An Empirical Study Of English Attrition Among Senior 2 Students From The Perspective Of Dynamic Systems

Language attrition is the inverse process of language acquisition and refers to the decrease of language ability after stopping using a language.When the concept of language attrition was first introduced to linguistics by Richard Lambert,foreign researchers started to realize the importance of language attrition,and from then onwards research in this area has developed significantly.However,compared with foreign language attrition studies,the research is still in the initial stages of introducing foreign language attrition theory into applied linguistics’ research at home,and relatively few empirical studies have been conducted recently.To investigate the English attrition,this thesis is to carry out research among 102 grade 2 students in Mengzi No.4 Middle School in order to explore whether the participants will undergo English attrition after one and a half-month stop of formal English instruction and elucidate the phenomenon of English attrition and the related factors influencing English attrition from the perspective of DST(Dynamic Systems Theory).The following research instruments,the questionnaire for English Learning Motivation designed by Gao Yihong,are used to collect data and SPSS 23.0 is used to analyze the collected data.This thesis is to investigate the following 3 research questions:(1)After the stop of formal English instruction for a month and a half,will participants in this study have English attrition?(2)Do different pre-attrition English proficiency and gender influence English attrition variously?(3)Among eight factors of English learning motivation,which is the predictive indicator of restraining English attrition?The research results can be concluded as:(1)The comprehensive language skills of the participants suffer apparent attrition after the stop of formal English instruction for a month and a half,but the English attrition rate among all the participants is different;(2)The English attrition rate of participants with different pre-attrition English proficiency is different and presents the negative correlation with pre-attrition English proficiency,that is to say,English attrition rate of high initial English proficiency group is lower than that of low initial proficiency group.There are significant differences in gender influence on English attrition.Female subjects tend to retain English attrition much better than male subjects;(3)Integrative motivation has an influence on fighting against English attrition among the eight factors of English learning motivation.