Abstract
The field of second language acquisition (SLA) is by nature of its subject a highly interdisciplinary area of research. Learning a (foreign) language, for example, involves encoding new words, consolidating and committing them to long-term memory, and later retrieving them. All of these processes have direct parallels in the domain of human memory and have been thoroughly studied by researchers in that field. Yet, despite these clear links, the two fields have largely developed in parallel and in isolation from one another. The present article aims to promote more cross-talk between SLA and memory science. We focus on foreign language (FL) attrition as an example of a research topic in SLA where the parallels with memory science are especially apparent. We discuss evidence that suggests that competition between languages is one of the mechanisms of FL attrition, paralleling the interference process thought to underlie forgetting in other domains of human memory. Backed up by concrete suggestions, we advocate the use of paradigms from the memory literature to study these interference effects in the language domain. In doing so, we hope to facilitate future cross-talk between the two fields and to further our understanding of FL attrition as a memory phenomenon.
Highlights
In 2016, more than 60% of adult European citizens were able to speak at least one foreign language (FL; European Commission—Eurostat, 2016)
We have argued that the use of memory paradigms for the study of attrition has a number of advantages over more traditional approaches
Not surprisingly, been reported to be less affected by attrition than non-cognates (e.g., Weltens, 1988). This assumption is in line with interference theory: since cognates share form and meaning, there is no need to suppress the translation equivalent when retrieving a cognate in the target FL
Summary
In 2016, more than 60% of adult European citizens were able to speak at least one foreign language (FL; European Commission—Eurostat, 2016). With multilingualism on the rise, learning foreign languages (FLs) is so common these days, it is often taken for granted. Being able to formulate sentences in any language requires knowledge of its words and grammatical structures, all of which have to first be encoded, and consolidated and integrated into long-term memory. All of these processes are common to other types of learning as well and are underpinned by the same fundamental memory processes. Despite the obvious overlap between second language processing and memory function, the empirical investigations of the two have often gone on in parallel; and so for a long time the fields of second language acquisition (SLA) and memory
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