An Investigation Into English Noun Attrition Among College Students Of Non-English Majors In The Chinese Context

Since the conference “The Loss of Language skills” held at the University ofPennsylvania in1980, research into language attrition, opposed to languageacquisition emerges as a relatively new enterprise in Applied Linguistics. Over thepast thirty years, a great number of profound scholars on language attrition emergedin foreign countries. They published fruitful books and articles, figured out somevariables affecting language attrition and some linguistic features of the attritedelements, and perfected a series of research methods. However, language attritionresearch in China is too rare in comparison with those researches in foreign countries.Scholars in China tend to introduce theories and results of foreign research. In recentyears, there are some scholars in China who are inclined to discuss the theories oflanguage attrition actively.Due to significant role of vocabulary in language acquisition, researchers abroadconducted a considerable amount of research into vocabulary attrition mainlyfocusing on the effect of lexical factors such as word class, cognate status, frequencyand sociolinguistic factors such as the length of period of disuse, literacy, attitudinalfactors on vocabulary attrition. In China, attempt has been made to explore Englishvocabulary attrition among Chinese college students or high school students. Thisthesis aims to carry out a study on English nouns attrition in Chinese context andintends to find out the effect of the length of period of disuse, vocabulary knowledge,concreteness on English nouns attrition.This thesis investigates attrition of nouns among college students of non-Englishmajors in China after3-month disuse.37junior students majoring in Japanese inOcean University of China took part in the experiment.40nouns made up of20concrete nouns and20abstract nouns were selected from the passages A of fourvolumes of Experienced English(Integrated Coursebook). With a view to measuringthe productive and receptive vocabulary knowledge of the subjects respectively, twodifferent vocabulary tests, that is, blank-filling test(Test A) and multi-choiceclose(Test B), were used. The subjects were measured at two points in time: at the endof the third academic year, three months later. For each time, the same vocabulary testpapers were used. Thus, the research design was2(the length of period of disuse:Time1and Time2)*2(vocabulary knowledge: productive vocabulary knowledge andreceptive vocabulary knowledge)*2(concreteness: concrete nouns and abstract nouns).After that, the results were analyzed quantitatively by SPSS16.0.The major findings of the thesis are as follows:1) the length of three-monthdisuse plays a role in attrition of English nouns.2)Productive noun knowledge ismuch easier to be lost than receptive noun knowledge.3) the effect of concreteness on noun attrition is significant. Moreover, abstract nouns are more prone to attrition thanconcrete nouns after three-month disuse.4) as for the interactive effect of the threeindependent variables, there exists significant difference in the interactive effect ofvocabulary knowledge and concreteness. Furthermore, while concrete nouns inreceptive testing remain best, abstract nouns in productive testing are the mostsusceptible to attrition. Besides, there is no significant difference in the interactiveeffect of the length of period of disuse and vocabulary knowledge, the length ofperiod of disuse and concreteness. Lastly, significant interactive effect among thelength of period of disuse, vocabulary knowledge and concreteness does not existneither.