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Teachers' Language: L1 Attrition in Russian–English Bilinguals
Author(s) -
ISURIN LUDMILA
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the modern language journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.486
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1540-4781
pISSN - 0026-7902
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00585.x
Subject(s) - grammaticality , attrition , foreign language , psychology , linguistics , second language acquisition , neuroscience of multilingualism , task (project management) , grammar , pedagogy , medicine , philosophy , management , dentistry , economics , neuroscience
The present study reports on the evidence of first language (L1) attrition in a population that may appear to be the most resistant to L1 changes. Russian monolinguals ( n = 3) and Russian–English bilinguals ( n = 10) participated in the study. The bilinguals were graduate students teaching Russian as a foreign language at a U.S. university. The data were obtained through semispontaneous discourse on assigned interview topics and a grammaticality judgment task. Numerous instances of lexical and grammatical deviations registered in the data suggest that an extensive exposure to the L1 in the second language (L2) environment and motivation to keep it intact due to a high professional demand may still diminish the speaker's control over his or her L1 skills. Implications for L2 acquisition and foreign language teaching (FLT) are offered in the article.