Does extensive L2 exposure trigger L1 attrition of perfective and durative aspect marking in Mandarin Chinese?

This study concerns whether extended exposure to a second language would lead to first language (L1) attrition, i.e. changes of L1 linguistic behavior/knowledge. An acceptability judgement task, which examined the perceptive knowledge of perfective and durative aspect marking in Mandarin Chinese, was employed, and the performance of 14 Mandarin-English bilinguals in the UK was examined. The results did not suggest that the bilinguals showed L1 attrition in perceiving perfective/durative aspect marking. The paper also discusses how research on heritage language acquisition could benefit from L1 attrition research.

Published online: 29 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.59.10zha