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What is the source of L1 attrition? The effect of recent L1 re-exposure on Spanish speakers under L1 attrition

Chamorro, Gloria, Sorace, Antonella, Sturt, Patrick (2016) What is the source of L1 attrition? The effect of recent L1 re-exposure on Spanish speakers under L1 attrition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19 (3). pp. 520-532. ISSN 1366-7289. E-ISSN 1469-1841. (doi:10.1017/S1366728915000152) (KAR id:48565)

Abstract

The recent hypothesis that L1 attrition affects the ability to process interface structures but not knowledge representations (Sorace, 2011) is tested by investigating the effects of recent L1 re-exposure on antecedent preferences for Spanish pronominal subjects, using offline judgements and online eye-tracking measures. Participants included a group of native Spanish speakers experiencing L1 attrition (‘attriters’), a second group of attriters exposed exclusively to Spanish before they were tested (‘re-exposed’), and a control group of Spanish monolinguals. The judgement data shows no significant differences between the groups. Moreover, the monolingual and re-exposed groups are not significantly different from each other in the eye-tracking data. The results of this novel manipulation indicate that attrition effects decrease due to L1 re-exposure, and that bilinguals are sensitive to input changes. Taken together, the findings suggest that attrition affects online sensitivity with interface structures rather than causing a permanent change in speakers’ L1 knowledge representations.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1017/S1366728915000152
Uncontrolled keywords: L1 attrition, L1 re-exposure, eye-tracking, subject pronouns, Spanish
Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
P Language and Literature > PC Romance philology and languages
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Gloria Chamorro
Date Deposited: 18 May 2015 15:11 UTC
Last Modified: 28 Sep 2021 15:52 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/48565 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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