Abstract
This study aims to investigate the attrition rate of EFL concrete and abstract vocabulary among continuing and non-continuing Iranian female and male English language learners across different proficiency levels. They are students of a University and majored in different fields (between 20 and 25 years old). There was no treatment in this study where the researcher compared two groups on the same variables. Hence, the design of the current study is an ex-post facto design. A 40-item vocabulary test which varied across two proficiency levels are used to measure rate of vocabulary attrition as the instrument of this research. In the two stages, after an interval of three months, the students are taken the same tests. The results revealed that there was no significant difference between EFL attrition rate of abstract and concrete nouns among the continuing students across different proficiency levels. However, this hypothesis was rejected for the non-continuing learners at intermediate and advanced proficiency level.
Highlights
The study of language attrition has recently emerged as a new field of study
The findings of this research indicated that the continuing students do not undergo significant attrition of the abstract and concrete nouns, whereas non-continuing students undergo a significant attrition of the abstract and concrete nouns across different proficiency level
The results of this study are in contrast with what De Groot and Keijzer (2000, as cited in Ross, 2002) have proved that attrition of abstract nouns does not take place faster than the concrete nouns
Summary
The conception of loss in language skills occurred in a conference at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in 1980. This conference was dedicated to the theoretical basis of research in the field of language attrition and other related conferences that probed the process of language loss as a natural disorder from many other perspectives. In terms of language learning, researchers have used the same definition to develop a framework which involved divergent methods of data collection, sampling and instrumentation on language attrition in papers and publications. Under some conditions, attriters can retrieve the required information but in other conditions they cannot
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