Language attrition

Process of losing a language
Language attrition is the process of decreasing proficiency in or losing a language. For first or native language attrition, this process is generally caused by both isolation from speakers of the first language ("L1") and the acquisition and use of a second language ("L2"), which interferes with the correct production and comprehension of the first. Such interference from a second language is likely experienced to some extent by all bilinguals, but is most evident among speakers for whom a language other than their first has started to play an important, if not dominant, role in everyday life; these speakers are more likely to experience language attrition. It is common among immigrants that travel to countries where languages foreign to them are used. Second language attrition can occur from poor learning, practice, and retention of the language after time has passed from learning. This often occurs with bilingual speakers who do not frequently engage with their L2. Several factors affect language attrition. Frequent exposure and use of a particular language is often assumed adequate to maintain the native language system intact. However, research has often failed to confirm this prediction. A person's age can predict the likelihood of attrition; children are demonstrably more likely to lose their first language than adults. The process of learning a language and the methods used to teach it can also affect attrition. A positive attitude towards the potentially attriting language or its speech community and motivation to retain the language are other factors which may reduce attrition. These factors are too difficult to confirm by research. These factors are similar to those that affect second language acquisition and the two processes are sometimes compared. However, the overall impact of these factors is far less than that for second language acquisition. Language attrition results in a decrease of language proficiency. The current consensus is that it manifests itself first and most noticeably in speakers' vocabulary (in their lexical access and their mental lexicon), while grammatical and especially phonological representations appear more stable among speakers who emigrated after puberty.

The study of language attrition became a subfield of linguistics with a 1980 conference at the University of Pennsylvania called "Loss of Language Skills". The aim of the conference was to discuss areas of second language attrition and to discuss ideas for possible future research. The conference revealed that attrition is a wide topic, with numerous factors and taking many forms. Decades later, the field of first language attrition gained new momentum with two conferences held in Amsterdam in 2002 and 2005, as well as a series of graduate workshops and panels at international conferences, such as the International Symposium on Bilingualism (2007, 2009), the annual conferences of the European Second Language Association, and the AILA World Congress (2008). The outcomes of some of these meetings were later published in edited volumes. Also, simultaneous bilinguals may not have a language that is indistinguishable from that of a native speaker or a language where their knowledge of it is less extensive than a native speaker's; therefore testing for attrition is difficult. The lexical semantic relationship usually starts to deteriorate first and most quickly, driven by Cross Linguistic Interference (CLI) from the speaker's L2, and it is believed to be exacerbated by continued exposure to, and frequent use of, the L2. Evidence for such interlanguage effects can be seen in a study by Pavlenko (2003, 2004) which shows that there was some semantic extension from the L2, which was English, into the L1 Russian speakers' lexicons. In order to test for lexical attrition, researchers used tests such as picture naming tasks, where they place a picture of an item in front of the participant and ask them to name it, or by measuring lexical diversity in the speaker's spontaneous speech (speech that is unprompted and improvised). In both cases, attriters performed worse than non attriters. One hypothesis suggests that when a speaker tries to access a lexical item from their L1 they are also competing with the translation equivalents of their L2 and that there is either a problem with activating the L1 due to infrequent use or with the inhibition of the competing L2. In a study of bilingual Swedes raised outside of Sweden who, in their late twenties, returned to their home country for schooling, the participants demonstrated both language attrition and a complete retention of the underlying syntactic structure of their L1. Notably, they exhibited the V2, verb second, word order present in most Germanic languages, except English. This rule requires the tense marked verb of a main clause to occur in the second position of the sentence, even if that means it comes before the subject (e. g. there is an adverb at the beginning of the sentence). These speakers' ability to form sentences with V2 word order was compared against L2 learners who often overproduce the rigid SVO word order rather than applying the V2 rule. Although the study did not show evidence for attrition of syntax of the person's L1, there was evidence for attrition in the expatriates' morphology, especially in terms of agreement. They found that the bilinguals would choose to use the unmarked morphemes in place of the marked one when having to differentiate between gender and plurality; also they tend to overgeneralize where certain morphemes can be used. For example, they may use the suffix / a/, which is used to express an indefinite plural, and overextend this morpheme to also represent the indefinite singular. There is little evidence to support the view that there is a complete restructuring of the language systems. That is, even under language attrition the syntax is largely unaffected and any variability observed is thought to be due to interference from another language, rather than attrition. L1 attriters, like L2 learners, may use language differently from native speakers. In particular, they can have variability on certain rules which native speakers apply deterministically.

Phonological attrition is a form of language loss that affects the speaker's ability to produce their native language with their native accent. A study of five native speakers of American English who moved to Brazil and learned Portuguese as their L2 demonstrates the possibility that one could lose one's L1 accent in place of an accent that is directly influenced by the L2. It is thought that phonological loss can occur to those who are closer to native like fluency in the L2, especially in terms of phonological production, and for those who have immersed themselves and built a connection to the culture of the country for the L2. A sociolinguistic approach to this phenomenon is that the acquisition of a native like L2 accent and the subsequent loss of one's native accent is influenced by the societal norms of the country and the speakers' attempt to adapt in order to feel a part of the culture they are trying to assimilate into. This type of attrition is not to be confused with contact induced change since that would mean speech production changes due to an increased use of another language and not due to the less frequent use of the L1.

Lambert and Moore attempted to define numerous hypotheses regarding the nature of language loss, crossed with various aspects of language. They envisioned a test to be given to American State Department employees that would include four linguistic categories (syntax, morphology, lexicon, and phonology) and three skill areas (reading, listening, and speaking). A translation component would feature on a sub section of each skill area tested. The test was to include linguistic features that are the most difficult, according to teachers, for students to master. Such a test may confound testing what was not acquired with what was lost. Lambert, in personal communication with Köpke and Schmid, attempted to define a model of language attrition that was related to neurological and psychological aspects of language learning and unlearning. She discussed four possible hypotheses and five key aspects related to acquisition and attrition. The hypotheses are:
Reverse order: last learned, first forgotten. Studies by Russell and Hayashi both looked at the Japanese negation system and both found that attrition was the reverse order of acquisition. Yoshitomi and others, including Yukawa, argue that attrition can occur so rapidly, it is impossible to determine the order of loss. Inverse relation: better learned, better retained. Language items that are acquired first also happen to be those that are most reinforced. As a result, hypotheses 1 and 2 capture the main linguistic characteristics of language attrition argue that after childhood, in general, it becomes more and more difficult to acquire "native like ness", but that there is no cut off point in particular. Furthermore, they discuss a number of cases where a native like L2 was acquired during adulthood. Affect: motivation and attitude. According to Yoshitomi, goes back to the beginnings of psychology and psychoanalysis. It states that which was learned first will be retained last, both in 'normal' processes of forgetting and in pathological conditions such as aphasia or dementia. Both order of acquisition and order of attrition need to be put into the larger context of linguistic theory in order to gain explanatory adequacy. Keijzer (2007) conducted a study on the attrition of Dutch in Anglophone Canada. She finds some evidence that later learned rules, such as diminutive and plural formation, indeed erode before earlier learned grammatical rules. In order for one to maintain a low threshold, regular vocabulary and grammar usage is needed. Otherwise, an L2 that has fallen into disuse will now have a higher threshold for each language item, requiring a higher number of neural impulses to activate that item's representation in one's brain. Items that are used regularly have a lower required number of neural impulses to trigger its representation in the brain, making that language more stable and less susceptible to attrition. Under this hypothesis, language attrition is believed to first affect lexical words and then grammar rules, rather than grammar rules eroding first like in the regression hypothesis. It also requires a higher activation threshold to recall a word rather than recognize it, which does not indicate fluency. Of the Korean adoptees, those who were adopted the earliest essentially lost their Korean and those adopted later still retained some of it, although it was primarily their comprehension of Korean that was spared. Attrition of a first language does not guarantee an advantage in learning a second language. There have been cases in which adults have undergone first language attrition. A 2011 study tested adult monolingual English speakers, adult monolingual Russian speakers and adult bilingual English Russian speakers on naming various liquid containers (cup, glass, mug, etc.) in both English and Russian. The results showed that the bilinguals had attrited Russian vocabulary because they did not label these liquid containers the same way as the monolingual Russian speakers. When grouped according to Age of Acquisition (AoA) of English, the bilinguals showed an effect of AoA (or perhaps the length of exposure to the L2) in that bilinguals with earlier AoA (mean AoA 3.4 years) exhibited much stronger attrition than bilinguals with later AoA (mean AoA 22.8 years). That is, the individuals with earlier AoA were the more different from monolingual Russian speakers in their labeling and categorization of drinking vessels, than the people with later AoA. However, even the late AoA bilinguals exhibited some degree of attrition in that they labeled the drinking vessels differently from native monolingual Russian speaking adults.

There are few principled and systematic investigations of FLA specifically investigating the impact of AoA. However, converging evidence suggests an age effect on FLA which is much stronger and more clearly delineated than the effects that have been found in SLA research. Two studies that consider prepuberty and postpuberty migrants (Ammerlaan, 1996, AoA 0–29 yrs; Pelc, 2001, AoA 8–32 years) find that AoA is one of the most important predictors of ultimate proficiency, and a number of studies that investigate the impact of age among postpuberty migrants fail to find any effect at all (Köpke, 1999, AoA 14–36 yrs; Schmid, 2002, AoA 12–29 yrs; Schmid, 2007, AoA 17–51 yrs). A range of studies conducted by Montrul on Spanish heritage speakers in the US as well as Spanish English bilinguals with varying levels of AoA also suggests that the L1 system of early bilinguals may be similar to that of L2 speakers, while later learners pattern with monolinguals in their L1 (e. g. Montrul, 2008; Montrul, 2009). These findings therefore indicate strongly that early (prepuberty) and late (postpuberty) exposure to an L2 environment have a different impact on possible fossilization and/or deterioration of the linguistic system.

Frequency of use has been shown to be an important factor in language attrition. Decline in use of a given language leads to gradual loss of that language. In the face of much evidence to the contrary, one study is often cited to suggest that frequency of use does not correlate strongly with language attrition. Their methodology, however, can be called into question, especially concerning the small sample size and the reliance on self reported data. The researchers themselves state that their findings may be inaccurate. Motivation can be split into four categories, but it is often simply split into two distinct forms: the instrumental and the integrative. There are differences in attrition related to motivation depending on the type at hand. Instrumental motivation is often less potent than integrative motivation, but, given sufficient incentives, it can be equally as powerful.

A study published in 2021 examines what language attrition looks like neurologically by studying EEGs (electroencephalograms) of students learning a foreign language. The study involved 26 out of 30 initial participants who were native Dutch (L1) speakers who had little to no prior knowledge of Italian (L3), and proficiency in English (L2) as their second language. The experiment involved all participants learning 70 non cognate Italian words over two days, with no EEG taken. On the third day, an EEG was recorded for the entire session while participants attempted to retrieve half of their learned Italian words in English, and then took a recall test twice on all 70 learned Italian words. Incorrectness, partial correctness, and total correctness was used as a scoring guideline for these tests. This experiment tested attrition of the participants' L3 compared to their L2. When analyzing the EEGs of the participants, the experimenters observed an enhanced early anterior negative deflection (N2), a peak on the EEG often observed during language switching, for items that took longer to recall in Italian. These are interpreted to represent interfering responses, possibly a result of interference between English and Italian. Another peak, the late positive component (LPC), which is often interpreted as an indicator of interference, was reduced for interfered items compared to non interfered items. Lastly, theta bands on an EEG, which have previously been associated with semantic interference and active retrieval efforts, showed up more prominently when participants were asked to recognize words that they had retrieved both in English and Italian. While these must be further studied, these results give clues to what is occurring synaptically in the brain during language interference, and how that impacts attrition of a foreign language.

The above factors all affect the likelihood of language attrition in individuals, but an additional factor is the method of language learning and how that affects the possibility of language attrition. Therefore, strategies in the classroom and any other learning environment become an important part of preventing language attrition. Many researchers believe that language production skills, specifically writing and speaking, are significantly more susceptible to attrition than receptive skills, like listening and reading. Under this belief, one method of prevention would be to focus on literacy and receptive learning in the classroom, rather than teach students primarily to speak and write. This protects against attrition as it solidifies receptive skills. Another method is to encourage homework and practice that is not mechanical, but instead engaging and opportunistic, using high frequency items the most. Basic repetition and learning low frequency patterns and items are more susceptible to attrition, as students are unable to practice as opportunities arise and use high frequency items. This is detrimental as the language is not learned in a meaningful way that reinforces cognitive understanding. Conversational style homework and classroom settings, along with focuses on receptive skills, could make one's fluency less susceptible to attrition. Another potential method of prevention is to alter the duration of instruction for a new language. According to Bardovi Harlig and Stringer, a few months of intensive, engaging learning may have a greater impact on preventing attrition rather than years of traditional, mechanical learning. However, the initial stage of learning is argued to be important regardless of the duration of instruction.