Birth Language Attrition/Retention and Relearning: A Longitudinal Study on Perception of Mandarin Chinese Tones among School Age Chinese Adoptees in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT A recent proposal for the theoretical interpretation of first language (L1) and second language (L2) interaction that results from the sudden change of language environment in international adoptees claims that such children experience a total loss of their birth language (Pallier et al., 2003; Ventureyra et al., 2004). The current study challenges such theoretical proposal by examining perception of Mandarin tones among school age Chinese adoptees, young Dutch learners of the language, and Chinese children who were born and are raised in Chinese families in the Netherlands. The present study involves data collection sessions spaced three and a half months apart, namely an attrition investigation (pre-test) and a relearning investigation (post-test). According to the data from the pre-test, the adopted Chinese children did show better perception of Mandarin tones compared to the young Dutch learners. After two months’ (six hours in total) training on recognizing and distinguishing the Mandarin tones, most participants showed different extents of improvement in their scores, but no such improvement was found for the Chinese adoptees. However, an advantage in perceiving and producing the Mandarin tones in the Chinese adoptees has been observed during the training process. Therefore, the writer contends that an account which includes a more maturational and comprehensive approach can better account for language replacement data, and is therefore preferable for future research.