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

For a bilingual or multilingual, the language ability or skill will gradually regress with the reduction or termination of using a certain language. This phenomenon is called language attrition. Abundant achievements have been yielded in language attrition research both at home and abroad in the past50years or so. However, research on language attrition at home developed rather slowly when compared with those abroad.The present study conducts a cross-sectional investigation into attrition features of12English prefixes in Chinese context. It aims to explore the attrition sequence of prefixes by analyzing the research data collected from a group of199Chinese EFL learners and ultimately verify Jakobson’s Regression Hypothesis. Besides, five principal factors which may affect attrition are analyzed and discussed. Based on the research purposes, two research questions are proposed:(1) What is the attrition sequence of prefixes for Chinese EFL learners? Will it justify Regression Hypothesis in Chinese context?(2) What are the major factors affecting the attrition of prefixes?Finally, with the help of SPSS19.0, the following major findings are achieved:in Chinese context, the attrition sequence of English prefixes reverses to that of acquisition, following the "First acquired, last attrited; last acquired, first attrited" pattern, which justifies the Regression Hypothesis. Moreover, some factors are found to have impact on English prefixes attrition:(1) Proficiency level prior to attrition. Subjects with higher proficiency level show a better retention than those with lower level.(2) Length of time since onset of attrition. In general, subjects with different length of attrition time suffer from different degrees of prefixes attrition.(3) Gender. Female subjects show a better retention of English prefixes than male subjects.(4) Exposure to target language. The more subjects are exposed to target language, the less English prefixes attrition occurs.(5) L3learning experience. L3learning experience is found to have some positive influence on the retention of second language.