Language Attrition Research Archive
(LARA)
 
                                  AILA'96, 11th World Congress of Applied Linguistics; Jyväskylä, Finland; August 5, 1996. Lynne Hansen (Chair), Language attrition from cross-disciplinary perspectives.

Summaries
        Hansen, Lynne (Brigham Young University, Hawaii). Fitting the pieces together: attrition curves in the longterm loss of a second language.  The paper focuses on the longterm effects of nonuse on an L2 that had been learned by adults in a natural milieu. Cross-sectional Japanese data from 200 Americans (periods since departure from Japan varying from one to 40 years), provide evidence on attrition curves as they are found in hesitation phenomena, negation, and numeral classifiers.
     Russell, Robert. (Brigham Young University). Hesitation and repair behavior in L2 Japanese attrition.  The presentation reports on a detailed study of fillers and other pause- and repair-related behavior in the L2 Japanese speech of 20 English native speakers, elicited at three different points in time over a period of two years.
     Tomiyama, Machiko (Toyo Gakuen University). L2 attrition processes: a four-year case study of a Japanese returnee.      The paper summarizes the process of natural second language attrition in the first language environment based on a four-year longitudinal study of a Japanese returnee. It analyzes and discusses the process of lexical, morphological and syntactic attrition showing the gradual and fluctuating nature of attrition.
     Yoshitomi, Asako (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies). A case study of Japanese returnee children's loss of ESL: methodological and theoretical suggestions for future research.  This paper presents a case study of the attrition of ESL by Japanese returnees. Results indicate that overall coordinative communication skills are lost first. Suggestions are made that research design and methods be more multi-dimensional and theories be neurobiologically and psychologically plausible in the attempt to elucidate the mechanisms of language attrition.
     Yukawa, Emiko (Center for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University). L1 Japanese attrition: three case studies of two early bilingual children.  This paper reports three case studies of two bilingual children's L1 Japanese loss. The cases are: Child A in Hawaii (5:5-5:10), Child A in Stockholm (7:0-8:4) and Child B in Stockholm (3;10-5;3). The purpose of the study is to address the issue of 'age' and the role of 'processing' of the language system.
     Waas, Margit (National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan) Absence of sounds in language attrition.  Intragenerational L1 attrition in an L2 environment among adults was found to affect particularly their onomatopoeia, reflex responses and repartee. These features are entrenched by childhood but interviews with 86 German speakers in Australia showed that one decade after having left the L1 environment these characteristics are no longer habitually employed.