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Lost in Transmission: The role of attrition and input in heritage language development
Edited by Bernhard Brehmer and Jeanine Treffers-Daller
[Studies in Bilingualism 59] 2020
► pp. 255–270

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

| University of Stirling

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.

Keywords: L1 attrition, Chinese, perfective aspect, durative aspect, bilingualism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1The aspect system of Mandarin
    • 2.2Studies on aspect marking in HL Mandarin
  • 3.The present study
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Material
  • 5.Results and analysis
  • 6.General discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.59.10zha
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