A Study On English Lexical Attrition Among Chinese Vocational College Students

The existence of language not only has characteristic of acquisition, but also has characteristic of attrition. Language attrition is the unavoidable process for language users because it is the reverse process of language acquisition. Language attrition occurs when people lose fluency in their native language as a result of becoming bilingual or multilingual. It was first formally recognized as a field of academic research at The conference on the Attrition of Language Skills at the University of Pennsylvania in1980. Since this conference, the term "language attrition" was recognized as a field in the research of second language acquisition. Since then, various research papers have been published. Language attrition can be generally categorized into two kinds:first language attrition and second language attrition. And there are also various branches of language attrition, such as lexical attrition, grammatical attrition, phonetic attrition and so on. Lexicon is one of the basic elements of language and foundation of language learning. It is widely accepted that lexical knowledge is probably one of the most vulnerable aspects of the language system, without which nothing can be expressed. Lexical attrition means attrition of semantic distinctions and performance ability of lexicon by second language learners. In the present study, this thesis put much emphasis on the lexical attrition of the language learners, who have terminated their formal English language training program under the Chinese environment.For this purpose,80second-year non-English major students were selected from Wuhan Technical College of Communications. Three research instruments, the lexical tests, questionnaire and students’ interview, were used in this study. The data collection to establish the subjects’ baseline started in June. The follow-up started start three months later. This thesis was conducted in a period of three months, in which80non-English major freshmen from2intact classed in Wuhan Technical College of Communications participated. Through lexical tests, questionnaire and students’ interview, the research aims to find out the situation of lexical attrition among the students. Firstly, the study tried to learn the degree of students’ lexical attrition through two same lexical tests with three month’s interval between them. Then, it tried to find out students’ understandings and awareness of lexical attrition by the questionnaire and students’ interview. Lastly, on the basis of the above findings, the thesis tried to carry out some effective ways and strategies for both students and teachers to reduce lexical attrition and improve and consolidate the vocabulary level of students.The major findings of this research are as follows:(1) There is an obvious lexical attrition among the subjects after the three-month’s non-exposure to English.(2) Both high-frequency word and low-frequency word suffer low lexical attrition rate.(3) Word length has no decisive influence on lexical attrition. The longest words have the lowest attrition rate. And the phrases have the highest attrition rate.(4) Few students know the term "lexical attrition", but most of them think that they themselves have experienced big lexical attrition and the main reasons for their lexical attrition are internal factors such as the previous language proficiency and learning motivation. Some external factors, like the teacher’s ways of teaching vocabulary also play a part.The above research findings have practical significance in English vocabulary teaching and learning among vocational colleges. From teachers’aspect, during the process of teaching English vocabulary, they should fully make their students aware that the phenomenon of lexical attrition is common, and introduce the knowledge of lexicology to students and teach them how to memorize words effectively according to different vocabulary classification, choosing the right teaching methods of teaching vocabulary which are well fitted for students and can satisfy students’learning interests and improving the chances and frequency of using learned words both in class and after class. From students’aspect, they should aware the existence of lexical attrition, change the bad habit and attitude of learning, and try their best to reach the critical threshold to reduce attrition. They should find their own learn ways to create opportunities for language practice in order to avoid lexical attrition. Meanwhile, it is very important to frequently review the words which are susceptible to attrition.