Linguistic Outcomes of Foreign Language Loss: Short-Term Changes in the Interlanguage of American Learners of French (Simplification, Attrition).

The purpose of this study was to investigate interlanguage change within the context of foreign language loss. It was predicted that the interruption of language instruction would result in an increase of instances of simplification in the losers' interlanguage. The identification of simplification features was based on studies of other simplified codes in which there was general agreement as to what constitutes simplification. Specifically, it was hypothesized that the losers' interlanguage will exhibit more morphological reduction and less complex syntax, and that the subjects would use full NPs rather than clitics to achieve reference to participants in narrative discourse. The subjects were fifty American learners of French as a foreign language divided into three groups that varied in terms of the periods of loss: Three months and ten days, eight months and twelve months. Three tasks were used to elicit interlanguage data: a discrete point test, a written narrative and an oral narrative. The results showed that, at the level of morphology, there was an increase in instances of simplification in the groups' interlanguage. However, the clearest manifestation of morphological simplification was in the written narratives and it was argued that the crucial factor for explaining this discrepancy of the results across tasks was the amount of attention that the subjects could pay to linguistic form. At the level of syntax, the results were not as conclusive. With regard to the means of encoding referents in narrative discourse, the results showed an increase in the subjects' use of full NP's and avoidance of clitics. The observed changes in morphology and the choice of referential forms suggest that language loss involves a selective but principled encoding of meaning. The subjects tended not to encode certain meanings such as plurality on verbs because, it was argued, such meanings are least important for communication. On the other h and , their over-encoding of referents was viewed to be motivated by the fact that it is crucial to know 'who is doing what to whom' in narrative discourse. Thus, a communicative framework was proposed for investigating language loss.PhDLinguisticsUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/160508/1/8512398.pd