An Empirical Study On The Attrition Sequence Of English Lexicon In Chinese Context

The study of foreign language attrition is a relatively new field in applied linguistics. The conference titled "Loss of Language Skills" held in the University of Pennsylvania in1980marked the emergence of the study of language attrition as a new discipline. During the thirty years followed, language attrition has received great and extensive attention by foreign researchers, and magnificent achievements have been made in various aspects. However, compared with the prosperous situation abroad, the studies of language attrition at home are relatively fewer. Of all these studies, most were theoretical studies. Among the few empirical studies, although the study of lexical attrition is heated, there were no studies on lexical attrition of high-proficiency learners in a short span of attriting time. What’s more, in the past researches, the academic background information of the subjects usually differed much from each other, and the influencing factors were not well controlled. For instance, the span of attriting time was large, and the proficiency levels of the subjects were distinct from one another. As a result, the representativeness and typicality of the subjects were severely diminished.Therefore, the current study chose the high-proficiency learners as subjects, and investigated their short-time lexical attrition, aiming to discover whether the Regression Hypothesis justifies the attrition of English lexicon in Chinese context. What’s more, certain linguistic features as well as some individual factors were also under investigation to find out their influences on lexical attrition in Chinese context.The present study carried out an empirical research among116Chinese graduates with a vocabulary test and a questionnaire. All graduates were advanced English learners who had at least passed CET4, and their mean attrition time was within4years. The results obtained in this study are:(1) the Regression Hypothesis justifies the attrition of English lexicon in Chinese context, i.e., the earlier learned words are better retained and less likely to be attrited.(2) The linguistic features under investigation include word class, imageability, and synformy. No significant influence was found in word class, while the other two features were proved to have influences on lexical attrition in Chinese context.(3) As for individual factors, all four factors, namely proficiency level before attrition, time since onset of attrition, exposure to target language, and gender, showed an influence on lexical attrition of the subjects.Based on the findings above, suggestions and implications are given to shed light on the teaching and learning of English vocabulary in Chinese context. Words with certain linguistic features should be paid special attention as they are more easily attrited; language learners should aim to achieve high proficiency level, and keep in touch with target language after formal training.