An Empirical Study On The Attrition Of English Simple Past Tense In Chinese Context

Language attrition, the reverse process of language acquisition, refers to the phenomenon that the language ability or skill of a bilingual or multilingual gradually regresses due to the reduction or cease of using a certain language. Since "the Loss of Language Skills" conference held in1980, language attrition has been regarded as an independent field and it has been growing prosperous with fruitful achievements. However, the research in China started relatively late, and it is limited both in the contents and the amount. Therefore, the present study is needed to enrich the research of language attrition.This study aims at investigating the attrition of English simple past tense, including its attrition order as well as a series of influencing factors. And it also plans to test the Regression Hypothesis by comparing the attrition order with the acquisition order (a perspective of lexical aspect), thus providing more evidence for this hypothesis. Besides, some implications will be presented for both the teaching and learning of English in the future. Based on these specific purposes, the following specific research questions are proposed:(1) What is the attrition order of English simple past tense? Can it justify the Regression Hypothesis?(2) What are the major factors affecting the attrition of simple past tense?To answer the mentioned questions, an attrition questionnaire is designed on the basis of a corresponding acquisition questionnaire. And the questionnaires are distributed among195participants who graduated from universities or colleges years ago. After collecting and analyzing the data, the following conclusions are obtained:(1) The Chinese adult learners whose foreign language is English do suffer from the attrition of simple past tense. And the attrition order is in accordance with "first learned, last forgotten"; the order obtained has verified the validity of the Regression Hypothesis, providing it with strong supports from the perspective of Chinese context.(2) The attrition of learners’simple past tense is mainly influenced by the following factors:The proficiency level prior to attrition:Learners with a higher proficiency level are more resistant to attrition, compared with those with a lower proficiency level. Exposure to English:The more one is exposed to English, the less the attrition of simple past tense occurs. Cross-linguistic influence:Learners who have learned a third language, such as Japanese, Korean, French, German, and Russian, suffer from less attrition of simple past tense.