The role of length of residency in first language grammatical attrition

如果a)可以充分成功地处理L2输入中的相应属性以在L2中完全获取，并且b)该属性在L1和L2中共享足够的相似性以将L2属性合并到L1语法中，则该属性容易受到磨损。这预示着磨耗主要发生在“母语语法的某些方面，这些方面在很大程度上有共同的特点，但仍存在差异”(Hicks和Dominguez，2019：160)。虽然这一预测似乎得到了现有文献的支持，但唯一被广泛研究的属性是代词，到目前为止，人们对其他语法特征知之甚少(Schmid2020)。虽然AVA模型声称语法磨耗依赖于来自第二语言的“广泛的”输入(Hicks and Dominguez，2019：154)，但它并没有具体预测居住时间长短在第一语言语法磨耗中所起的作用。施密德(2019：291)最近辩称，居住年限在自然减员背景下所起的作用一直在调查中，而且几乎没有证据表明在移民后的头几年自然减员可能会如何发展。这是因为到目前为止，大多数自然减员研究都聚焦于在讲第二语言的国家居住了相当长时间的参与者(例如，2010年，Cuza的最低居住年限为10年；2016年，多明格斯和希克斯的最低居住年限为15年)。我的研究解决了第一语言消耗文献中发现的这两个显著的经验差距；测试了以前很少或没有得到关注的语法属性，并准确地指出了产生语法消耗所需的第二语言暴露的持续时间。我将在童年后移民到葡萄牙的以西班牙语为母语的人中测试语法损耗：艾弗森(2012)在一项对一名在巴西生活了30年的智利西班牙语母语者的案例研究中表明，L1-西班牙语/L2-葡萄牙语组合有利于语法损耗。我的研究将招募居住在葡萄牙的不同时间组的参与者，特别关注移民后的头几年。参与者将进行实验性的语言产生和理解任务，旨在揭示他们对一组特定的语法属性的母语知识，这些属性显示出西班牙语和葡萄牙语的不同。定量分析将把他们的结果与西班牙的单语西班牙语对照组的结果进行比较，以确定是否确实发生了第一语言语法磨损，接触第二语言的时间长短，以及哪些语法特征。这项研究提供了重要的新数据，聚焦于我们对第一语言语法磨损的理解上的重大差距，这一研究将明显有益于语言习得和语言学理论方面的学术界，因为对磨损本质的新理解将促进我们对人类语言教师本身认知结构的理解(Hicks和Domguez，2019；2020)。

be susceptible to attrition if a) the corresponding property in the L2 input can be processed with sufficient success to be fully acquired in the L2, and b) the property shares enough similarity in the L1 and L2 for the L2 property to be incorporated into the L1 grammar. This predicts that attrition principally occurs "for aspects of the L1 grammar which share featural properties to a significant degree, but where differences nevertheless obtain" (Hicks and Dominguez, 2019:160). While this prediction appears to be supported by the existing literature, the only property which has been extensively investigated is pronouns, and to date very little is known about other grammatical features (Schmid, 2020). While the AvA model claims that grammatical attrition is dependent upon 'extensive' input from an L2 (Hicks and Dominguez, 2019:154), it makes no specific prediction about the role length of residency plays in L1 grammatical attrition. Schmid (2019:291) has recently argued that the role played by length of residency in the context of attrition has long been under investigated and that there is extremely little evidence on how attrition might progress during the first years following migration. This is because most attrition studies to date have focused on participants with a substantial length of residency in the L2- speaking country (e.g. a minimum residency length of 10 years in Cuza, 2010; 15 years in Dominguez and Hicks, 2016). My study addresses these two significant empirical gaps identified in the L1 attrition literature; testing grammatical properties which have previously received little or no attention, and pinpointing the duration of L2 exposure necessary to engender grammatical attrition. I will test for grammatical attrition among native Spanish speakers who have emigrated to Portugal after childhood: Iverson (2012) has shown the L1-Spanish/L2-Portuguese language combination to be favourable to grammatical attrition in a case study of an attriting Chilean-Spanish speaker living in Brazil for 30 years. My study will recruit groups of participants living in Portugal for varying lengths of time, paying particular attention to the first few years following migration. The participants will undertake experimental language production and comprehension tasks designed to reveal their L1 knowledge of a set of specifically selected grammatical properties exhibiting differences between Spanish and Portuguese. Quantitative analysis will compare their results to those of monolingual Spanish controls in Spain to determine if L1 grammatical attrition has in fact occurred, at what length of exposure to the L2, and for which grammatical properties. Providing important new data focusing on significant gaps in our understanding of L1 grammatical attrition, this research will demonstrably benefit the academic community in language acquisition and linguistic theory, as new understanding of the nature of attrition will advance our understanding of the cognitive architecture of the human language faculty itself (Hicks and Dominguez, 2019; 2020).