| Language attrition, which is regarded as the inverse process of language acquisition, refers to the phenomenon that the language ability or skill of a bilingual or multilingual person gradually regresses due to cease or reduction of using a certain language. In recent years, there are many researches on language attrition sequence at home and abroad. Many researches at syntactic level such as the attrition of English negation show that the attrition sequence of English negation is in accordance with Jakobson’s Regression Hypothesis; at lexical level, studies on the attrition of the third person singular, morpheme "-ing" also reveal the feature of regression. However, researches on the attrition of English passive voice are limited.Based on the previous researches and Jakobson’s Regression Hypothesis, the present study aims to investigate the attrition sequence of English passive voice by analyzing the attrition of 125 Chinese EFL learners. Two specific research questions have been addressed: (1) What is the attrition sequence of English passive voice for EFL learners in Chinese context? Does it follow the prediction of Jakobson’s Regression Hypothesis? (2) Among the eight major factors affecting foreign language attrition, what are the effective factors affecting attrition of English passive voice in Chinese context in this study?This study makes the Regression Hypothesis as the research object. The data collected from the questionnaire and the test paper, will be analyzed by the PASW Statistics 20.0. And after further discussions, final conclusions are drawn as follows:firstly, subjects under study suffer different degrees of English passive voice attrition. The attrition sequence of passive voice in Chinese context is verified as "first acquired, last attrited; last acquired, first attrited", which is just in accordance with the prediction of the Regression Hypothesis.Moreover, several factors that account for the English passive voice attrition are found:(1) Language proficiency level prior to attrition. Learners with higher proficiency level are more resistant to attrition, when compared with those with lower proficiency level. (2) Length of time since onset of attrition. Learners suffer from different degrees of English passive voice attrition due to different lengths of time since onset of attrition. (3) Gender. Female learners tend to have a lower attrition rate than male learners. |
