Study on language attrition

Abstract

Nowadays, people do not know if they are or not aware of one of the most significant issues of immigrant population across different countries; the contact among languages in dissimilar situations can affect the skills of a first language (L1) causing several phenomena or even language loss. What happens when someone stays in a country where she or he has to speak the second language rather than the first one for several years? This paper deals with an important problem in language acquisition and language maintenance, in fact, most of the population, who is learning or even have learnt a second language, limits the usage of the less used language and it can affect their L1. The aim of this paper is to examine whether or not a language can be lost when it ceases to be spoken partially or completely, taking into account different factors and environments. Therefore, the following work has drawn upon some theories by Jakobson (1941), Weinreich (1953) and Seliger (1991), who try to explain the concept of Language Loss or Language Attrition.