Motivation Types Of Non-English Majors And Language Attrition

Language attrition is identified as the inverse facet of language acquisition. It refers to "the loss of any language or any portion of language by an individual or speech community" (Freed,1982). The Conference on the Attrition of Language Skills convened by Richard Lambert at the University of Pennsylvania in 1980 marks the establishment of language attrition as a separate area of academic language research. The latest decades witnessed a rich profusion of research fruits originated from a large body of researchers abroad. Compared with the prosperity of the related research abroad, language attrition has drawn limited attention in China. The present study aims to explore the influence of different types of motivation on English attrition.This quantitative study was conducted among 95 seniors of non-English majors from Taiyuan University of Technology, who have completed their systematic English training for 16 months. English proficiency tests (CET-4) and motivation survey were conducted, aiming to answer the following questions:1) What are the motivation types of Chinese non-English major students? Which is the leading one and which subordinate?2) Have their English competence attrited after their systematical English learning? Which kinds of language skills, listening, reading and writing, are more vulnerable to suffer from attrition?3) Are there any significant differences in English attrition among different motivation groups? Which type is better in resisting attrition?The data collected are analyzed through SPSS 17.0. The major findings are summarized as follows:1) Instrumental motivation, cultural motivation, and situational motivation are the major types of motivation found in the subjects. Instrumental motivation is the leading one, and then comes the situational and cultural one.2) There is significant attrition among the subjects, whose receptive skills (listening and reading) are more resistant in attrition than productive one (writing).3) Cultural motivation is better in maintaining English competence than instrumental and situational one.The present study verified the hypothesis in the context of Chinese environment for EFL learners that the affective factors such as motivation influences language attrition to some extent. It testified the hypothesis that receptive skills are less vulnerable to attrition than productive skills. This is the empirical evidence to further testify the "Regression Hypothesis" that the knowledge acquired last is to be lost first. The study also provided some implications to the economics of education and English teaching in China.In a word, language attrition is a young and vigorous research area in China. There are various perspectives worth exploring. The discussions of language attrition are of great significance for the development of English teaching in China.