Second Language Acquisition

Rachel Cooper 3rd year

Recent research in studies of L1 attrition: a mini systematic review

Introduction

The topic of language attrition is a relatively new and underexplored field which has led to a range of investigative approaches (Gallo et al., 2021). Schmid (2008, p. 10) defines attrition as “[a] loss of proficiency not caused by a deterioration of the brain due to age, illness or injury, but by a change in linguistic behaviour due to a severance of the contact with the community in which the language is spoken.”

The following review considers recent research in this field through a collection of studies from the Bilingualism: Language and Cognition journal (Cambridge) between the years 2012 and

2022. The resulting ten articles will now be examined. First, I discuss the theories used in the current research, then the methods employed, and finally, I discuss what we can conclude from the past decade of research and where to the field might go in the future.

Theories

Two studies drew on the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace & Filiaci, 2006) which posits that structures which meet at the interface with syntax such as semantics or pragmatics are more open to first language (L1) attrition, as they are harder to acquire. Chamorro et al. (2016, p. 520) used the updated hypothesis that attrition does not affect knowledge representations themselves but the “ability to process interface structures” to attempt to find the source of attrition through re-exposure. Flores (2012) applied this hypothesis to determine whether object-expression, occurring at the syntaxdiscourse interface, is more vulnerable to attrition than the narrow syntactic feature verb placement. Chamorro et al. (2016) also considered Paradis’ (1993) Activation Threshold Hypothesis (ATH) which demonstrates that less frequent items in the L1 become harder to access, especially if the corresponding second language (L2) item is used more regularly, suggesting re-exposure could reduce attrition effects. Schmid & Jarvis (2014) also applied the ATH to assess lexical accessibility in the L1 when it has been compromised by emigration and therefore the activation of an L2 environment.

The Speech Learning Model (SLM), developed by Flege (1995) posits that “L1 and L2 phonetic categories [exist] in a common phonological space” (Flege, 1995, p. 239) allowing the L1 to influence the L2 and vice versa (de Leeuw et al., 2018). This can lead to cross-linguistic assimilation (CLA) whereby the sounds of two languages become more similar (Mayr et al., 2012). Typically, this hypothesis is used for studies where bilinguals “have spoken their L2 for many years” (Flege, 1995, p. 238) which applies to Mayr et al.’s (2012) study investigating the change in L1 accent in Dutch twins, one of whom had moved to the UK, and lived there for 30 years. De Leeuw et al. (2018) also used the SLM to assess phonological attrition in native Albanians who had immigrated to England.

Similar to CLA, Cross Linguistic Influence (CLI) is a wellestablished hypothesis which James (2012, p. 858) defined as “the influence that knowledge of one language has on an individual’s learning or use of another language”, which “can involve various aspects of language”. A question that remains in the literature is to what extent attrition originates from CLI (Gallo et al., 2021), and this concept is mentioned in eight of the studies, with two of them developing previous research in CLI. Anderssen et al. (2018) built on Kupisch’s (2014) proposal for crosslinguistic overcorrection (CLO) which is when bilinguals “show a tendency to overstress what is different rather than what is common in their two languages” leading to an overuse of non-dominant language structures (Kupisch, 2014, p. 223). Anderssen et al. (2018) employed this proposal to address pre- and post-nominal structures in Norwegian heritage language speakers (HS). Hulk and Müller (2000) proposed that language dominance is not one of the causes of CLI. Contrasting this, Kang (2013) provided a revised model for CLI whereby language dominance can play a role, through assessing the attrition of a Korean-English boy’s dominant language changing and therefore affecting his L2.

Levy et al. (2007) proposed the Retrieval-Induced Forgetting (RIF) mechanism which posits that repeatedly retrieving words from the L2 inhibits the representation in the L1, therefore the decrease in availability of L1 representations “would be the basis for L1 attrition” (Runnqvist & Costa, 2012, p. 365). Runnqvist & Costa (2012) replicated this model to assess the reliability and theoretical implications of this.

Both Miller and Rothman (2020) and Kim and Kim (2022) used different theories to attempt to find causes of attrition. Miller and Rothman (2020) applied the Equilibrium Hypothesis (Iverson & Miller, 2017), which argues that language attrition and maintenance may be very closely related, using online and offline methods in an attempt to isolate the causes of attrition. Similarly, Kim and Kim (2022) investigated this following the Weaker Links Hypothesis (Gollan, et al., 2008). This claims that as bilinguals speak less of their languages than monolinguals do, the infrequent contact “[weakens between forms and meanings, ultimately leading to language loss” (Kim & Kim, 2022, p. 539).

Methods

As demonstrated, many theories have been applied to the research of attrition, and this trend seems to apply to the types of methods employed as well. The majority of discussed articles used controlled tasks to elicit targeted speech from participants, such as eliciting minimal pairs with flashcards, as used by de Leeuw et al. (2018). This was used to investigate the phonological attrition of light /l/ and dark /l/ in late bilinguals.

Mayr et al. (2012) used a similar task to compare a set of twins by recording them producing isolated plosives and vowels in order to compare voice onset times (VOT). Other controlled tasks included picture naming tasks to measure lexical retrieval ability in Chinese and Russian children (M = 12 years) who emigrated to Korea (Kim & Kim, 2022), and to compare learners who ranged in proficiencies, replicating a previous study (Levy et al., 2007) to assess its reliability (Runnqvist & Costa, 2022). Another form of controlled task was used by Schmid and Jarvis (2014) who used two semantic verbal fluency tasks to assess lexical attrition of German in two adult groups who had emigrated to The Netherlands and Anglophone Canada. Finally, Kang (2013), in the only longitudinal data collection study of the collection, used two production tasks. These tasks were repeated 15 times over a oneyear period to elicit irregular past tense and passives, focussing on one particular participant (aged 11;10) who spent two years in the US before returning to Korea. However, there are limits as to how useful controlled tasks are at eliciting attrition. Schmid and Jarvis (2014) and de Leeuw et al. (2018) both acknowledge that free speech tasks may be more beneficial for eliciting attrition as they allow for spontaneous speech. That being said, only three of the studies used this method. In order to compare object expression and verb placement attrition, Flores (2012) employed story re-telling and picture-description tasks to two groups of Portuguese second-generation migrants who had returned to Portugal at different ages (M = 8;4 and 12;6) subsequently losing contact with their other L1. Schmid and Jarvis (2014) also used a story-retelling task to assess lexical attrition in two groups of German attriters, who had emigrated to The Netherlands and Anglophone Canada. Spontaneous speech was also elicited through interviews in Anderssen et al.’s (2018) study investigating possessives and definite determiners in NorwegianEnglish heritage speakers (ages 70-100 years) who had lost almost all contact with Norwegian. However, Anderssen et al. (2018) failed to disclose the content or length of these interviews.

With regard to hybrid online and offline methods, Miller and Rothman (2020) argue for the use of these methods to assess realtime processes, as well as subsequent outcomes. That being said only two studies made use of this combination. Miller and Rothman (2020) used Event Related potential (ERP) analyses for a picturesentence verification task among two groups of Spanish-English attriters, varying in length of residence to investigate scalar implicatures. This was followed by an offline acceptability task and a non-binary free interpretation task. The only other study to use online and offline tasks employed an eye-tracking-whilst-reading task to measure sensitivity when processing subject pronouns, and a naturalness judgement task to assess interpretations (Chamorro et al., 2016). This was administered to Spanish-English attriters and re-exposed attriters.

It should be noted that three of the studies compared bilingual performance to that of monolinguals (Chamorro et al., 2016; Schmid & Jarvis, 2014; de Leeuw et al., 2018). Crucially, Miller and Rothman (2020) raise the concept of the ‘bi/multilingual turn’ (Ortega, 2013). This notion calls to question the accuracy of comparing multilinguals to monolinguals, considering that multilingualism is not an accumulation of monolingual acquisition (Rothman and Iverson, 2010). They therefore advocate for “a more precise and accurate measure of multilingual competence” (Rothman and Iverson, 2010, p. 33), eliminating the influence of monolingual bias.

Discussion and conclusion

All of these studies carried out quantitative analyses of the results, and all used inferential statistics, apart from Kang (2013) and Mayr et al. (2012), presumably as these studies focussed on comparing very small samples of siblings. Despite this, both studies discussed relevant findings, though these are difficult to generalise due to sample size.

Three of the studies revealed language input as a likely factor of L1 attrition. Higher L2-L1 input ratio negatively affected word naming accuracy in Kim & Kim’s (2022) study; Miller and Rothman (2020) found bilinguals who relied on more types of L2 input were less sensitive to incorrect scalar implicatures. Finally, Flores (2012) discovered that a lack of L1 input caused German attriters to transfer their Portuguese null object onto their German. This also meant that CLI may have occurred. Crosslinguistic influence also seemed to occur in Anderssen et al.’s (2018) study whereby some Norwegian-English heritage speakers overused English-like structures (CLI) but the majority overused Norwegianlike structures (CLO) in their interviews. Anderssen et al. (2018) also attempted to link these findings to proficiency, however, a proficiency test was never carried out on the participants, so this conclusion should perhaps be made cautiously. Another crosslinguistic process was reported by Mayr et al. (2012) where the twin who immigrated to the UK pronounced her Dutch vowels with high F1 values, which has been reported as evidence of CLA.

Interestingly, a discrepancy has emerged within the findings:

Kim and Kim (2022) concluded that length of residence in the L2 country was a predictor for attrition, although Schmid and Jarvis (2014) concluded that it was not. Perhaps this is a variable that needs further research to determine its involvement in attrition. Age of L2 acquisition was also not found to be a predictor (Kim & Kim, 2022), and reflecting on the range of participant ages in the studies, this seems reasonable. Furthermore, Miller and Rothman (2020) claim that L2 social networks and a younger age of arrival affect L1 attrition.

Both Schmid and Jarvis (2014) and Mayr et al. (2012) conclude that it is still unknown why some individuals and areas of pronunciation are more prone to attrition than others. De Leeuw et al. (2018) made an interesting contribution to this, considering the finding that, for phonological attrition, three of the ten bilinguals in the study did not show any signs of attrition. On the one hand, this could inspire further research into comparing the same participants in different areas of language that may have been interrupted by attrition. However, as acknowledged by the authors, this study consisted only of a controlled task, and that the use of free speech tasks may have provided some more insightful occurrences of attrition.

Meanwhile, Runnqvist and Costa (2012, p. 347) highlight the importance of replication studies as the results showed that “repeated production of words in a non-dominant language [enhanced] the memory for the translation words in the dominant language”, which did not reflect Levy et al.’s (2007) original study. This further highlights the complexity of attrition, in that findings cannot always be replicated across studies.

Kang (2013) proposed a revised model of CLI that has two potential directions, following the finding that their subject’s dominant language shifted after returning to Korea, transferring the Korean null-subject onto his English. Miller and Rothman (2020, p. 869) also make the brief remark that crosslinguistic effects “are not unidirectional” which further calls to question Hulk and Müller’s (2000) original CLI proposal. Perhaps a development of Kang’s (2013) revised proposal, using different language pairings, would further strengthen this model.

In Chamorro et al.’s (2016) investigation of whether re-exposure can diminish attrition effects, it appeared that monolinguals and reexposed attriters were sensitive to incorrect pronominal subjects but other attriters were not. Findings from this study supported both the Interface Hypothesis and the ATH which should be explored more in order to gain a further understanding of if/how attrition can be completely reversed.

Considering all the findings obtained from this collection of studies, we can draw together some final remarks. Firstly, it seems that factors affecting attrition are likely to include language input (Flores, 2012; Kim & Kim, 2022), L2 social network and age of arrival (Miller & Rothman, 2020). Secondly, it still seems unclear in what part of language attrition may occur, with no clear patterns appearing in multiple studies, in this review at least. In terms of methods, it seems clear that free speech tasks (de Leeuw et al., 2018; Schmid & Jarvis, 2014) and combined online and offline methods (Miller and Rothman, 2020) should be used in future research. Finally, future research in SLA might consider the concept of the bi/multilingual turn (Ortega, 2013) and its applications to the wider applied linguistic field.

References

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