The Loss of Language Skills

Abstract

Although the phenomenon of second language skill loss has undoubtedly been the subject of informal discussion for as long as learners have attempted to acquire second languages, little formal research has been devoted to examining its causes and characteristics. Beyond the seemingly obvious observation that a second language is lost when it is no longer used and the equating of loss with vocabulary forgetting, no systematic research has been undertaken to explain the process and mechanisms of losing a language and no attempt has been made to develop strategies for reversing or preventing loss.Recognizing the need for such a body of knowledge, a group of scholars from the University of Pennsylvania launched the 'Language Skill Attrition Project' as a vehicle for getting such a research effort underway. The project, as envisioned, was to include a number of stages. The first stage was to be an extensive search of the literature on language loss and of related fields with the aim of giving an overview of the problem. The second stage was to be a national conference at which scholars, practitioners, researchers, and administrators would a) review the literature from this and related fields to generate hypotheses about language loss, b) discuss methodologies for studying the occurrence of language loss and procedures for measuring it, and c) determine what practical implications insights to language loss might have and develop frameworks for research best suited to achieve these practical aims. The third stage was to entail the circulation of the results of the conference. And, finally, the fourth stage of the project was to be the drafting of proposals for the design and funding of further research, for the design of teaching materials, and for the establishment of national language policy positions.The Loss of Language Skills is the product of these first three stages. It includes the revised presentations of the participants at the national conference (held in May, 1980), a summary chart of findings from previous research on language loss, and an extensive bibliography of readings from other fields pertinent to the questions of language skill loss. The purpose of this volume was to lay a firm foundation and to act as a springboard for further research into second language skill loss. In order to fulfill this purpose, an attempt was made to pose all the relevant research questions by integrating data, hypotheses, and methodologies from related fields. To achieve this interdisciplinary perspective, the contributors selected were scholars from the areas of linguistics and language pedagogy, and administrators of different types of language programs. The papers are organized according to three major categories: Theoretical

Second Language Neurocognition and First Language Attrition

“…Despite the earliest (1982) endeavor to adopt an interdisciplinary perspective, including calls to incorporate neurocognitive approaches and research methods (cf. Raffaldini, 1983), language attrition has mostly been studied using linguistic, applied linguistic and sociolinguistic approaches. Linguistic accounts of attrition have traditionally been concerned with the question how linguistic properties change as a function of specific attrition settings, typically pointing to typological distinctions between the L1 and L2 and using language contact models to interpret research findings (Schmid & De Leeuw, 2019).…”

“…It is important to note that the field of L1 attrition is highly interdisciplinary (cf. Raffaldini, 1983), and moves "at the crossroads of brain, mind, and society" (Köpke, 2007). It is counterintuitive, then, that a neurocognitive perspective on attrition has only relatively recently been introduced.…”