First Language Attrition

Herbert W. Seliger, Robert M. Vago

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 1991
• ISBN:
  9780511873089
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

First Language Attrition examines linguistic aspects of the attrition or loss of first language abilities in bilinguals through a collection of studies in various language groups. The phenomena of attrition are examined at both the individual bilingual and societal levels. This volume is divided into three sections: Part I surveys different aspects of existing empirical evidence to arrive at theoretical generalisations about language attrition. Part II comprises group studies examining attrition in societal bilingualism or in groups of bilingual individuals. Part III contains individual case studies of bilingual children and adults. The research reported in this text investigates first language attrition in a variety of linguistic areas such as syntax, morphology, semantics, phonology and lexicon with the following first languages: Spanish, German, Hebrew, Dyirbal, English, Breton, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, French and Pennsylvania German. Although there is growing interest in bilingualism, this is the first work to examine the effects of the acquisition of a second language on linguistic abilities in the first language.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgment
• Part I Survey studies
• 1 The study of first language attrition: an overview
• 2 First language attrition and the parameter setting model
• 3 Recapitulation, regression, and language loss
• 4 First language loss in bilingual and polyglot aphasics
• 5 A crosslinguistic study of language contact and language attrition
• Part II Group studies
• 6 LI loss in an L2 environment: Dutch immigrants in France
• 7 The sociolinguistic and patholinguistic attrition of Breton phonology, morphology, and morphonology
• 8 Language attrition in Boumaa Fijian and Dyirbal
• 9 Pennsylvania German: convergence and change as strategies of discourse
• 10 Lexical retrieval difficulties in adult language attrition
• 11 Spanish language attrition in a contact situation with English
• Part III Case studies
• 12 Morphological disintegration and reconstruction in first language attrition
• 13 Assessing first language vulnerability to attrition
• 14 Compensatory strategies of child first language attrition
• 15 Language attrition, reduced redundancy, and creativity
• 16 Paradigmatic regularity in first language attrition
• Index