and Yu Zhonggen made a empirical research on the gender differences of language attrition, finding that there are significant gender differences in the language attrition. Besides their determining factors, such as gender and living circumstance, Language attrition is also relevant to learners’ own factors, such as learning style and learning strategies. II. LANGUAGE ATTRITION THEORETICAL SYSTEM Since language attrition study has attracted many linguists, related theories emerged continually. The Jacobson Regression Hypothesis, Threshhold Hypothesis, Retrieval Failure Hypothesis and Interference Theory are far-reaching. A. Jakobson Regre

Overview on Language Attrition Theory