On Language Attrition

On Language Attrition

Andrew Cohen wrote:

Hi, Paul, Susan, and others on the list.  

Since my name was mentioned, I'll jump in here.  I have done several studies of attrition, but not with adults.  I have looked at Spanish language attrition over the summer break between grades 1 and 2 in Spanish immersion in Culver City (e.g., Cohen, A. D. The Culver City Spanish Immersion Program: How does summer recess affect Spanish speaking ability? Language Learning, 1974, 24 (1), 55-68).  

In addition, I looked at Portuguese attrition in my own kids (ages 9 and 13) during the year following a Fulbright year in Brazil.  They were then back in Israel and I was also looking at the stability in their English mother-tongue and Hebrew (societal language and language of schooling).  The study tracked attrition in their Portuguese but not in their English or Hebrew (Cohen, A. D. Attrition in the productive lexicon of two Portuguese third-language speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 1989, 11 (2), 135-149).  In the volume in which this article appeared, Weltens and I included other articles (see Weltens, B., & Cohen, A. D. Language attrition research: An introduction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 1989, 11 (2), 127-133), but the focus was on foreign-language attrition.  The person who has done some work on L1 attrition -- in her kids -- was Elite Olshtain <mselito@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il>.  The value in our respective studies is that some important theoretical issues are looked, even though the focus was on younger learners.

What characterizes our work and that of many investigators in this field is that the work is small-scale, not involving comprehensive tests.  Having said that, I know that Kees de Bot <c.debot@let.kun.nl> has done testing for attrition in larger samples in Holland -- I believe just in FL, not L1.  Other colleagues who have been researching attrition for years are at Brigham Young University, where they follow Mormon missionaries in their FL attrition over more than 40 years (!).  A contact person on that is Robert Russell <robert_russell@byu.edu> a professor of Japanese. Another good contact in language attrition work is Dorit Kaufman <dkaufman@cs.sunysb.edu> in the Dept of Linguistics at SUNY Stony Brook.

At 09:10 AM 3/22/2002 -0800, Paul Jaquith wrote:

If memory serves, Andrew Cohen did something on this some years ago.

Paul Jaquith

--- Susan Dostert

<dostert@PHIL-FAK.UNI-DUESSELDORF.DE> wrote:

> Dear L-Testers,

>

> I wonder if anybody can help me i.e. is aware of a test of English suitable

> for my needs.   I'm interested in language attrition and in  particular in looking at how

> English as L1 is negatively affected through living  in a different country

> (in this case Germany) for many years and being more  or less bilingual. In

> order to test the abilities of my test subjects (+ a control group in the

> UK) I need quite a comprehensive test or tests, covering various aspects of

> written, spoken etc English at a high level of competence. Most of the

> tests I've come across seem to deal with English as L2 and are therefore

> too "simple" for my needs.  Does anyone know of anything suitable? Many thanks

> for your help!

>

> Susan Dostert

> English Linguistics

> Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf, Germany

=====

Paul Jaquith

English Unit-UGRU

United Arab Emirates University

P.O. Box 17172

Al Ain

United Arab Emirates

Phone: 971-3-7643-749

Note: 

Taken from Language Testing Research and Practice <LTEST-L@lists.psu.edu> on 03/23/2002