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Defining language attrition

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 Tema

Monika S. Schmid
Groningen Defining language attrition

Eine Konsequenz von Migration Preconceptions where there is little or no contact with
ist meist ein radikaler Wandel The loss of a native language is often other speakers of the language
der sprachlichen Umgebung und experienced as something profoundly
Gewohnheiten. Die Dominanz der moving, disturbing or shocking, both Like urban myths, such notions have
Zweitsprache im Alltag leitet oft by those who experience it and by the appeal that they may seem con-
zu Veränderungen in der Erst- those who witness it in others: “To vincing, even likely, but they lack a
sprache. Solche Veränderungen lose your own language was like for- solid basis in empirical fact. Put to the
können vom Sprecher und auch getting your mother, and as sad, in a test, some of these may turn out to be
von zurückgebliebenen Famili- way”, because it is “like losing part of correct. Until they are, however, it is
enangehörigen und Freunden als one’s soul” is how Alexander McCall counterproductive to repeat them as if
unnatürlich und schockierend Smith puts it (The Full Cupboard of they were established fact.
empfunden werden. Die vorliegen- Life, p. 163). This intuitive appeal of Another less-than-helpful phenome-
de Einleitung gibt einen Über- the topic of language attrition can be non to be witnessed in attrition research
blick, welche Arten von Einfluss seen as both a blessing and a curse. is the proliferation of metaphors from
der Zweit- auf die Erstsprache Researchers who investigate level- daily life. One monograph on attrition
im allgemeinen erscheinen, und ordered morphology or articulatory (Ammerlaan 1996) is entitled “…you
in welcher Weise Charakteristika phonetics will probably rarely find get a bit wobbly”, which is the second
der Person, der Umgebung, der that their friends and family, or even half of a quote from an attriter who
inneren Haltung und der Sprach- colleagues who work in different areas, compared his L1 skills to riding a
gewohnheiten einen solchen show great interest in or enthusiasm bicycle - you never forget how to do
Sprachwandel beschleunigen oder for their work. Those of us who study it, but due to lack of practice you may
verlangsamen können. language attrition find ourselves with get a bit wobbly (unsurprisingly, the L1
a much more receptive audience. On in this case was Dutch). A workshop
the other hand, we also find an audi- at the 3rd International Symposium on
ence with many preconceived ideas Bilingualism (Bristol 2001) bore the
about attrition – a much rarer problem title “Can spiders forget how to spin
for the level-ordered morphologist or webs?” Others have compared attrition
articulatory phonetician. Worse, we to an onion (which unpeels in layers),
may find such notions in ourselves. a derilict house (affected only slightly
Preconceived ideas are unscientific. at first, but after a few decades the
They are also often wrong. very foundations go as decomposition
Here is a random collection of widely accelerates) and so on. But human
repeated, sometimes contradictory, linguistic knowledge is entirely differ-
and hitherto largely unsubstantiated ent from the knowledge we apply to
ideas about the attrition process: riding a bicycle or the ‘knowledge’ that
1. Attrition is the reversal of acquisi- a spider applies to spinning a web. It
tion also bears no resemblance whatsoever
2. Attrition usually takes place within to onions or houses.
the first 10 years of emigration There is a possible reason for the pro-
3. Attrition does not set in until 10 liferation of both myths and metaphors
years after emigration in language attrition research which
4. Attrition is most severe where the it might be profitable to explore.
two language systems have simi- Within our frame of the experience
larities of language, attrition is an unnatural
5. Attrition is most severe the more process. Any other situation in which
different the two language systems we experience language, particularly
are when it comes to a change within our
6. Attrition is most severe in cases own linguistic repertoire, is a social

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one: L1 acquisition, L2 learning, The problem with metaphors is that struction or exposure to that language
communication, language for creative they are compelling. Once we have has all but ceased).
purposes, and so on. Wherever we accepted an intuitive similarity be- These two scenarios imply an inter-
encounter language, it is inseparably tween an aspect of two phenomena, esting theoretical question: Is loss of
linked to contact with other human we are apt to extend this to the overall proficiency caused by lack of exposure
beings. Language is arguably what thing. We may think, deduce and even - does the knowledge system underly-
makes us part of a community or a observe within the perceptional cage ing language use need constant input,
relationship. to which we have confined ourselves. maintenance and refreshing in order
Attrition, on the other hand, is often Worse, even if we ourselves can avoid to remain intact? - or is it competition
felt most keenly where it is associated this trap, we have provided an easy from another system which causes
with loneliness or isolation. Although template for newcomers to the field and problems? If an answer to this ques-
an emigrant may be an active member to laypeople. The task of the scientist tion could be found, it would have
of an L2 community, in which she has is to observe, describe and explain a far-reaching implications for our un-
a large circle of friends, there is often phenomenon in itself and for its own derstanding of linguistic knowledge as
a sense of loss and nostalgia with re- sake, as de Saussure put it. Let us such. As it is impossible for obvious
spect to the L1 community. Attrition leave the metaphors to the poets and reasons to test scenario I empirically,
can represent the tangible symptom of the salespeople. researchers have to distinguish those
this disconnectedness and severance. factors in language loss which can be
Someone who has lived halfway across the result of crosslinguistic influence
the globe away from their family and from those which cannot in order to
childhood friends may encounter an Definitions of attrition find indications for one or the other.
inexplicable feeling of estrangement Attrition can be described in two Attrition is therefore a process of loss,
when they meet them again after many ways, as a process or as a phenom- of forgetting, of deterioration. This
years, and although there can be many enon. The definition of the process implies that there are two stages of
cultural reasons for this estrangement, is deceptively simple: When we are linguistic knowledge: a pre-attrition
the experience that you can no longer looking at attrition, we are dealing stage A and an attrited stage B, and the
interact as spontaneously and naturally with “the non-pathological decrease apparent difference between A and B,
in your L1 as you once could can serve in a language that had previously been caused by the process of attrition, is
as the point on which such feelings acquired by an individual” (Köpke & then the phenomenon of attrition. The
can be focussed. A familiarity that Schmid, 2004:5). In other words, at- latter is far more difficult to define: at
had been taken for granted has been trition investigates the situation where what moment is it possible to claim
lost, and it is easier to pinpoint it on a speaker (of an L1 or a later learned that B is really different from A to
language. second or foreign language) can no the degree that makes the speaker an
The fact that attrition is a lonely process longer do something which s/he had attriter? We know that bi- or multilin-
triggered by (albeit selective) isolation previously been able to do, and this guals often experience cross-linguistic
is what serves to make it appear all the loss of proficiency is not caused by a interference, but the question of how
more authentic. This is something that deterioration of the brain due to age, much of this is due to on-line (or, if
you experience as an individual; not as illness or injury, but by a change in you will, performance) problems as
a member of a community but as an ex- linguistic behaviour due to a severance opposed to a difference in the under-
member, and it therefore is yours in a of the contact with the community in lying representation of knowledge (or
way that acquisition (which has to rely which the language is spoken. Given competence) is anything but trivial.
on interaction in one way or another) this definition there are two theoreti- So, while we may be able to claim
seldom is. I would propose that it is cally possible scenarios: one where all that a group of attriters behaves dif-
this fundamental authenticity which contact has ceased and there is no ferently from a group of non-attriters,
triggers the need for ‘definitional au- linguistic input or communication at that they do something different, how
thority’, so to speak: ‘I am the person all (as would be the case if someone can we determine if this difference in
who is experiencing this, therefore I was stranded alone on a desert island) behaviour corresponds to a difference
can explain what it feels like.’ And and one where there is overwhelming in linguistic knowledge?
as descriptions and explanations that competition from another language Imagine the case of an L1 speaker
restrict themselves to language cannot system (for L1 attrition, this situa- of German who has emigrated to the
convey the emotions associated with tion applies in the case of emigrants, United States at age 22 and is now
the overall process of estrangement, where attrition of a foreign language 70. We meet this speaker in her home
we reach for metaphors. is concerned, this is the case after in- and initiate a conversation by inviting

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her to tell us the story of her life. Our Although the speaker in this (hypo- or permanent, in other words, whether
first impression is that, after 48 years thetical) scenario clearly behaves in a the difficulties an attriter encounters
of life in an L2 environment, her use way that a speaker who had not been are located only in how underlying
of German is still fluent and idiomatic exposed to an L2 to a similar degree knowledge is used, applied and maybe
to a degree that might astonish us. We would not, none of the explanations confused at the current point in time
do notice occasional code-switches, proposed above for this particular ex- or whether this underlying knowledge
and we notice that one context in ample invokes L1 attrition. The mere itself has been permanently changed
which these are particularly frequent is use of codeswitching or borrowing can or restructured.
where she tells us that she has recently therefore not necessarily be taken as
developed a heart condition for which an indication of attrition.
she is currently undergoing extensive So what is? In order to determine
treatment. whether the L1 vocabulary of the same Circumstances
There are a great number of possible speaker is intact overall, it is clearly Another as yet unresolved question is
explanations for her use of L2 items not enough to investigate how often what it is in the environment, habits,
here: for one thing, these terms are she uses L2 items. Her speech would attitudes or personality of a speaker
probably used quite frequently in our have to be investigated in more depth which causes attrition. Any large-
speaker’s current situation, while the for features such as lexical richness, scale study of the attrition will un-
German equivalents may have been hesitation phenomena etc., possibly cover substantial variability between
unused for decades, so the English through the application of more rigor- individual speakers in the degree
terms are familiar and easy to acti- ously controlled tests. Similar caveats of decomposition or maintenance
vate although the German ones are apply to other areas of her linguistic of the linguistic system. Typically,
by no means forgotten. Secondly, repertoire, such as grammar, phonol- some speakers preserve native-like
as the English terms are used every ogy, pragmatics etc. However, one competence over a very long attrition
day by her and others to describe her important question can probably never span, while others seem to attrite quite
individual and very personal situation, be answered: Are the differences which dramatically within a few years of
they may have acquired an intimate may exist between this speaker on the emigrating. One of the phenomena
and emotional component which the one hand and non-attriters on the other that language attrition research aims
more distant and therefore impersonal of a temporary or permanent nature? to uncover is to what degree these
German words, which have only ever Any attempt made in a naturalistic differences can be explained on the
been used in reference to other people, setting, through testing speakers basis of characteristics of the speaker
lack. On the other hand, the opposite before and after re-exposure to their and her environment.
may equally well be the case: depend- L1, is doomed to failure, as the inten- The goal of sociolinguistic inves-
ing on the emotional role that L1 and tion of going back to the country of tigations of attrition is therefore to
L2 play for our speaker, she may use origin, temporarily or permanently, identify extralinguistic factors which
L2 terms to keep an emotional distance may in itself be enough to trigger can impact on the attritional process,
from a threatening situation. And lastly re-activation of such knowledge as and to determine the degree of their
it is very possible that, because of the can be re-activated. Theoretically, a impact. Ideally, it should be possible
development of medical knowledge, valid testing scenario would involve to arrive at a state of knowledge where
the English equivalents the speaker participants who have no such inten- these factors can be used in a predic-
knows may, for her, describe a con- tion, in the vague hope that they will, tive fashion: If a person is about to
ceptually very different condition at some point in the future, a) change emigrate, and if all their character-
than the German terms did at the time their mind, b) let the investigator know istics and circumstances are known,
that she was exposed to them: their about this and c) amidst the logistic our knowledge should allow us to
meaning might be frozen at the state problems and upheavals involved predict with a fair degree of accuracy
of medical insight with which she has with returning home make the time the degree to which this person’s L1
learned to associate them nearly 50 for a re-testing session. And then, of proficiency will have undergone attri-
years ago. Of course it might even be course, one would expect them to do tion, say, ten years later.
the case that her particular condition better on this re-testing anyway, due Among the factors to be looked at in
is a recently discovered one for which to what they learned during the first this respect are traditional sociolin-
no term existed at all at the time of her testing session. guistic background variables such as
emigration - and as she can never have We therefore cannot say whether dif- gender, education and age. Secondly,
learned it, it would be ridiculous to ferences we may observe between at- it is wise to include factors which have
claim that she had forgotten it. triters and non-attriters are temporary been shown to be important in other

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 areas of bilingualism, such as age at The role of second language acquisi- helpful. A small, loose-knit L1 social
onset as well as attitude and motiva- tion for the construction of identity, network may even have a detrimental
tion. And lastly, there are factors which particularly among migrants, has re- effect and accelerate language change.
are specific to this particular area of ceived much attention in recent dec- Most importantly, however, the op-
investigation, such as the length of ades. It has been demonstrated that portunity to use a language and the
time elapsed since the onset of the the wish to belong to a certain group willingness to do so are factors which
attritional process and the amount of is often among the most important interact in complex ways to determine
contact with and use of the L1 (for an predictors of success in L2 acquisition the process of language attrition. As
overview of research into these factors (e.g. Pavlenko 2005): someone who yet, our understanding of this interac-
see Köpke & Schmid 2004). has a deeply-felt love and admiration tion is quite limited.
Furthermore, it has become evident for Dutch society, and a desire to be
from research on language attrition as Dutch as possible, will probably
that even otherwise highly compa- eventually become better at speaking
rable speakers, who emigrated at the Dutch than someone who is perfectly References
same age, have lived in emigration comfortable with her present identity, Ammerlaan, T. (1996). “You get a bit wob-
bly...” – Exploring bilingual lexical retrieval
for roughly the same time span and who thinks that The Netherlands is a processes in the context of first language
have equal opportunities to use their quaint little country filled with tulips, attrition. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation,
L1, can vary dramatically as to the high tech and soft drugs, but has to Nijmegen: Katholieke Universiteit.
skill which they retain in their first learn some Dutch because she has to Ben-Rafael, M. & Schmid, M. S. (2007). Lan-
guage attrition and ideology. Two groups
language (e.g. Schmid 2002). The spend a couple of years in Rotterdam of immigrants in Israel. In B. Köpke, M. S.
reasons for this variation probably lie for her work. Schmid, M. Keijzer & S. Dostert (Eds), Lan-
in more subjective and emotional fac- The question of what happens to the guage Attrition. Theoretical perspectives (pp.
205- 226). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
tors: Emigration is a highly disruptive first language of a bilingual speaker or Köpke, B. & Schmid, M. S. (2004). First
event with far-reaching implications. a migrant is the other side of this coin, language attrition: The next phase. In M. S.
In some cases migration may be expe- and we might expect that the factors Schmid, B. Köpke, M. Keijzer & L. Weile-
rienced as a vastly positive occurrence, which influence eventual success in mar, L. (Eds), First Language Attrition:
Interdisciplinary perspectives on methodo-
which brings more prestige and a better foreign language learning may also logical issues (pp. 1-43). Amsterdam: John
standard of living, while in others it is have an impact on first language main- Benjamins.
a last resort to escape persecution and tenance or attrition (e.g. Ben Rafael & McCall Smith, A. (2003). The Full Cupboard
violence, demanding huge personal Schmid 2007). The assumption would of Life. London: Abacus.
Pavlenko, A. (2005). Emotions and Multilin-
and material sacrifices. then be that a migrant who has a strong gualism. Cambridge: CUP.
Whatever the situation, these circum- motivation to integrate into the host Schmid, M. S. (2002). First Language Attrition,
stances will interact with the migrant’s society will experience more attrition Use and Maintenance: The case of German
Jews in Anglophone countries. Amsterdam:
unique personality to bring about a than someone who is comfortable with John Benjamins.
particular outlook and a change in remaining a foreigner and somewhat
identity. A new start is always an op- of an outsider – all other things be-
portunity to redefine oneself, although ing equal. All other things, however,
the range of options may be wider in are seldom equal: Both in language Monika S. Schmid
some situations than in others. One acquisition and in language attrition, received her PhD in English Linguistics from
limitation that almost all migrants attitudes can interact with other fac- the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
experience to some degree is that mi- tors in ways which are complex and She is a Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the Ri-
jksuniversiteit Groningen, and her research
gration makes you a foreigner, that is difficult to predict. centres on bilingualism, migration and language
to say, an outsider. How an individual There are a number of factors which attrition. Alongside Prof. Kees de Bot, she is
responds to that, whether s/he wants will impact in different ways on the currently heading a project for the development
of bilingualism in immigrants which is funded
to shed that status as quickly as pos- process of L1 attrition. Frequent use by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific
sible and ‘blend in’, or whether the (interactive or receptive) of a particular Research.
feeling of difference is accepted and language may help to maintain the
embraced, has been shown to play native language system intact, and so
a large role towards predicting the may a positive attitude towards the
success of the language acquisition language or the speech community. On
process. We may reasonably expect the other hand, none of these factors
that the same circumstances may also may be enough in themselves, and not
affect language attrition. all exposure to the language may be

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