Linguistic Features Of Attrited English Vocabulary Learned In Chinese Context

Being a relatively new and ambitious area of language research, language attrition has won increasing popularity among many researchers. A substantial amount of studies with various focuses has been carried out in the field of language attrition from a diverse range of dimensions since the conference on the topic Loss of Language Skills is held at the University of Pennsylvania in 1980. Due to the importance of vocabulary in linguistic researches, a series of studies abroad have been dedicated to the attrition research on vocabulary. However, as language attrition studies at home are still at the stage of theory-introducing, few studies are conducted under the subject of vocabulary attrition, and related empirical studies remain unobserved domestically.Therefore, reporting an empirical study on English vocabulary proficiency, this thesis intends to verify whether the widely used language attrition theories, namely, Regression Hypothesis and selectivity theory, can be supported by the data obtained in the study of attrition of English vocabulary learned in Chinese context as well as characterizing those attrited words in terms of a series of linguistic features. Specifically, three key research questions are thus addressed: (1) Will Regression Hypothesis justify the attrition of English vocabulary learned in Chinese context? (2) Is certain group of vocabulary more susceptible to attrition? (3) What are the relationships between the linguistic features and the attrition of English vocabulary learned in Chinese context?The subjects investigated in this study are 128 Chinese former graduates who have learned English as a foreign language. The instrument adopted is a vocabulary test consisting of 500 test items. The results obtained in this thesis suggest: (1) attrition of English vocabulary learned in Chinese context also echoes with Jakobson's Regression Hypothesis, that is, English vocabulary learned in university is more likely to suffer attrition than that learned in middle school. (2) Selectivity is justified in the attrition of English vocabulary learned in Chinese context. (3) All the linguistic features discussed in the thesis are believed to have influences on the attrition of English vocabulary learned in Chinese context—with an exception of word class. Among the features that affect the English vocabulary attrition, synformy is considered the most powerful one in predicting the attrition possibility. It is acknowledged that synforms are most likely to be prone to attrition. Moreover, length (in terms of letter) is recognized as the second powerful predictor in the present study which claims that the longer the word is, the more vulnerable to attrition it will be. Besides, frequency, text coverage and index for choosing words are identified as significant features in determining the attrition of English vocabulary, for words of lower frequency, or smaller text coverage, or lower index are more sensitive to attrition.Based on the findings, implications and suggestions on vocabulary teaching and learning are dealt with in this thesis. The words of high index are suggested to be the focuses of teaching and learning. For those words most likely to suffer attrition, teachers are expected to help learners to consolidate their knowledge of those words by introducing some mnemonics or other strategies that can produce strong memory traces. In addition to teacher-supplied strategies, learners are also expected to develop their own methods that encourage better retention. Moreover, they are required to timely review those old and new words which have potential to be prone to attrition.