An Overview of Language Attrition Studies
(Article in Japanese only)
Yukawa Emiko
Notre Dame Women's College of Kyoto
It is a quite natural phenomenon to lose, at least in part, ourlinguistic knowledge or skills in an unused language, although the degree and speed of loss may vary greatly depending upon a number of factors. This paper attempts to give an overview of studies of naturally occurring language attrition within individuals. Thus, the paper excludes discussion of language loss over generations--that is, attrition at the societal level.
The first section of this literature review reports the results of research on "what is lost". Two important trends emerge in the review,
namely, that receptive skills and productive phonology tend to be maintained. The second section discusses the variables which are known to interact with language attrition. Among the factors investigated in past research, this paper focuses its discussion on age and pre-attrition variables. Generally speaking younger children, especially those seven or eight years old or younger, tend to lose an unused language more rapidly and to a greater extent than older children. Also, individuals who were highly proficient in a language tend to maintain it better than those who were less proficient. The third section of this paper focuses on the reasons for and mechanisms of language loss. Apparent regression of language skills can be caused by the retrieval failure of intact language knowledge or the restructuring/loss of such knowledge. When language knowledge undergoes change, such change tends to occur intralinguistically with a certain systematicity driven by internally motivated forces or under the influence of the other, more frequently used language. Although language attrition studies can offer no immediate guidelines or suggestions for fostering bilingualism, this paper presents some predictions of the course that an unused language will probably take,
and also tries to help the readers understand that attrition phenomena can and should be viewed in a larger context of language change in general.
