First Language Attrition: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and What It Can Be

Gallo, Federico, Bermudez-Margaretto, Beatriz, Shtyrov, Yury, Abutalebi, Jubin, Kreiner, Hamutal, Chitaya, Tamara, Petrova, Anna and Myachykov, Andriy (2021) First Language Attrition: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and What It Can Be. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 15. p. 686388. ISSN 1662-5161

[img]
Preview
Text
fnhum-15-686388.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Download (315kB) | Preview
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.686388

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 directions for future research. 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.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding information: This present study has been supported by Russian Science Foundation Grant (project no. 19-18-00550) to the National Research University Higher School of Economics.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Neuroscience, first language attrition, bilingualism, cross-linguistic interactions, EEG/MEG, fMRI
Subjects: C800 Psychology
Q100 Linguistics
Department: Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User: Rachel Branson
Date Deposited: 21 Sep 2021 10:26
Last Modified: 21 Sep 2021 10:30
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/47302

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics