| Lambert formally proposed language attrition at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States in 1980. Since then language attrition has become an interesting issue for scholars and linguists. Scholars of language teaching and language acquisition abroad have done systematical researches on language features due to attrition and their influential factors. After 30 years' development, although fruitful results have been achieved, much remains to be done in its theoretical respect. At the beginning of the new millennium, a few researchers in foreign language teaching and psychology in China began to pay attention to language attrition and they became aware that language attrition plays a key role in foreign language teaching. But they introduced some research achievements abroad to China and hardly did any researches on ethnic minority college students' Chinese attrition, particularly in Xin Jiang Uighur Autonomous Region.The present study adopts both quantitative and qualitative methods in the research on Uighur undergraduates of Kashgar University and Tarim University in terms of their Chinese attrition in southern Xin Jiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Altogether 120 students, of whom 92 girls and 28 boys were involved. The research attempts to answer the following 7 questions:(1) After a decade of systematical regular Chinese learning and a year's study of English as major, does attrition occur in their Chinese input skills listening and reading and output skill writing? If it does, to what extent?(2) Does their language attitude affect their Chinese attrition as to the three skills listening, reading and writing? If it does, to what extent?(3) In what way do students' different motivation types affect their Chinese attrition?(4) In what way does the time of contact with Chinese affect their Chinese attrition after a decade of systematical regular Chinese learning and a year's study of English as major?(5) In what way does their original Chinese proficiency affect their Chinese attrition in listening, reading and writing skills respectively?(6) In what way does gender affect their Chinese attrition in listening, reading and writing skills respectively?(7) Does their one-year study of English as major affect their Chinese attrition? If it does, what are the actual language errors? And what causes them?The research instruments employed in this study include three questionnaires related to such variables, as gender, Chinese language learning motivation, learning attitude and the time of contact with Chinese after regular learning and a year's study of English as major; MHK pre-test and posttest, the Chinese proficiency test for ethnic minority students and an interview. The test includes four parts, namely, speaking, listening, reading and writing, and each part consists of items for 100 points, totaling 400 points. After the post test, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 36 students falling into two groups,18 of them showing higher level of Chinese language attrition and another 18 student's lower level of attrition.This study collected all the data by SPSS 18.0.The author analyzed all the data both quantitatively and quantitatively. The major findings are as follows:(1) After a decade of systematical regular Chinese learning and a year's study of English as major, attrition occurred affecting these students input skills listening and reading and output skill writing with greatest attrition in output skill writing and least attrition in input skill reading. The extent of attrition of the three skills can be indicated as:writing> reading listening.(2) Students' language attitude influences Chinese attrition. Students with positive attitude show lower level of attrition than those with negative attitude. Of the three skills, however, students with positive attitude show greater attrition in listening and writing than in reading.(3) The motivation questionnaire shows that most of the students are instrumentally motivated, altogether 79 students in all,32 students are situationally motivated, only 9 students culturally motivated. Those students with cultural motivation demonstrate least attrition in their Chinese.(4) The time of contact with Chinese after regular curricular study also affects students'attrition, i.e. the more they contact Chinese the less attrition they show.(5) Students'original proficiency level of Chinese affects attrition, those with higher proficiency showing less attrition than those with lower proficiency.(6) Gender also has effect on students' Chinese attrition, with male students showing a higher level of attrition in listening and reading than female students but neither sex shows any difference in writing.(7) The study of English as major is found to affect students' attrition in writing mainly in three general aspects:language fluency, language accuracy and complexity of sentence structure. The result of the research is mainly manifested in the following ten aspects. Firstly, students'Chinese vocabulary has decreased. In the pre-composition-writing test, each student uses 398 words on average while in the post composition writing test each student uses 197 words on average. Secondly, in the pre-composition-writing test, when students wanted words they do not know, they resorted to Chinese pinyin while in the post composition writing test in such circumstances, they used English letters or words. Thirdly, in the pre-test the error of sentence structure is subject+ object+ the predicate, which is mainly influenced by Uighur students' mother tongue. In the post test, the errors that are influenced by native language decreased, mainly affected by English grammar. Fourthly, in the post test, when students used adverbial clause of reason and the conditional clause, due to the influence of English, they like to put the main clause before the subordinate clause. In the pre-test there is no this kind of situation. Combined with the interview results, the reason is mainly due to the influence of English learning. Fifthly, in terms of quantifier errors, in the pre-test students have 27 errors and in the post test students have 197 errors. This is probably because English has no quantifiers but numbers. Sixthly, because of the influence of English grammar, students tend to use more passive sentences, for example, in the pretest students use 62 passive sentences in all while in the post test they use 122 passive sentences. Seventhly, in terms of small sentences using words, students use 18 words in each sentence on average in the pretest while they use 13 words in each sentence on average in the post test, which indicate that students' Chinese writing fluency have declined. Eighthly, The complexity of the sentence structure. Students use 5 complexity sentences in pre-test on average while they use 2 complexity sentences in the post test, which indicate that the usages of the complexity sentence have declined. Ninthly, language accuracy. There are altogether 5120 errors in the pre-test while there are altogether 10414 errors in the post test. The numbers of errors have increased. Lastly, from the perspective of the overall quality of the composition, the average score is 53.6 in the pre-test while the average score is 29.3 in the post test. It shows that students' composition language quality have declined as a whole.The originality of this study is justified in three aspects.1. Study sphere and subjects. The author introduces the study of language attrition to Xin Jiang Uighur Autonomous Region for the first time. This is the first study of Chinese attrition of ethnic minority college students in China.2. Domestic research method is relatively single, mainly using quantitative method. This study in the perspective of multidimensional, integrated use of the linguistics, ethnology, statistics, psychology, pedagogy, sociology and economics, and other muti-disciplinary theories. This study employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, literature method, statistics-driven method, and comparative analysis.3. Study scope. This study covers a variety of variables affecting attrition, including language attitudes, motivation, language exposure, original language proficiency level, and gender. In addition, this study lists, classifies and analyses the actual errors related to students attrition in Chinese.The main contribution of this study is both theoretical and practical. Theoretically, this study firstly extends and deepens the area of second language attrition. Secondly, the study improves and verifies the related language attrition theories. Thirdly, the study has made an effort to redefine language attrition, which gives enlightenment for future study. Fourthly, on the basis of existing researches and the local actual situation, this study has developed tools of measurement of higher reliability and validity such as learning attitude, learning motivation and Chinese exposure.Practically, this study firstly helps to improve Chinese and English education policies in Southern Xin Jiang Uighur Autonomous Region in order to avoid resources waste. Secondly, this study can help to cultivate "excellent Chinese-English" talents adaptable to the economic development of the region. Thirdly, this study may enable ethnic minority English majors to keep a good relationship between English study and Chinese learning. Fourthly, this study may give enlightenment to trilingual teaching in ethnic minority area. Fifthly, this study will supply good reference for researches on other ethnic minority language attrition.Sixthly this study give enlightenment for developing local and professional teaching materials. |
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