Lexical access, lexical diversity and speech fluency in first language attrition

Abstract

Prolonged exposure to a second language changes how the first language (L1) is produced and processed, a phenomenon labelled as language attrition (Yilmaz & Schmid, 2018). The goal of the present study was to explore the extent of Russian language attrition among Russians living in Hungary and to explore how extralinguistic variables, such as length of residence, age, frequency of first language use, and attitudes towards the language, contribute to the process. Besides questionnaires, semantic and letter fluency tasks were used to explore lexical access and a story-telling task to measure lexical diversity and speech fluency. The findings showed that the control group (monolingual Russians living in Russia) outperformed attriters in terms of lexical access and lexical diversity while speech fluency seems to be intact. None of the extralinguistic variables explain the extent of attrition; however, frequency of use is related to the letter fluency tasks.

Keywords

• attitudes, frequency of use, l1 attrition, length of residence, lexical access and diversity, speech fluency