First Language Attrition and Dominance: Same Same or Different?

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Bilingualism Studies
• Language Acquisition and Attrition

Background:

• Language dominance, the relative availability of a bilingual's languages, is understood to change throughout life.
• First language (L1) attrition and dominance shifts may represent different stages of the same phenomenon.
• Precise time scales for dominance shifts and attrition remain under-researched.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the time scales of language dominance shifts and L1 attrition.
• To examine the relationship between immediate language use context and these linguistic phenomena.
• To compare attrition effects over a 5-year period in a longitudinal case study.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal case study of a near-native L2-German, L1-Bulgarian bilingual speaker.
• Analysis of pronominal subject production in spontaneous speech.
• Data collection in Germany and Bulgaria over 17 years, including periods of L1 re-exposure.

Main Results:

• Initial L1 attrition (higher overt subject rate) resolved within 3 weeks of L1 re-exposure.
• After 17 years of immigration, L1 production remained monolingual-like in both language environments.
• Attrition and dominance shifts are highly sensitive to immediate language use context and can change rapidly.

Conclusions:

• Language attrition and dominance shifts are temporary phenomena, rapidly reversible with re-exposure or balanced L1 use.
• The time scales for these changes are shorter than previously assumed.
• Dominance shift and attrition likely share similar mechanisms and are influenced by external factors, suggesting they are stages of a single process.