Can language attrition be reversed: Evidence from speech perception and production

Language attrition is the change of a first language (L1) when speakers are exposed to a different language. We examine attrition in the domain of phonetic and phonology by looking at how immersion into the L2 speaking environment influences speech perception and production. We also examine if it can be reversed. We asked 45 late Polish-English bilinguals immersed in the L1 environment and 45 late Polish-English bilinguals immersed long-term in L2 environment (migrants to the UK) to produce L1 words containing /p/ and /b/ - a contrast realised differently in the two languages. We also tested their perception of those sounds in L1 with behavioural and electrophysiological (EEG) perceptual tasks. This investigated whether native speech perception and production are sensitive to differences in the language environment and whether these domains are affected to the same degree. The group of migrants living in the UK was retested upon a short-term re-immersion into the L1-speaking speaking environment (holidays in Poland), to see if L1 attrition is reversible when the language environment is changed even for a short period of time. The findings showed that the UK group produced the L1 sounds differently than the Poland-based group upon long-term L2 immersion, but when re-immersed to the L1-speaking environment, their pronunciation became more native-like. The perception of L1 sound categories was also different for the UK group and this change was not reversed upon the re-immersion to L1. Overall, it seems that attrition can be observed in both perception and production of native speech sounds, but the latter is more easily reversible.