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International Journal of Bilingualism Volume 8 Number 3 2004,

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Language attrition and theories of

forgetting: A cross-disciplinary review
Peter Ecke
University of Arizona
Acknowledgments
This project was funded in part by a Faculty Small Grant from the University of Arizona Foundation
and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies. I would like to thank
Christopher Hall, Kees de Bot, Ulrike Jessner and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments
on earlier versions of this paper. Muriel Saville-Troike and Merrill Garrett deserve credit for having
spurred my interest in the topic years ago.
Abstract
Key words
My purpose in this paper is to examine the psychological nature of forgetting (parts of) a language by individuals involved in language change
across the lifespan. The objectives of the article are (1) to summarize
psychological theories and hypotheses about forgetting and memory
failure, and (2) to evaluate their relevance for the explanation of individual
language attrition. By reviewing linguistically and psycholinguistically
oriented language attrition studies that appear to implicate mechanisms
of forgetting, I seek to contribute to the interdisciplinary study and discussion of language attrition phenomena.
cross-disciplinary
language
attrition
theories of
forgetting
1 Introduction
The study of individuals language attrition has become a vibrant subfield of applied
linguistics (Ammerlaan, Hulsen, Strating, & Yagmur, 2001; de Bot, 1996; de Bot &
Weltens, 1995; Lambert & Freed, 1982; Weltens & Cohen, 1989). Language attrition in
individual speakers may contribute to language change at the community and global level
(cf. Meisel, 2001; Seliger, 1996). Some languages are gaining influence as first languages
(L1) and second languages (L2) in a world characterized by globalization and migration,
whereas other languages (often the L1 of minorities) and dialects are in decline and in
danger of becoming forgotten (Crystal, 2000; Dorian, 1989; Grenoble & Whaley, 1998;
Hyltenstam & Obler, 1989; Mnstermann, 1989; Wong Fillmore, 1991). The knowledge
and use of language(s) by individual speakers is in continuous flux. It is dynamic in nature
and subject to change, that is, both to the acquisition of (novel) language structures and
the attrition / loss of (obsolete) structures (Herdina & Jessner, 2002; Hyltenstam & Viberg,
1993). Whereas the growth of language skills has been a subject of scientific inquiry
for a long time, the decline of language skills has been studied systematically only for
Address for correspondence
Peter Ecke, Department of German Studies, The University of Arizona, 301 Learning Service Building,
P.O. Box 210105, Tucson, AZ 85721-0105, U.S.A.; e-mail: < eckep@u.arizona.edu >.
The International Journal of Bilingualism
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about 20 years, mostly by applied linguists (see Hansen, 2001; Lambert & Freed, 1982;
Schmid & de Bot, in press; Seliger & Vago, 1991; Weltens, 1987; Weltens & Cohen, 1989).
Only a limited number of studies have investigated language attrition with reference to
psychological or psycholinguistic theories (cf. Ammerlaan, 1996; de Bot, 1999; de Bot &
Stoessel, 2000; Kenny, 1996; Pan & Berko Gleason, 1986). On the other hand, psychological studies about the remembering and forgetting of verbal and nonverbal information
have devoted little or no attention to the forgetting of language in healthy individuals
across the lifespan (e.g., Ashcraft, 1989; Golding & MacLeod, 1998; Schacter, 1996).
Increasingly, however, also psychologists and speech scientists are becoming interested
in the fields of bilingualism and language attrition (e.g., Kohnert, Bates, & Hernandez,
1999; McElree, Jia, & Litvak, 2000; Yeni-Komshian, Flege, & Liu, 2000).
The present article is an attempt to review psychological assumptions about forgetting and research into language attrition that may be of common interest to psychologists
and linguists. It is intended as a positive response to the question asked by Ammerlaan
et al. (2001, p. 3): should linguists employ insights and notions from decades of
psychological research on memory performance in their work, or merely dismiss the
findings as being based on experimental work on a limited area of vocabulary? Applied
linguists have been skeptical with respect to the potential contribution of psychological
theories to the study of language attrition. Weltens and Grendel (1993), for example,
came to the conclusion that psychological theories of forgetting have relatively little to
offer for the study of L2 lexical attrition (also Weltens, 1987). The present discussion
represents a more optimistic view and intends to demonstrate that part of the general
psychological insight into forgetting may be of value for hypothesis formation and
explanation of language attrition, which in turn can reveal important insight into the
functioning of the human language faculty (Slobin, 1977).
In the context of the present discussion, language attrition refers to the decline
of any language (L1 or L2), skill or portion thereof in a healthy individual speaker.
The review will take into account attrition at the phonological, morphological, lexical,
syntactic, and semantic levels. Since most research has been conducted on the lexicon,
however, lexical loss will somewhat dominate the present discussion. Because of space
limitations, language loss due to brain injury (aphasia) or severe pathological changes
due to aging (dementia) will not be included in the review (see, e.g., Hyltenstam & Stroud,
1993; Paradis, 1995, 2001). Studies of language shift (e.g., Fishman, 1972), that is, the
gradual change of language use in generations of a community will only be considered
if they encompass information on individual language loss.
The first part of the paper explores the phenomena of forgetting and language
attrition in relation to each other. The second part summarizes main assumptions about
forgetting advocated in psychological theories as a foundation for the papers third and
main section that reviews findings from language attrition studies that seem consistent
with or related to psychological explanations of forgetting.

Language attrition and theories of forgetting
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2 Forgetting and Language Attrition

Forgetting may result from failure in one of three basic components of remembering:
encoding (the capture and acquisition of novel information), storage (the integration
and permanent representation of information), and retrieval (the access to information
when it is needed by the speaker). Two different types of memory have been assumed to
carry out these functions. Short-term (or working) memory is a limited computational
space that temporarily stores, monitors, and manipulates information. It is of crucial
importance to any mental activity extended in time, including the acquisition and
processing of speech, although certainly in some interaction with long-term memory,
the memory system that is responsible for the permanent storage of information (cf.
Baddeley, 1986, 1999; Spear & Riccio, 1994). In studies of language attrition, it is usually
assumed that the encoding component had been intact, and that only what has been
acquired can be forgotten. This implies that the basic problem of forgetting resides in
either the storage or the retrieval of structures that had been acquired and retained at
some point in the past and that were lost under certain conditions. However, attrition
researchers have also acknowledged the need to take into account the possibility that
linguistic structures have not been acquired (encoded) completely and that the instable
storage of these structures may have contributed to poor performance and a sensation
of forgetting (e.g., Isurin, 2000; Levine, 1996; Montrul, 2002; Saville-Troike, Pan, &
Dutkova-Cope, 1995). This holds in particular for L1 attrition in bilingual children and
L2 loss in post puberty L2 learners.
Four important question complexes appear of relevance for investigations into
language attrition as well as for educational efforts to preserve and revitalize languages,
L1 as well as L2:
(1)
What is forgetting? Is it the loss of information (the decline of competence) or is it manifested in the impaired access of information (a performance / processing problem)?
(2)
What are the causes of forgetting? Or formulated differently, what are the internal
and external factors that contribute to the forgetting of language structures?
(3)
What are the linguistic effects of forgetting? Which linguistic levels are affected by
forgetting, to what degree and in what sequence? How does forgetting in one area
(e.g., lexis) affect competence and performance in another (e.g., syntax)? How does
the individual compensate for linguistic deficits?
(4)
What are the social-psychological consequences of forgetting? How does forgetting

affect the individuals life, identity, or self ?
In practical terms, the answers to question (1) will have implications for attempts
to recover or relearn (parts of) a language since they address the potential success of
treatment of individual language attrition: Under what circumstances, at what cost, and
to what degree is regaining the language possible? The responses to questions (2) and (3)
will be of relevance with respect to the prevention of language attrition. What is necessary
to maintain continuous language use and development? Insight into questions (4) could
help educators, parents, and language planners make decisions as to whether and under
what circumstances the forgetting of language should be prevented or resisted.
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P. Ecke
3 Psychological explanations of forgetting

Seven theories / hypotheses about the forgetting of (verbal as well as nonverbal) information will be discussed concerning their potential relevance for research on language
attrition: Repression / suppression, distortion, interference, decay, retrieval failure, cue
dependency, and dynamic systems theory1. Other recent explanations of forgetting, for
example, the seven sins of memory discussed in Schacter (2001), will be subsumed
under the more familiar theories and conceptions above.
3.1
Repression and suppression
This explanatory account of forgetting originated in the area of psychoanalysis and the
works of Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, unpleasant or traumatic memories are
repressed deliberately and deplaced from consciousness by the individual who intends
to avoid recalling displeasing, negative, or traumatic experiences (see Freud, 1899 / 1961;
Jones, 1993). Repression also has been used widely to denote a massive repression
mechanism that operates unconsciously and defensively to block out traumatic experiences (Schacter, 1996, p. 255). The main difference between suppression and repression
lies in the possibility to consciously retrieve the target information, which is presumed
possible in the first case, whereas it is expected impossible in the second (Golding &
Long, 1998). While some cognitive psychologists dispute the possibility of repression,
most agree that intentional suppression (also directed forgetting) exists as a commonly
used, essential human defense mechanism (see Golding & MacLeod, 1998). In this
discussion, I will refer to repression / suppression as an (at least initially) intentional
mechanism in which the individual refuses recalling / using a memory structure. Such
refusal may entail the withdrawal of attention from an initially highly active memory
structure by deliberately remembering another structure (cf. Bjork, 1998; Wegner, Eich,
& Bjork, 1994).
3.2
Distortion
The concept of distortion emphasizes the subjectivity and permeability of personal

memories. Individual experiences, current knowledge, beliefs, values, and attitudes affect
and change what a person remembers. The information retained in memory is being
altered and restructured unconsciously (see Schacter, Coyle, Fischbach, Mesulam, &
Sullivan, 1995). Unconscious restructuring may be caused or affected by internal factors
as well as external factors. Distortion research has become important, for example, to
evaluate eyewitness testimonies in court processes. Certain questioning techniques,
information from third parties, and the rehearsal of testimonies, among other factors,
were shown to lead to incorrect (distorted) recollections of to-be-recalled events (e.g.,
Wells, 1993).
1
Dynamic systems theory is, strictly speaking, not a true theory of forgetting. However, it is included here because
it attempts to address forgetting in relation to acquisition and other variables.

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3.3
Interference
According to interference theory, prior and posterior learning, retention, and processing
of segments of information that compete with each other are responsible for the forgetting of target information. On the one hand, information acquired at a later point in
time can inhibit or block the recall of information that was acquired earlier (retroactive
inhibition). On the other hand, information that was acquired in the past can interfere
with the learning and recall of more recent or novel information (proactive inhibition).
See Anderson, Bjork and Bjork (1994), Keppel (1968), and Postman and Underwood
(1973). Concepts analogous to interference are mental blocking (Jones, 1989) and
competition (Bates & MacWhinney, 1987). Contrary to the decay and transmission
deficit hypotheses discussed below, proponents of blocking assume that previously
activated competing items inhibit the retrieval of a target item.
3.4
Decay
Decay is probably the oldest of all approaches to the explanation of forgetting. It

assumes that information evaporates or declines gradually in memory through lack
of use (Thorndike, 1914). The assumption implies that the frequency and recency of
use of the structure (i.e., its continuous activation) is crucial for the maintenance and
access of the information in memory. The lack of use of the information results in the
dissipation of a trace that has been imprinted for a piece of information, represented
in the brain.
3.5
Retrieval slowdown and failure
Forgetting does not have to represent the total loss / elimination of information from
memory (Ashcraft, 1989, 1998; Spear & Riccio, 1994), its principal problem may lie in
achieving access of the desired information. As in decay theory, frequency of use is a
crucial variable in models of information retrieval. In (modular) search models, differences in retrieval speed are figuratively explained by means of autonomous storage bins
(e.g., Forster, 1992, on lexical access). Frequently and recently used information is stored
on top of the bin and rapidly accessible whereas infrequently used items are located at
the bottom of the bin and require more time and effort to be accessed. Parallel search
of various bins can be assumed for bilingual lexicons.
In neural network and spreading activation models, retrieval slowdown and failure
are seen as a consequence of decreasing activation levels in neurons and processing units,
and weakening connections between neurons and nodes respectively. The lack of activation through infrequent use and the aging of connections in older adults cause deficits
in the transmission of information (e.g., from the semantic level to the phonological
level in word production) resulting in a decrease of retrieval speed and an increase of
retrieval failure rates (e.g., Burke, 1999).

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P. Ecke
3.6
Cue dependency
Advocates of cue dependent retrieval argue that forgetting is neither satisfactorily

explainable as the decay of information nor as a consequence of interference. Higbee
(1996) describes memory search as analogous to reviewing an extensive file cabinet. In
order to quickly find the desired information in the cabinet, labels (cues) are needed
to indicate the address of the location of the information. The recognition and use of
cues is crucial for successful retrieval. Cue availability depends on the consistency of
internal states of subjects, their feelings and mood (Bower, 1981) as well as the external
environment in which learning and recall take place (Tulving & Madigan, 1970). Changes
in context can reduce the availability of retrieval cues (Spear & Riccio, 1994). When
the internal or external cues that were available during memorization are unavailable
during recall attempts, the information is more difficult to retrieve.
3.7
Interaction and dynamic systems
It is likely that various approaches offer relevant explanation for certain types of language
attrition and that the described phenomena overlap and interact collectively in the
complex cognitive systems of the bi- or multilingual speakers. In emergent, dynamic,
self-organizing systems, formal structures of language emerge from the interaction
of social patterns, patterns implicit in the input, and pressures arising from general
aspects of the cognitive system (MacWhinney, 1998, p. 199). Herdina and Jessners (2002)
Dynamic Model of Multilingualism is an attempt to relate variables and phenomena,
such as, language acquisition, language maintenance effort, transfer / interference, and
loss of languages to each other. Learning an additional language is achieved only in
competition to and at the cost of limited cognitive resources already used for the maintenance of the other language system(s). According to the model, the acquisition of the
novel language negatively affects the other language system(s) over time resulting in
less acquisition and attrition of the previously acquired systems (Jessner, 2003). Only
the speakers metalinguistic awareness and / or language learning aptitude counteract
the decline of resources, use, and competence to keep the system at equilibrium with
balanced environmental (communicative) demands and cognitive resources.
In the following, cases of language attrition will be reviewed that appear consistent
with the psychological assumptions presented above. An attempt will be made to assess
the significance of the theories of forgetting for language attrition research.
4 Forgetting Language
4.1
Linguistic repression /suppression
Various language attrition studies suggest that individuals can suppress the use of
a language because of social-psychological reasons (cf. Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000).
Cases that seem consistent with language suppression have been reported in studies
of children who had been removed from their native country to an environment where
the L1 was not spoken. Three studies investigated L2 acquisition and L1 attrition in
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orphan children from Russia, the Ukraine, and China who had been adopted by U.S.
families (Isurin, 2000; Nicoladis & Grabois, 2002; Saville-Troike et al., 1995). After a
short time of initial resistance to the L2, the children progressed rapidly in the acquisition of English, but also in the loss of the L1. The children started to refuse speaking
in the L1, possibly because of their desire to assimilate in the new culture, acculturate
in the terms of Schumann (1978) or simply because they associated the new language
with the new people and places and stubbornly used the L2 accordingly (cf. SchmidtMackey, 1977; Slobin, Dasinger, Kntay, & Toupin, 1993). It is also conceivable that
they wanted to forget about traumatic experiences and the past life as orphans that were
related inseparably with their L1 (cf. also Tits, 1948, on the L1 loss of an adopted child
refugee from the Spanish Civil War). Kouritzin (1999, p. 158) reported a related case of
L1 loss by a girl who was abandoned by her family after the death of her mother and
who asserted in retrospect that the loss of her L1 had been extremely beneficial to her.
The person seemed to have distanced herself deliberately from past memories, identities, and the language associated with them.
Immigrant children tend to give up their L1 more quickly and completely than adult
immigrants, and young children lose more language than older children after moving to
a different language environment (cf. Anderson, 2001; Jia & Aaaronson, 1999; Kaufman,
2001; Nicoladis & Grabois, 2002; Olshtain, 1989; Wong Fillmore, 1991; Yukawa, 1998).
Such dramatic decline of the L1 in young children may be related to the incomplete
acquisition of the L1, a still incomplete identification with the L1 culture (Kaufman,
2001), and consequently to a qualitatively poorer input that young children are exposed
to (Jia & Aaronson, 1999). The avoidance of the L1 along with the desire to assimilate,
some times under pressure from peers and teachers, has been reported of a number of
immigrant children (Fishman, 1966; Fries, 1998; Kaufman & Aronoff, 1991; Kouritzin,
1999; Pfaff, 1981; Turian & Altenberg, 1991; Vilar Snchez, 1995) as well as of young
speakers of languages with a low status in multiethnic contexts (Bonner, 2001). In one
(fairly typical) case, a girl refrained from speaking to her mother in the L1 (German)
after acquiring English (L2) in the U.S. Years later, the young woman succeeded in
using the L1 to a certain extent, but only with a foreign accent that clearly marked her
identity as an American (Schulz, 1991). Most of these reports described children who
only with deficiency and temporary resistance maintained part of the native language
spoken by their parent(s) in a foreign country.
Other cases were reported of individuals who intentionally suppressed their L1
or who as parents discouraged or prohibited their children to use the L1 at home
with the objective to support the school language (Denison, 1977; Hill & Hill, 1986;
Lambert & Taylor, 1996; Wong Fillmore, 1991) or to protect themselves or their children from becoming victims of discrimination, stigmatization or racism (Kouritzin,
1999). Rodriguez (1982) provided an informative autobiographical account on how the
Spanish native language was suppressed in his home and the devastating effect it had of
disconnecting him from the family and changing his identity. Kouritzin (1999) presented
multiple case histories of first and second-generation immigrants in a Canadian context,
most of which suggest some degree of suppression of the L1 by the immigrant children
and adolescents. The studies lead one to believe that children can intentionally suppress
(in particular, speaking) the L1 for reasons of identity, language shame (Bonner, 2001),
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P. Ecke
the desire to integrate into the dominant (L2) group (Giles & Johnson, 1987) or to
acculturate (Schumann, 1978).
The suppression and temporary loss of L1 competence is also apparent in several
autobiographic works of highly successful adult immigrant writers who attempted to
become native speakers of their L2 (cf. Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000). Cases of suppression
are also evident in the reports of Jewish emigrants who had avoided speaking in their native
(German) language until late in live. Schmids (2002) study of L1 attrition in 54 GermanJewish emigrants suggests that suppression is not uncommon in that population, and that
the rate of language attrition is determined by the degree of persecution and suffering of
the emigrants as well as the speakers identity, self-perception and attitudes towards the
native language community. Schmids findings with respect to the emigrants language
proficiency are also important. Although most emigrants have made little or no use of
the L1 for more than 60 years, Schmid (p. 192) argues that they have maintained the full
repertoire of linguistic knowledge and that mistakes in speech production merely reflect
perceived insecurities and accessibility problems. Her findings suggest that the suppression
of a solidly acquired first language by proficient adult speakers does not necessarily affect
their language competence (see also Ammerlaan, 1996, p. 214). The results seem consistent
with Neissers (1984) assumption of a critical threshold in language proficiency. Once a
speaker reaches the threshold, s/he will be relatively immune to language attrition (cf. Pan
& Berko Gleason, 1986; Tomiyama, 2000; van Ginkel & van der Linden, 1996; Weltens,
van Els, & Schils, 1989, on similar views or corresponding findings).
De Bot and Clyne (1989, 1994) reported a related phenomenon of language development in elderly immigrants. They studied a group of Australian Dutch-English bilinguals
who had been investigated by Clyne some 16 years earlier. The interesting finding of
the study was not an increase of L1 (Dutch) attrition, but a revitalization of and reversion back to the L1. The shift back to the L1 was reflected in a preferred use of the L1,
better recall in the L1, a decrease in L2 fluency, and an increased foreign (L1) accent in
L2 speech. These findings raise interesting questions about the dynamics of language
growth and decline, the temporal nature of language suppression, the possible degrees
and limits of individuals attempts to assimilate in another group, and the likelihood
of ultimate reversion to (or recovery of) the L1.
While it is likely that parents, peers, siblings, teachers, and the media all influence
individual language choice and language suppression to some extent, it is relatively
unclear what constitute the specific pressures to group conformity, identity, and assimilation. Which particular individual experiences make a child realize the value / vitality
of one language and culture while rejecting and suppressing another? Is it the desire to
be accepted by and interact with peers (Wong Fillmore, 1991), the magic displayed on
TV or the stories in childrens books (cf. Jia & Aaronson, 1999; Kouritzin, 1999)? Under
what conditions do speakers re-evaluate, revalue, and revitalize a low status language
under attrition? That language reversion, recreation, and recovery are possible, in
principle, has been documented (e.g., Fishman, 1991; Hinton & Hale, 2001; Kapanga,
1998; Schmid, 2002; Vakhtin, 1998). Fine-grained analyses of language use in specific
social networks (de Bot & Stoessel, 2002) as well as first person narratives (Pavlenko
& Lantolf, 2000) could help to learn more about the effects that social psychological
forces have on individual language suppression and maintenance.
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4.2
Linguistic distortion
Human memory is subject to processes of continuous unconscious restructuring and

change. It has been proposed that restructuring is an essential process in L2 learning
(McLaughlin, 1990) and multilingual development, including attrition (Herdina &
Jessner, 2002). While the discussion of suppression above has shown that individual
beliefs, values, intentions, and drives can influence attrition to some extent, it is unclear
to what degree these may lead to the restructuring of linguistic competence. Internal
factors (e.g., language universals, general cognitive constraints) and external influences
(L1 / L2 interference, lack of input data) certainly mediate between the social-psychological drives and individual language development (see dynamic systems theory below).
It is conceivable that speakers, who suppress a language (internal drive), who are no
longer exposed to it and who are under the influence of another language (external
factors) unconsciously modify L1 structures and / or use, for example, by speaking in
the L1 with an L2 accent (e.g., Major, 1993) or by unconsciously modifying attributes of
L1 syntax, such as word order (e.g., Larmouth, 1974). Distortion then may be conceived
as a consequence of suppression, cross-linguistic influence, reduced input and other
factors, but that would make it a rather fuzzy and immensely complex concept.
Seliger (1989, p. 176) points out that: the bilingual may lose a sense of what is
grammatical for one or both of the languages and not be able to control the mixing of
the two. This view is consistent with the anecdotal reports of multilingual speakers
who often state that they speak various languages, but none properly. Reduced language
input, less opportunity to learn new structures and cross-linguistic influence may
contribute to what is perceived by the bilingual as a blurring or fusion of initially different
linguistic structures. Such development has been called convergence (e.g., Clyne, 1987;
Huffines, 1991; Silva-Corvalan, 1991).
Teutli Olivera (2000) demonstrated that the proficient use of an L2 (English) negatively affected native (Spanish) speakers detection of orthographic errors in L1 texts.
She compared a group of monolingual speakers of Spanish with a group of bilingual
Spanish-English speakers concerning their ability to identify orthographic errors in an
L1 text and found higher rates of nondetected errors in the bilingual speakers compared
to the monolingual speakers. Similar problems with L1 orthography were reported by
long-term resident overseas EFL teachers in Porte (1999). On the phonological level,
Caramazza, Yeni-Komshian, Zurif, and Carbone (1973) reported a fusion of voice onset
times (VOTs) in French-English bilinguals. The VOTs of the bilingual speakers were at
an intermediate level between those of monolingual speakers of both languages. More
recent experimental studies yielded similar findings of reduced pronunciation accuracy
in groups of Korean-English bilinguals (Yeni-Komshian et al., 2000) and Italian-English
bilinguals (Flege, Munro, & MacKay, 1995) compared to monolingual control groups.
Jia & Aaronson (1999) reported a reduction of syntactic proficiency in Chinese-English
bilinguals compared to monolingual speakers. For the lexical level, McElree et al. (2000)
found that lexical retrieval speed and accuracy were negatively affected in (the L1 of)
Russian-English bilinguals. These studies lend support to a dynamic view of bilingualism
and indicate that achieving bilingual or multilingual competence is by no means an all
win situation. Frequently acquisition is achieved only at the cost of (partial) loss and
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P. Ecke
divergence from monolingual norms, that is, a distortion of (monolingual) language

competence (cf. Grosjean, 1989; Herdina & Jessner, 2002; Hyltenstam & Viberg, 1993;
Pavlenko & Jarvis, 2002).
An alternative interpretation of distortion (as the internal restructuring of linguistic
knowledge) relates to the potential effect of universal grammar (UG) on the changing
performance of an attriter. It has been argued that UG principles are responsible for
simplification, regularization and the reduction of marked (irregular) forms in language
learners and attriters alike (e.g., Andersen, 1982; Clyne, 1992; Hansen & Chen, 2001;
Seliger, 1996). When input is lacking, the marked values of the attriting language are
reset to unmarked values (cf. Hkansson, 1995; Sharwood Smith & van Buren, 1991).
Seliger and Vago (1991, p. 11), for example, presented cases of regularized past tense
morphemes of irregular German verbs by language attriters who produced forms like
er wit (wei) [ he knows ], er schleichte (schlich) [ he slunk ], er nimmte (nahm) [ he
took ]. Analogously Olshtain (1989, p. 157) reported the overuse of the English past tense
morpheme -ed in bilingual (Hebrew-English) children who produced forms, such as,
gived, eated, and waked up in the L2 under attrition. In these cases, the marked form
of a verb is replaced by the unmarked inflection. The overgeneralization of past tense
morphemes, as observed above, is also common in L1 acquisition. Psychologists have
proposed connectionist, frequency based models (Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986) as
well as innate rule based mechanisms (Marcus, Ullman, Pinker, Hollander, Rosen,
& Xu, 1992) to account for patterns, observed in childrens acquisition of past tense
morphemes in English, that is, the initial rote learning of irregular forms, the partial
abandonment of irregular forms and overgeneralization of the regular form, and finally
the correct use of regular and irregular forms (cf. Pinker, 2000). To my knowledge, no
attempts have been made to simulate such regularization patterns in an attrition context
in spite of the apparent analogy.
Researchers in the UG and minimalist frameworks have attempted to explain the
different degrees to which language structures in attriters are affected by restructuring.
Most of them hold that syntactic (core) structures, once fully acquired, are the most
stable and invariant aspects of language representations, immune to attrition as the
restructuring of competence. In this framework, attrition merely represents the loss of
control over an invariant computational system (Platzack, 1996; Sharwood Smith &
van Buren, 1991; Toribio, 2001). Restructuring and loss are expected to be limited to
the lexicon, that is, the only source of linguistic variation according to the minimalist
program (Chomsky, 1995). Along similar lines, Sorace (2000) has proposed that structures that make semantic-pragmatic distinctions, that is, structures that are semantically
interpretable (and peripheral to UG) are more vulnerable to attrition than structures
that are purely morphosyntactic, that is, noninterpretable semantically (and central to
the computational system of UG). However, Anderson (2001), studying the attrition
of Spanish verb inflection in bilingual children, has predicted the opposite. Applying
Bybees (1995) model of lexical morphology, she expected and found more attrition and
higher error rates in the production of morphological markers that are peripheral to verb
meaning and central to syntax (e.g., person / number) compared to tense / aspect inflection
that share a high degree of semantic relevancy. Schlyter (1993) reported similar results
in a study of Swedish-French bilingual children. In how far the contrasting results are
331
due to differences between child and adult attriters and different acquisition histories
remains an open question.
Particularly interesting cases of restructuring are products of language loss that
diverge from the two or more competing languages involved, output data that are
comparable to the products of pidginization and creolization (see Maher, 1991). Such
instances, if proved free of interference, might provide information about core attributes
of UG although they could conceivably also reflect constraints or limitations on general
cognitive processing.
Relatively little is known about the conditions and degrees to which two grammars
can or cannot merge into a dynamic interlanguage system. Further research is needed
to evaluate the effects of low internal uniformity / consistency of linguistic structures,
congruence between structures, and inadequate / incompatible input on the restructuring
of grammars (Saville-Troike et al., 1995). While the concept of distortion as unconscious
restructuring of language may have some initial appeal as a metaphor for the description of language attrition, its identification and distinction from other factors, such as,
interference, and decay represent serious methodological and theoretical problems.
4.3
Language decay
Numerous investigations suggest that linguistic structures, which are infrequently

used or not used at all over extensive periods of time, are affected by decay. A major
source of evidence for such a view comes from studies of language forgetting in monolingual speakers who are not situated in a language contact environment. Older adults
experience word finding problems, such as tip-of-the-tongue states, more frequently
than younger adults (e.g., Brown & Nix, 1996; Burke, 1999; Gollan & Silverberg, 2001;
Lovelace, 1991; Maylor, 1990). Older adults also produce more spelling errors than
young adults (MacKay & Abrams, 1998), that is, they frequently experience problems
retrieving orthographic knowledge. (See, however, de Bot, forthcoming, on variables
that counteract forgetting in the elderly.) Increased rates of retrieval failures in older
people have been attributed mostly to a biological decline that leads to a weakening of
connections between conceptual / semantic representations and phonological representations, the so-called transmission deficit hypothesis (cf. Burke, 1999). Schwartz (2002)
subsumes this explanatory account under the term decrement theory. An alternative view
attributes the high rates of word finding problems in older adults to incremental knowledge (Dahlgren, 1998): Older people know more words than younger adults (Salthouse,
1991), and consequently fail to retrieve words more frequently, simply on quantitative
grounds. Related to the incremental view is the possibility of increased interference from
lexical items that compete with the target for access, the so-called blocking hypothesis
(Jones, 1989). Most empirical studies, however, suggest that interference is not the main
cause of the frequent retrieval failures in older people. Compared to young adults, older
subjects report less frequently partial target information and the recall of related words
(blockers) that potentially interfere with target recall (e.g., Burke, MacKay, Worthley,
& Wade, 1991; Heine, Ober, & Shenhaut, 1999; Rastle & Burke, 1996).
Studies of elderly immigrants who have not or infrequently used their L1 for many
years, have reported similar deficits in lexical production, and also, but to a lesser
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P. Ecke
extent, in comprehension (Amerlaan, 1996; Kenny, 1996; Levine, 1996; Schmid, 2002;
Yagmur, de Bot, & Korzillus, 1999). The extended period of no or reduced language
use can affect the lexicon (Amerlaan, 1996; Clyne, 1972; Lestrade, 2002; Olshtain &
Barzilay, 1991) and the morphological system (Anderson, 2001; Kaufman & Aronoff,
1989, 1991; Levine, 1996; Reetz-Kurashige, 1999).
The effect of infrequent L1 use is also notable in young bilingual (heritage) speakers.
School and college students with Hispanic background in the U.S. are a case in point
(cf. Fishman, 1966; Hakuta & DAndrea, 1992; Lambert & Taylor, 1996; Silva-Corvalan,
1994). Spanish is the first language for many of these individuals and spoken primarily in the family. However, with entrance to school, English frequently becomes the
dominant language and Spanish is used less frequently and in limited contexts only
(Hernandez & Charney, 1998). Various studies suggest lexical decay in speakers who
have been subject to such linguistic change (cf. Ecke, in press; Silva-Corvalan, 1991,
1994, Toribio, 2001). However, these findings do not automatically lend support to the
assumption that a reduction in speakers competence and / or performance is a direct
consequence of time, that is, the reduction of input from the L1 (de Bot, Gommans, &
Rossing, 1991; El Aissati & Schaufeli, 1998; Gollan & Silverberg, 2001; Pease-Alvarez,
Hakuta, & Bayley, 1996). In most of these cases, also contact with and interference from
the second and dominant language and incomplete acquisition may have contributed
to the loss of L1 structures.
Studies of L2 attrition also appear, at least in part, consistent with the concept of
decay. Smythe, Jutras, Bramwell, and Gardner (1973), who studied high school students
loss of French, found a progressive rate of L2 loss. Students who spent a longer period of
time without L2 input lost more language structures than students who spent a shorter
time period without exposure to the L2 (also Yoshitomi, 1999). Most importantly,
Bahricks (1984) study on the retention of school-learned Spanish suggested that a fixed
amount of information is being lost steadily, and independently from the speakers
proficiency level. The forgetting of L2 structures was more pronounced immediately
after training and leveled off with time, a pattern also reported by Weltens, van Els,
and Schils (1989). The finding is consistent with what was named the normal forgetting
curve by the psychologist Ebbinghaus (1885) more than a century ago, but is inconsistent
with the assumption of an initial plateau, characterized by little or no language loss up
to six or seven months after the end of exposure to the language (Kaufman & Aronoff,
1991; Kuhberg, 1992; Tomiyama, 1999; van Ginkel & van der Linden, 1996; Weltens &
Cohen, 1989).
An important issue related to decay is the question whether an order or sequence
of structural loss can be predicted. Analogous to the assumptions of stages of L1 development (Brown, 1973) and L2 acquisition (Dulay & Burt, 1974), it was asked whether
language attrition would proceed in predictable stages reverse to acquisition (e.g.,
Cohen, 1975; Olshtain, 1989). It was hypothesized that the most complex or difficultto-process structures (Pfaff, 1991; Slobin, 1977) that are acquired late get lost first, and
that the less complex, easy-to-process structures that are acquired early, largely remain
resistant to loss (Bailey, 1973). Forgetting last-learned structures first and maintaining
first-learned structures best has been called the regression hypothesis (Hyltenstam
& Viberg, 1993; Jakobson, 1941). While various researchers state that evidence for
333
regression, as a mirror of acquisition, has been sparse to date (Caramazza & Zurif,
1978; de Bot & Weltens, 1991; Hkansson, 1995; Hedgcock, 1991; Schmid & de Bot, in
press), others claim to have found some support for regression with respect to a limited
number of morphosyntactic structures.
Cohen (1975) studied the patterns of L2 loss in three second-grade students after
summer recess from an intensive Spanish immersion program. He found that some of
the structures learned last were also the first to be forgotten and reported evidence
for regression in the childrens use of the simple present tense, the ser / estar [ to be ]
distinction and the definite article. Hansen (1980, 1999) and Hayashi (1999) found that
the attrition of morphemes of negation in American learners of Hindi-Urdu (L2) and
American and Micronesian learners of Japanese (L2) proceeded in an order reverse
to acquisition. Hansen and Chen (2001) discovered regression patterns in the syntax
and semantics of numeral classifier systems in L2 learners of Chinese and Japanese.
Berman and Olshtain (1983) and Olshtain (1989) detected signs of regression in young
bilingual children who over-regularized English past-tense morphology after their
return to a Hebrew-speaking environment. Olshtain (1989), however, acknowledged
that the instable acquisition of verb morphology might have contributed to the loss
pattern in the five to eight year old children. Anderson (2001) reported that the two
Spanish-English bilingual children, she studied, regressed to an earlier developmental
stage in which the third person singular form served as a default form for Spanish verb
use. Kuhberg (1992) interpreted his findings on the attrition of German in two Turkish
children (ages 7 and 9) as support for the regression hypothesis. He claimed that lexical
loss and the attrition of the morphological system largely proceeded in reverse order
to the stages of acquisition.
Unfortunately, the lack of detailed quantitative data on acquisition and regression
patterns limits the meaningfulness of some of the findings cited above. Although the
regression hypothesis has received considerable attention and some support from L2
attrition studies and studies conducted with bilingual children, it appears to be too unrefined to adequately predict and explain most language attrition patterns, especially those
in adult native speakers. The findings from Jordens, de Bot, and Trapman (1989) seem
consistent with such an assumption. They compared the use of German case marking in
two groups of (potential) attriters: university students who had learned German as an L2
in secondary school, and adult German immigrants who had lived in the Netherlands for
more than 10 years. Whereas the researchers found evidence for regression and overuse
of the nominative case in the L2 learners, analogous to patterns in acquisition, they
did not find indications of regression in the adult immigrants. Whereas various factors
influencing acquisition and attrition (input frequency, perceptual salience / complexity
of structure, semantic transparency, similarity between L1 and L2 equivalents) may
correlate with the general courses of language development, other factors (e.g., domainspecific language use, context effects, speakers proficiency, age, intelligence, interests,
and metalinguistic awareness) may counteract regression patterns.
The investigation of language decay, as the actual erosion or dissipation of language
structures, will remain important in future research since it relates to the very nature
of forgetting as either a competence or a performance problem. The relevance of decay
for the attrition of lexical information (and its neurological bases) is especially strong.
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P. Ecke
Methodologically it will be relatively easy to provide evidence against cases of decay if it

can be shown that language structures are intact and that attrition is only a processing
problem due to the temporary unavailability of retrieval cues or the interference of
structures from a competing language. Providing evidence for decay is more difficult.
Research will have to focus on receptive skills (e.g., Jia & Aaronson, 1999; Kpke &
Nespoulous, 2001; McElree et al., 2000; Seliger, 1991) since their attrition appears more
indicative of loss than impaired productive skills that frequently only reflect accessibility
problems. However, even impaired receptive skills may be deceptive with respect to the
apparent loss of structure since more sensitive measures, such as relearning / reactivation paradigms (cf. de Bot & Stoessel, 2000) may well detect linguistic knowledge at a
subthreshold level that is neither accessible in production nor reception.
4.4
Language retrieval slowdown and failure
Some psychologists argue that total loss of information is impossible after the information
has been transferred to and stored in permanent (long-term) memory (cf. Ashcraft, 1998,
but see Loftus & Loftus, 1980 for a critique of that view). They assume that forgotten
information is not erased from memory, but that the access routes have become deteriorated, in particular, in recall and production tasks. The simple fact that productive skills
are more affected by failure than receptive skills illustrates the principle of that concept.
It is possible that a person recognizes the meaning of a word in a text or phrase; however,
s / he may not be able to retrieve the word when it is needed for production. The tip-ofthe-tongue (TOT) phenomenon is a case in point. In a TOT state, the speaker is certain
that s / he knows the target word, feels close to finding it without, however, recalling it
in its completeness. TOT states are common experiences in the L1 (e.g., Brown, 1991;
Brown & McNeill, 1966; Schwartz, 2002) as well as in the L2 (e.g., Ecke, in press; Ecke &
Garrett, 1998; Gollan & Silverberg, 2001). The fact that most speakers recover the word
on the tip of their tongue shows that these memory failures are not cases of information
loss, merely failures of access. Language attrition studies reported that speech production problems, especially lexical retrieval failures, are more pronounced compared to
failures of receptive skills (e.g., Bahrick, 1984; Cohen, 1975, 1989; Kaufman & Aronoff,
1989; Merino, 1983; Tomiyama, 1999, 2000; Waas, 1996). Attrition studies documented
frequent or increased dysfluency, pausing, hesitation, and self-repair in speakers word
production (Amerlaan, 1996; Kenny, 1996; Pavlenko, 2003; Tomiyama, 1999; Waas,
1996; Yukawa, 1998) and lexical retrieval failures, similar to TOT states, with subsequent
extensive search and successive nontarget retrieval before the speakers eventually recall
the intended structure (Amerlaan, 1996; Cohen, 1975, 1989; Olshtain & Barzilay, 1991).
Unfortunately, investigators frequently have not provided comparative analyses of both
productive and receptive skills. Exceptions are Ammerlaan (1996), de Bot and Stoessel
(2000), Jia (1998), and Kpke and Nespoulous (2001) who showed through grammaticality
judgment or lexical recognition tasks (L2 to L1 translation and picture-word matching)
that receptive skills and grammatical or lexical knowledge can be affected by attrition
as well, though to a lesser degree than production.
Various studies documented a slowdown of L1 retrieval speed in bilinguals. Mgiste
(1986) used a battery of productive and receptive tests to investigate language-retrieval
335
speed in German native speakers living in Sweden. Three groups of German-Swedish

bilinguals (German-dominant, balanced, and Swedish-dominant speakers) were administered word naming and picture naming tasks, the interlingual Stroop color task, and
a reading task to process two-digit numbers in both German (L1) and Swedish (L2).
In general, she found that the newly arrived German-dominant immigrants performed
faster in L1, the balanced group achieved similar performance rates in the L1 and the L2,
whereas the Swedish-dominant group (those immigrants who had spent 5 or more years
in Sweden) showed advantages of processing speed in the L2 compared to the L1.
In a series of studies, Segalowitz and colleagues investigated the potential influence of advanced skills in L2 (as measured by reading scores) on processing speed in
the L1. English-French bilinguals who read their L2 at the same rate as their L1 were
categorized as Same Rate bilinguals; bilinguals who read more slowly in their L2 were
referred to as Different Rate bilinguals. Favreau and Segalowitz (1982) found that the
Same Rate bilinguals were significantly slower readers in L1 compared to the Different
Rate bilinguals and suggested that extensive exposure to the L2 may relate to a slowdown
in performance in the L1. The results were confirmed in a subsequent study conducted
by Segalowitz and Hbert (1990). Using a set of primed lexical decision tasks, Segalowitz
(1991) again found a reduction of L1 processing speed for a group of Same Rate bilinguals
suggesting that very high levels of L2 skills are associated with slower reading speed
in the L1. The results of the latter study, however, also suggested that the increase in
reading time could not be attributed to a slowdown of automatic word recognition, but
rather to a delay of controlled postaccess processes, such as, semantic categorization
and schema building that are affected by subjects intentions and expectations.
McElree et al. (2000) conducted an experimental study to investigate the speed of
conceptual retrieval (the mapping from orthographic form to meaning) in three groups
of Russian-English bilinguals (Russian-dominant, balanced, and English-dominant
speakers). In their experiments, the subjects completed a timed semantic categorization task deciding whether pairs of words belonged to the same or a different semantic
category. Retrieval speed was slower and categorization less accurate for the same and
different language pairs with items from the nondominant language, even when it was
Russian, the subjects L1. The results implicate attrition as reduced retrieval speed of
form-meaning mappings, that is, receptive skills, in the nondominant native language.
The authors attribute the results to a transmission deficit between the nondominant
form and meaning (a kind of decay of direct retrieval routes) that is compensated by a
mediation process via the form equivalent of the dominant language. Such mediated
access is analogous to lexical mediation (the word association hypothesis) assumed for
early stages of L2 vocabulary acquisition (cf. Hall & Ecke, 2003; Jiang, 2000; Kroll &
Stewart, 1994; Potter, So, Von Eckardt, & Feldman, 1984).
In sum, retrieval slowdown and failure (mostly reported for lexical production,
but also observed in reception) are among the first and strongest indicators of language
attrition (cf. Weltens & Grendel, 1993). Understanding their functioning is of crucial
importance for the study of language attrition. Although retrieval slowdown and failure
can be detected relatively easily, their distinction from other phenomena is not that
straightforward. The deterioration of retrieval routes (decay) may go hand in hand with the
reorganization and mediation of access procedures via more efficient or dominant retrieval
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P. Ecke
routes (McElree et al., 2000), and such mediation, in turn, may be subject to increased
interference from the dominant language (Costa, Miozzo, & Caramazza, 1999).
4.5
Linguistic interference
Interference (Weinreich, 1953), also labeled transfer (Frch & Kasper, 1989; Singleton,
1987) and cross-linguistic influence (Sharwood Smith & Kellerman, 1986), depending on
how researchers perceive its scope and its positive or negative effects, has received much
attention in research of L2 and L1 acquisition, use, and loss. The phenomenon has been
documented primarily in studies of L1 influence on L2 learning (e.g., Gass & Selinker,
1992; Ivanov, 1990; Ringbom, 1987), recently in studies of L1 and L2 influence on L3
learning (Cenoz, Hufeisen, & Jessner, 2001), but also in studies of L1 attrition (e.g., Py,
1986; Sharwood Smith, 1989) and language change (Yang, 2000). The large majority of
cases of language attrition are embedded in contexts of language change for the bilingual
individual and often community (Hyltenstam & Viberg, 1993) through which generally
two or more languages compete for cognitive resources in the individual speaker. As
a consequence of competition and limited available resources (Bates & MacWhinney,
1987), one language or language structure gains importance and frequency of use at the
cost of another (Herdina & Jessner, 2002; Kohnert et al., 1999; Seliger & Vago, 1991).
Investigations into L1 forgetting under the influence of a dominant L2 have
presented evidence of retroactive interference, primarily in the lexicon (e.g., Ammerlaan,
1996; Kpke & Nespoulous, 2001; Schaufeli, 1992). The interference of more recently
learned and increasingly dominant L2 structures can be reflected by instances of borrowing / codeswitching (e.g., Clyne, 1987; Myers-Scotton, 1998; Saville-Troike et al., 1995;
Yagmur, de Bot et al., 1999), loan translation, meaning extension, and meaning-related
substitution (e.g., Boyd, 1993; de Bot & Clyne, 1994; Olshtain & Barzilay, 1991; Pavlenko,
2003; Romaine, 1995; Turian & Altenberg, 1991), syntactic frame errors, for example,
violations of words subcategorization values (e.g., Altenberg, 1991; Jarvis, 2003), soundrelated substitution errors (e.g., Romaine, 1995; Schmid, 2002) and a decrease in lexical
diversity, lexical variation, and accuracy of collocation in attriters speech or writing
(e.g., Andersen, 1982; Laufer, 2003; Olshtain & Barzilay, 1991). Retroactive interference
was found instrumental in the loss of vocabulary in a learning and recall experiment
(Isurin & McDonald, 2001) in which subjects memorized and recalled the names of
pictures in an L2, and later in an L3. A third recall test of the initially learned L2 words
showed evidence of retroactive interference (L2 word loss), which was particularly strong
if semantically similar L3 words (translation equivalents) had been learned compared
to words of other concepts. In addition to similarity, also amount of exposure to the L3
affected the extent of loss. The authors noted that the results resembled the loss patterns
found in a naturalistic study of child L1 attrition (Isurin, 2000).
Morphological structures of L1 can also be subject to interference from L2. They
can be simplified, abandoned or replaced by free, regular and invariant morphemes
that are modeled on similar structures of the dominant language (Andersen, 1982,
p. 109). One documented case is the loss of nominal inflections for grammatical gender
and / or gender agreement under the influence of a language that does not possess gender
markings. Deficits in gender agreement and assignment have been reported for speakers
337
of Czech and English (Saville-Troike et al., 1995), Yiddish and English (Levine, 1996),
German and English (Schmid, 2002), Hebrew and English (Kaufman & Aronoff, 1989),
Isleo and English (Lestrade, 2002) and in speakers of Spanish in various contact situations (Buenrostro, 1998; Ecke, in press; Toribio, 2001; Vargas Monroy, 1998). Another
documented case is the simplification of verbal morphology in the L1 (Spanish) of
Spanish-English bilinguals (cf. Anderson, 2001; Montrul, 2002; Silva-Corvalan, 1991;
Toribio, 2001). It is important to point out that the phenomenon of simplification can
also be attributed to other factors, for example, the cognitive complexity of structures
and their processing (Pfaff, 1991; Slobin, 1977), the reduction of redundancy in grammars to create a more parsimonious system (Seliger, 1989), and the sequence of their
acquisition (Hansen, 1999).
Some researchers consider (L1) syntax more resistant to the influence of L2 structures and attrition compared to lexical and morphological structures (e.g., Andersen,
1982; Haugen, 1953; Kpke & Nespoulous, 2001; Pavlenko & Jarvis, 2002; Prince,
1997; Reetz-Kurashige, 1999; Sorace, 2000; Tomiyama, 1999; Toribio, 2001). However,
other studies have shown that syntactic structures of L1 do change as well under the
long-term influence of an L2 (e.g., Altenberg, 1991; Boyd & Andersson, 1991; Clyne,
1987; Myers-Scotton, 1998; Py, 1986; Schaufeli, 1996; Schmid, 2002; Sharwood Smith,
1983; Yagmur et al., 1999; Yukawa, 1998). Larmouth (1974), for example, reported the
reduction of word order variation in Finnish as a consequence of loss of inflectional
morphology in an environment that was dominated by L2 (English) use.
Extreme changes on the syntactic level have also been reported for speakers of
languages, close to extinction (Schmidt, 1991) and dying languages that were revitalized subsequently by their speakers (Vakhtin, 1998). Schmidt (1991) documented the
transformation of an exceptionally free word order in traditional Dyirbal into rigid
SVO order, along with a weakening case system and a breakdown in agreement rules
under the influence of a local variety of English. Vakhtins (1998) discussion of the
Copper Island Aleut language provides an interesting account on how the speakers of
a (once thought to be) dying language adopted the Russian morphosyntactic system
while maintaining and revitalizing the Aleut lexical basis. Note, however, that the latter
studies did not focus on individual speakers forgetting, rather on language death / change
over generations of speakers.
While interference is widely recognized as a main contributor to language attrition, several puzzles related to its operation remain unresolved. One issue concerns
the typological similarity of the competing languages: Are two similar (congruent)
language structures more subject to conflict, problems of discrimination and interference compared to two different consistent language structures as suggested by Altenberg
(1991), Clyne (1992), Isurin, and McDonald (2001) and Saville-Troike et al. (1995) or are
similar structures, in general, more resistant to loss compared to differing structures (cf.
Andersen, 1982; Romaine, 1995)? How strong is interference on the different processing
levels (conceptual / semantic, syntactic, lexical, morphological, phonological)? What are
the main sources of interference in tri- or multilingual speakers where more than two
languages potentially interact? Is it the last or most recently learned language (Shanon,
1991), the other foreign or native language (Meisel, 1983), the psycho-typologically
closest other language (Kellerman, 1983), the most dominant language (Mgiste, 1986),
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P. Ecke
or the language with the proficiency level and amount of exposure closest to the affected
language? Does the strength of interference change over time? Do periods of enhanced
interference coincide with major restructuring processes? Anecdotal and some empirical
reports suggest that interference as language mixing is particularly strong in early
childhood (Berman & Olshtain, 1983), after rigid changes in language input (Kravin,
1992), and during the first year(s) of immersion or intensive language learning whereas
it may decrease with age, time, and even the termination of language learning / use that,
perhaps, lead to a stabilization of the language systems (cf. the reports of proficiency
gains in Cohen, 1975; Weltens et al., 1989).
An issue related to interference concerns the bilinguals ability to counteract or
control interference by inhibiting the language(s) not intended for immediate use. Such
an inhibition mechanism can be assumed to have a positive effect on language development and maintenance. Inhibiting the nontarget language could essentially reflect a
cognitive skill to manage and select attention for the use of one language at one time.
Green (e.g., 1986, 1998) repeatedly argued that the control of interlingual interference
is a main issue in bilingual speech and proposed a supervisory attentional system
that enables bilingual speakers to inhibit potentially competing language structures.
However, others have argued that models of activation may suffice and that there is no
need for an underlying inhibitory mechanism to explain bilingual speech processing
(e.g., Grosjean, 2001; Roelofs, 1998).
Speakers who identify one language with one speaker (or place) and who are able to
use one language while suppressing the other, depending on the communicative partner
and situation, have been reported successful in the development and maintenance of
bi- or multilingual language competence (e.g., Schmidt-Mackey, 1977). On the other
hand, bilingual (Chicano) children who receive and produce freely interchanged input
in two languages with the same speaker were shown, in at least one study, to experience
more loss in the nondominant language than speakers who either use English or Spanish
with individual speakers (Merino, 1983). Other studies also imply to take seriously the
hypothesis that the ability and commitment to temporarily suppress one language, that
is, to avoid codeswitching while using the other, counteracts attrition (see Andersen,
1982; Huffines, 1991; Kuhberg, 1992; Porte, 2003) and a turnover of the matrix language
(cf. Halmari, 1992; Myers-Scotton, 1998). Bolonyai (1998) convincingly agued that the
syntactic frames of lexical forms, frequently borrowed from the dominating L2, would
erode the phrasal structure of the L1 since sentence production is primarily lexically
driven (cf. Myers-Scotton, 1998). Thus, it is the abstract syntactic properties of lexical
entries from the interfering language that can deteriorate a nondominant syntax through
frequent use over time. Other researchers, however, claim that lexical borrowing and
codeswitching does not necessarily contribute to or indicate beginning language loss
(cf. Romaine, 1995). Fuller (1996), for example, presented evidence for convergence of
morphosyntactic structures in communities that deliberately resisted codeswitching.
Also, contrary to what interference theory would predict, Poplack (1980) has suggested
that intrasentential codeswitching may be an indicator of high proficiency and a more
balanced bilingualism; and Schjerve-Rindler (1998) has argued that codeswitching does
not accelerate attrition and language shift and that it may even contribute to language
maintenance.
339
While numerous studies have shown a correlation or coincidence between codeswitching behavior and language attrition (e.g., Clyne, 1987, 1992; Kuhberg, 1992;
Myers-Scotton, 1998; Pfaff, 1999), it is still controversial whether codeswitching can be
assumed a precursor of language attrition (Seliger & Vago, 1991), an indicator and
warning sign of possible L1 loss (Halmari, 1992) or a substantial contributing factor
to language loss (Bolonyai, 1998; Porte, 2003). Similarly, little is known about changes
in codeswitching, depending on age, linguistic maturity and cognitive development
(Vihman, 1998) and whether certain personality types or cognitive styles correlate with
codeswitching versus language differentiation / inhibition behavior and how these may
affect the individuals rate of language loss (cf. Grosjean, 1995; Vihman, 1998). More
studies of individual differences (including variation in age, gender, and language proficiency) among attriters are needed to ascertain the bilinguals cognitive potentials and
limits to reduce cross-language interference.
4.6
Cue-dependent language retrieval
Psychological investigations have shown that the external environment and the internal
state (mood) that subjects were in during memorization can affect information retrieval.
Subjects seem to create and use associations between target information and environmental cues as well as between target and internal state for information recall. For
example, a person who is in a sad mood during a learning / memorizing phase has a
better chance recalling the memorized information when being in a similar mood. To my
knowledge, language attrition studies have not investigated this phenomenon explicitly.
However, investigations into bilingual speech production reported on the problem of cue
loss. Ecke (1996) and Shanon (1991) pointed out that bilingual speakers face problems
of word retrieval when they are subject to abrupt changes in context or environment.
These unexpected changes can lead to the sudden blocking of retrieval cues. Also
anxiety, nervousness, fatigue, and tiredness may negatively affect cue availability and
word retrieval in bilingual speakers (Clyne, 1972; Ecke, 1996; Kenny, 1996).
Anecdotal reports are consistent with the notion of cue dependency. Individuals
who acquired and used a regional dialect as a child and who later moved to another
area where they acquired and used the standard or another variety, frequently become
incapable of speaking in the dialect except when returning to the dialect area where
appropriate external cues are available. The literature presents cases of speakers who
use dialects or accents dependent on specific contexts and environments. Vilar Snchez
(1995), for example, described a bilingual childs consistent use of various accents in
different environments. Major (1993) reported the loss of English native speakers accents
during years of immigration in Brazil and under the influence of a Brazilian variety of
English. One of the subjects reportedly recovered her accent shortly after moving back
to the U.S., a finding that suggests that the native accent was not permanently unavailable and / or that relearning the L1s phonology was rather effortless for the subject.
Yagmur et al. (1999) pointed out that the Australian-Turkish immigrants of their study
reported a marked decrease of L1 skills (especially lexical production) in Australia,
but no or little difficulty in understanding and speaking Turkish when visiting Turkey
every four to six years. Yukawa (1998) argued that the lexical and syntactic attrition
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P. Ecke
found in two Japanese children were mostly due to lexical retrieval failure and syntactic
processing difficulty, and not to restructuring and loss since receptive skills remained
widely intact and productive skills were regained quickly in the home country (cf. also
Slobin et al., 1993). These findings suggest that what may appear forgotten language in
a certain environment is, in large part, an access problem (Ammerlaan, 1996; Schmid,
2002; Tomiyama, 2000; Yukawa, 1998) due to the lack of appropriate contexts and
retrieval cues. They imply that temporarily inaccessible structures may be recovered
providing that the right cues become available.
Cue dependency is a particularly promising framework for future studies of
language attrition, especially, those designed to ascertain the nature of language attrition formulated in question (1) at the outset of this paper. One may investigate, for
example, whether or to what extent language skills are affected when immigrant speakers
re-encounter the environment of their child / home language or when they remeet with
the persons they interacted with as children in the (partially) forgotten language. It
could be explored how effective environmental factors, such as places and persons, are
as retrieval cues for receptive and productive access to seemingly forgotten language
structures. The use of priming techniques could prove useful to create conditions that
enhance cue availability and language recovery. Systematic comparative studies of
attriters productive and receptive skills in situations deprived of retrieval cues versus
situations with extensive retrieval cues would help illuminate the relevance of cues for
language recovery and use.
4.7
Language as a dynamic system
Dynamic systems are self-organizing systems that are characterized by complete connectedness and mutual interaction of variables that affect each others change over time, they
convert between stable and instable states and, through feedback, can lead to qualitative
changes (Briggs & Peat, 1989). Systems theoreticians attempt to explain how systems of
formal structure, such as language (or multilingualism), evolve and develop over time.
In such a framework, the language system is seen to develop through the interaction of
environmental constraints and general cognitive and perceptual mechanisms. Dynamic,
interactionist, and connectionist approaches to language share the explicit critique of
unitary, single state grammars and the inability of discrete symbol-based computations
to adequately address the problem of time and change (cf. van Gelder & Port, 1995, also
on differences between the related approaches). Researchers applied dynamic systems
and interactionist approaches to address brain functioning and cognition (van Gelder
& Port, 1995), aspects of language processing (Elman, 1995), the evolution of language
(Cangelosi & Parisi, 2002), and problems of L1 and L2 acquisition (Ellis, 2002; LarsenFreeman, 1997; MacWhinney, 1998). In a precursor model to systems theory, Bates, and
MacWhinney (1981, 1987) suggested that functionalist interactive models could also be
applied to language attrition. With the Dynamic Model of Multilingualism, Herdina and
Jessner (2002) have begun to discuss the interrelatedness of variables, such as, language
acquisition, language maintenance effort, metalinguistic awareness / language aptitude,
and language loss in multilingual speakers. According to the authors, language attrition as a process of developmental change in the multilinguals language proficiency is
341
more consistent with a dynamic view of language and multilingualism than a view of
language as a set of invariant single state grammars (also Jessner, 2003). The attrition
of a language is normally related to the gradual acquisition and increasing strength of
one or several competing languages. The two or more languages influence each other
in the way they are learned, stored, and processed. An increase in L2 proficiency will
often be correlated with a decrease in L1 proficiency (see Jia & Aaronson, 1999; McElree
et al., 2000, Segalowitz, 1991). Environmental (including social) changes seem crucial
forces behind linguistic competition and change.
The dynamic view of language may appeal for the interpretation of, in particular,
child language attrition patterns that demonstrate dramatic changes in language competence, dominance, and loss (cf. Berman & Olshtain, 1983; Isurin, 2000; Jia & Aaronson,
1999; Saville-Troike et al., 1995; Slobin et al., 1993). However, the rapid changes or shifts
from one language (grammar) to another, as observed in young children may not necessarily present a challenge for advocates of discrete grammars. These dramatic cases
of learning and forgetting might actually support the poverty of stimulus argument
(Chomsky, 1975) and the critical (sensitive) period hypothesis. Likewise the language
shifts could be explained as the resetting (and transfer) of parameters as part of UG (cf.
Sharwood Smith & van Buren, 1991). Less dramatic, but continuous erosion of grammars, especially of once fully developed L1 in adults, would provide a stronger argument
for a dynamic language system that is highly sensitive to environmental constraints and
minimally based on discrete rules. Such evidence, however, is inconclusive to date since
much of the attrition data appear to reflect problems of retrieval and processing. Several
studies also suggest important limitations to variation, change, and loss, in particular,
studies that found little or no attrition of core features of grammatical competence in
the fully developed L1 of adult speakers (e.g., Ammerlaan, 1996; de Bot & Clyne, 1989;
Schmid, 2002; Toribio, 2001; Yagmur et al., 1999) and studies that reported little or no
attrition in highly proficient speakers of L2 (van Ginkel & van der Linden, 1996; Weltens
et al., 1989). Thus, determining the degree to which the attrition of language structures
is possible or impossible will remain a crucial issue and empirical testing ground for
theories of language and cognition, including the dynamic systems approach.
Despite unsettled theoretical questions and methodological challenges that arise
from the complexity of interacting factors in dynamic systems, it can be helpful to
conceive language development holistically as the interplay of environmental, cognitive,
social-affective, and linguistic variables. Such a view could also contribute to a more
realistic understanding of what constitutes multilingual proficiency (cf. also Cook,
1992; Grosjean, 1989; Romaine, 1995), and the potential gains and losses of becoming
a multilingual speaker.
5 Conclusion and Outlook

In the present article I neither provided an exhaustive review of psychological research
and theories of forgetting, nor a complete overview of research into language attrition.
My main objective was to point at problem areas of potential common interest to linguists
and psychologists by illustrating important analogies that exist between psychological
assumptions about forgetting and phenomena of language attrition and linguistic
342
P. Ecke
studies and explanations thereof. To date, linguists have been skeptical about potential
contributions of psychological theory and research to the study of language attrition.
Likewise psychologists have paid little attention to linguists studies of language loss
although some have begun to recognize the problem of language attrition, its interrelation with L2 acquisition and the need to study the dynamics of bi- and multilingualism.
It is hoped that the present review and discussion will raise awareness for theory and
research in both disciplines, and perhaps, provoke interdisciplinary collaboration.
Although the paper did not focus on a discussion of research methodology, it may also
foster some awareness of the range of methods used by linguists and psychologists to
study the decline of language production, reception, and representations, so that future
discussions of language attrition will incorporate findings from both naturalistic and
experimental studies.
In this paper, language attrition studies were related to seven theories that address
forgetting: repression / suppression, distortion, decay, interference, retrieval failure, cue
dependency, and dynamic systems theory. An apparent problem of using these conceptions as frameworks for language attrition studies lies in the difficulty to distinguish
between the concepts. The borderlines between decay, retrieval failure, and cue dependency, for example, are fluid. In fact, the processes are likely to be interrelated. Decay
can cause retrieval slowdown and failure, perhaps, the distortion and reorganization
of retrieval routes, which in turn, can make processing more affected by interference. Despite such interrelatedness, I believe that the discussion of these concepts can
contribute to a better understanding of language attrition. Insights from studies on
repression / suppression can be of relevance for investigations into the social-psychological factors that contribute to the forgetting of language. Distortion may provide
some analogy for the modeling of restructuring and regularization patterns in bilingual
speakers under attrition although it is probably the most problematic concept since it
is difficult to grasp and to distinguish methodologically from other variables. Decay,
interference, retrieval failure, and cue dependency are all important approaches for the
study and explanation of general cognitive and perceptual mechanisms that contribute
to the forgetting of language. Interactive and dynamic systems theories may help to
develop a holistic and more realistic picture of the manifold variables, constraints and
interactions that shape multilingual proficiency, language learning, maintenance, and
loss. In these respects, the latter approach could also serve as a guide for language
educators and planners.
Having framed the discussion around psychological conceptualizations of forgetting, I by no means intended to suggest a replacement of linguistic thought, hypotheses
and research on the functioning of language attrition. Without thorough linguistic
analyses (contrastive, functional, typological, and universal) it will be impossible to
determine what language structures are learned and forgotten. Why and how human
beings learn and forget language can only be explored fully if language attrition remains
the proper concern of applied linguists, psycholinguists, and sociolinguists alike.

343
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International Journal of Bilingualism Volume 8 Number 3 2004,

Language attrition and theories of

International Journal of Bilingualism is Kingston Press Ltd. 2004

The International Journal of Bilingualism

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

2 Forgetting and Language Attrition

What are the social-psychological consequences of forgetting? How does forgetting

3 Psychological explanations of forgetting

The concept of distortion emphasizes the subjectivity and permeability of personal

The International Journal of Bilingualism

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Decay is probably the oldest of all approaches to the explanation of forgetting. It

The International Journal of Bilingualism

Advocates of cue dependent retrieval argue that forgetting is neither satisfactorily

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Human memory is subject to processes of continuous unconscious restructuring and

divergence from monolingual norms, that is, a distortion of (monolingual) language

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Numerous investigations suggest that linguistic structures, which are infrequently

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Methodologically it will be relatively easy to provide evidence against cases of decay if it

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

speed in German native speakers living in Sweden. Three groups of German-Swedish

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

5 Conclusion and Outlook

The International Journal of Bilingualism

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

Language attrition and theories of forgetting

VAKHTIN, N. (1998). Copper Island Aleut: A case of language resurrection. In L. A. Grenoble

The International Journal of Bilingualism

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