Abstract
This contribution presents an overview of current issues in language attrition research. The first section is concerned with terminological issues and the importance of distinguishing the phenomenon of attrition, which affects individual speakers, from societal processes of change, such as language shift and death. We then turn to questions concerning the age at onset, distinguishing attrition and incomplete acquisition on the one hand, and attrition and bilingualism effects on the other. The second section of the paper presents insights into the attritional process from the perspective of neuropsycholinguistics. It is argued that the phenomena witnessed in the attritional process cannot be regarded as evidence for an erosion of underlying knowledge, but are more convincingly explained from the perspective of the activation and inhibition of that knowledge, with particular importance given to phenomena that concern lexical access and fluency in free speech.
| Translated title of the contribution | The attrition of the first language as a psycholinguistic phenomenon |
|---|---|
| Original language | French |
| Pages (from-to) | 197-220 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | LIA Language, Interaction and Acquisition |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2011 |