Modelling L1 grammatical attrition through language acquisition: A reply to comments

Abstract

We wish to begin by thanking the Second Language Research editors for the opportunity to present our model of L1 grammatical attrition ('Attrition via Acquisition', AvA) as a keynote article. We also warmly thank the colleagues who have prepared commentaries that shed further light on the challenges that lie ahead for our model, and indeed for the field of L1 grammatical attrition. Here we offer responses, observations and clarifications to the main points raised in their commentaries. Within the broad and rapidly developing field of language attrition research, we reiterate at the outset that our own principal interest lies in the specific phenomenon that we refer to as L1 grammatical attrition. This specific focus on attrition within the grammar itself is significant, as it is distinct from other changes to L1 processing, cognition or performance that may be attested for bilinguals. Our keynote article (Hicks and Domínguez 2019) seeks to