Abstract
This review aims at clarifying the concept of first language attrition by tracing its limits, identifying its phenomenological and contextual constraints, discussing controversies associated with its definition, and suggesting potential future directions. We start by reviewing different definitions of attrition as well as associated inconsistencies. We then discuss the underlying mechanisms of first language attrition and review available evidence supporting different background hypotheses. Finally, we attempt to provide the groundwork to build a unified theoretical framework allowing for generalizable results. To this end, we suggest the deployment of a rigorous neuroscientific approach, in search of neural markers of first language attrition in different linguistic domains, putting forward hypothetical experimental ways to identify attrition's neural traces and formulating predictions for each of the proposed experimental paradigms.
Highlights
We live in an increasingly globalized world whose one inalienable feature is continuously growing international migration
The existing literature provides ample evidence that this leads to a constant interplay between the first and the second language (L1, L2) at the levels of phonology (Goldrick et al, 2014), lexicon (Malt et al, 2015), and grammar (Hartsuiker et al, 2004)
L1 and L2 are reciprocal: do specific features of L1 affect the use of L2 [e.g., Hamada and Koda, 2008; Ionin and Montrul, 2010; Rasier and Hiligsmann, 2007), but performance in the native language changes under the influence of L2 (e.g., Gürel, 2004; Schmid and Jarvis, 2014; de Leeuw, 2017; Kasparian and Steinhauer, 2017)]
Summary
We live in an increasingly globalized world whose one inalienable feature is continuously growing international migration. UN DESA data suggest that international migration continues to grow year-on-year: it doubled in the last 20 years to reach 260 million in 2017 (United Nations, 2018). In the United States alone, the international migrant population approaches 50 million people. An inevitable product of mass migration is bi- and multilingualism—it is estimated that more than half of the world’s population speak two or more languages (Ansaldo et al, 2008). One of the key features of bi- and multilingualism is the necessity for the speakers to manage the simultaneous processing of two or more distinct languages. Most importantly for the purposes of this paper, interactions between
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