An Empirical Study On The Attrition Of English Skills In Chinese Context

Language attrition is known as the inverse process of language acquisition,which means that a bilingual or multilingual’s language proficiency regresses withtime due to the reduction or cease of use. The study of language attrition has been firstformally acknowledged as an independent academic research field since theconference at the University of Pennsylvania in1980. The investigation of languageattrition include a wide spectrum of languages, mainly in American, European as wellas Japanese context. However, language attrition in China obtains limited attentioncompared with its popularity abroad. There have been few domestic scholarsreporting any reserach into langauge attrition of Chinese students except severalliterature review essays. Furthermore, no observations have been observed abroad onthe attrition of English as a second or foreign language in Chinese context. Thepresent investigation of the attrition of Chinese English learners helps evaluatewhether the existing hypotheses are applicable in the Chinese context.The aim of the present study is to explore the attrition degree and pattern ofEnglish major graduates and analyze different variables that affect English attrition inChina. If attrition actually exists, to what degree and in what pattern? How are thedifferent aspects of English skills affected by attrition? How does the initialproficiency level affect English attrition in Chinese context? How does the amount ofexposure to English affect attrition? These are all the questions to be dealt with in thisthesis.The present investigation select English major graduates as subjects based on theliterature review of previous theoretical and empirical studies and the specificpurposes of the present study. These participants have graduated in different years andcome from different working backgrounds. The cross-sectional paradigm is adopted inthe present study with the aid of longitudinal method. Two research instruments, thequestionnaire and the proficiency test were used to collect data in the study, which isfurther analyzed by Excel and SPSS.The findings of the investigation can be concluded as follows:(1) Englishattrition for English major graduates actually exists, both at their general language skills and their specific language skills such as listening, reading, as well as thetranslation and writing. The dynamic process of language attrition experiences amodel of “rapid attrition (within2years)-stable period (2nd–6thyear)-rapid attrition(6thyear and onward)”. As to specific language skills concerned, productive skills(writing and translation) are found to be more vulnerable to attrition than receptiveskills (listening and reading) in the present study.(2) With respect to the role of initialproficiency in the process of attrition, the high proficiency group exhibits moreattrition rate than low proficiency group. The present investigation supports theexistence of “Critical Threshold”.(3) It is revealed that attrition rate is negativelycorrelated with exposure to English. Thus the way and amount of exposure to Englishhave a strong effect on the attrition degree of English learners.