<Original>Reverse Language Attrition Observed in Japanese Returnee Students' English Productive Skills

概要

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This study is to examine the linguistic attributes of L2 language attrition of Japanese returnee children from English speaking countries. Four experiments were conducted to grasp overall language proficiency with specific skills elicited ranging from productive oral story-telling and writing to receptive reading, listening comprehension as well as English/Japanese vocabulary. The specific psycholinguistic aspects looked at were (1) linguistic features such as number of words used, T-units, MLU, TTR, (2) duration of intra-sentential pauses, and (3) features of writing samples taken by TOWL. These data, together with the subjects' language background data, were analysed and discussed in light of the 3 research questions raised in this study: (a) Does attrition take place even when the returnee children stay in touch with English in only 4 to 5 one-hour long lessons a week? (b) Does attaining high proficiency before attrition sets in lead to slower and less attrition? (c) The longer the period of the time after leaving an English speaking country, is more attrition observed? The outcome of this study, although only cross-sectionally done at this stage, is expected to be of some help in developing practical measures to help Japanese returnee children maintain their L2.
福井大学の論文
2000-12-20