Linguistic and psychological dimensions of second language attrition during and after a study abroad experience

After more than two decades of investigation, studies on language attrition have failed to generate findings that enable us to develop a coherent understanding of attrition. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore an innovative way of approaching attrition that links social participation to linguistic production and psychological functioning. To achieve this goal, the study was carried out within a Sociocultural Theoretic framework. In addition, unlike the cross-sectional perspective adopted in most language attrition research, the current study followed a longitudinal design. Ten L2 adult learners of Spanish taking part in a five-month study abroad program participated in the study. The participants were interviewed during their experience in Spain and then again during a seven-month period following their return to the U.S. in order to observe potential development/attrition in the same group of individuals over time.; Information was collected on the types and on the amount of time the learners spent engaging in Spanish-mediated activities during and after their experience abroad. Based on this, participants were divided into two groups—participation and non participation—for the purpose of carrying out the relevant linguistic and psychological analyses. Data for the study was elicited in the form of written and oral story narrations which were collected five times throughout the twelve-month period. The texts were analyzed at two levels: linguistic, which focused on specific formal features of the learners' performance; psychological, which analyzed communicative and avoidance strategies as manifestations of students' attempts to maintain and regain self-regulation (i.e., control) over the tasks.; The results suggest that degree of participation has an impact on students' level of control over a seemingly invariable linguistic system. That is, students did not experience difficulties with the formal features but they did have significant problems at the psychological level. Given sufficient time to plan, monitor, and focus on the linguistic problems, students were able to resolve linguistic difficulties but, as the analysis shows, over time those who did not maintain contact with Spanish upon returning to the US had considerable problems on the psychological plain with regard to their ability to maintain self-regulation during linguistic performance.