Timed picture naming was compared in seven languages that vary along dimensions known to affect lexical access. Analyses over items focused on factors that determine cross-languageuniversals and cross-languagedisparities. With regard to universals, number of alternative names had large effects on reaction time within and across languages after target-name agreement was controlled, suggesting inhibitory effects from lexical competitors. For all the languages, word frequency and goodness of depiction had large effects, but objective picture complexity did not. Effects of word structure variables (length, syllable structure, compounding, and initial frication) varied markedly over languages. Strong cross-language correlations were found in naming latencies, frequency, and length. Other-language frequency effects were observed (e.g., Chinese frequencies predicting Spanish reaction times) even after within-language effects were controlled (e.g.,Spanish frequencies predicting Spanish reaction times). These surprising cross-language correlations challenge widely held assumptions about the lexical locus of length and frequency effects, suggesting instead that they may (at least in part) reflect familiarity and accessibility at a conceptual level that is shared over languages.

Picture naming is a widely used technique in psycholinguistic studies. Here, we describe new online resources that our project has compiled and made available to researchers on the world wide web at http://crl.ucsd.edu/~aszekely/ipnp/. The website provides access to a wide range of picture stimuli and related norms in seven languages. Picture naming norms, including indices of name agreement and latency, for 520 black-and-white drawings of common objects and 275 concrete transitive and intransitive actions are presented. Norms for age-of-acquisition, word-frequency, familiarity, goodness-of-depiction, and visual complexity are included. An on-line database query system can be used to select a specific range of stimuli, based on parameters of interest for a wide range of studies on healthy and clinical populations, as well as studies of language development.

The present contribution discusses recent developments and future directions in the attrition of instructed foreign languages, arguing for a distinction between this type of attrition and attrition involving second languages acquired implicitly in an immersion setting. An overview of the history of research in the field and the most prominent findings is provided, followed by a discussion of theoretical models and methodologically problematic issues. We conclude by outlining some future directions for the field. IntroductionIt is usually taken for granted that a foreign language will be forgotten once it is no longer used or studied, regardless of whether it is a school/university acquired language or a language learned abroad. Empirical findings, however, have so far failed to validate this assumption of the inevitability of language attrition. Some studies suggest individual variation in the susceptibility to foreign language attrition, although it is not yet clear what factors cause or contribute to linguistic resilience.While interest in the phenomenon of language attrition can be traced back to as far as the 16 th century (See Berko-Gleason, 1982), it was not until the 1980s that the decrease of linguistic skills in healthy individuals over time began attracting the attention of modern linguistics. In the early years, different terms were used to refer to the same phenomenon, amongst which language attrition, language loss and language regression. However, with the development of the field it became evident that this variation caused confusion. Consequently, language loss was suggested as a cover/general term for any type of decline in linguistic skills, both at individual or group level, encompassing both language shift, an intergenerational and societal phenomenon usually associated with diglossia situations, and language attrition, an intragenerational and individual phenomenon (de Bot & Weltens, 1995:151; de Bot, 1996:579; Hansen, 2001:61). With some minor exceptions, language regression is now mainly used to denote decay in the linguistic ability of previously normally developing infants, a symptom usually associated with medical conditions such as autism or degenerative disorders of the brain (Hyltenstam & Viberg, 1994) Within the field of language attrition, a further distinction is made between L1 attrition or the attrition of a native language associated with immigrants, as in the studies of de Bot and Clyne (1994), Gürel (2004), Hulsen (2000, Dostert (2007), Opitz (2004), Seliger and Vago (1991), Schmid (2002), Schmid, Köpke, Keijzer and Weilemar (2004), Yağmur, de Bot and Kurzillus (1999), and L2/foreign language (FL) attrition, the attrition of languages acquired later in life.Traditionally, no distinction is made between L2 and FL attrition, but we shall argue that there are substantial differences between languages that are learned by instruction through explicit processes, where the learner focusses on the input, on rules etc., and naturalistically acquired L2s (for the ...

As the introduction to the section on second language (L2) attrition, this chapter provides a broad presentation to research on attrition of L2 and foreign languages (FL). We will first discuss the terminology used in the field, focusing on some important differences in the terminology used in first language (L1) attrition studies. It provides a short overview of the development of the field, outlining major challenges and obstacles that research on the topic has to deal with. Next, it briefly describes the major findings and knowledge amassed on the subject before reviewing in more detail the findings of some of the most significant and large-scale projects carried out on L2/FL attrition. A final presentation of several theoretical frameworks of interest for L2/FL attrition research will allow us to show how L2/FL attrition is commonly explained but also to provide some ideas for future research directions.

No abstract