| In recent years,most scholars focus more on the study of the process of language acquisition,while ignoring the reverse process of language acquisition.Language attrition,as the reverse process of language acquisition,provides a new perspective for the comprehensive study of language acquisition.On account of the cessation of foreign language learning or the reduction of foreign language use,foreign language learners’ language ability gradually declines.The reason why there exists the phenomenon of attrition is that the learners have ignored foreign language attrition and retention.Therefore,foreign language attrition,as a category of language attrition,has important research value and significance.Related studies have shown that language attrition is regressive,that is,the attrition order of the language component is opposite to the order of its acquisition.Besides,language attrition is selective.Compared with grammar and syntax,lexical knowledge is more vulnerable to attrition.Therefore,lexical attrition is one of the focuses of language attrition.In the field of foreign language attrition,lexical attrition has attracted wide attention of the researchers because of its strong operability,diverse research methods and being easy to quantify the results.The factors influencing foreign language attrition include language proficiency level prior to attrition,exposure to the target language,age,foreign language instruction,time since the onset of attrition,social affective factors,literacy,target language,gender,learning strategies,cognitive style and so on.Cognitive style is an important concept in language acquisition.In the field of foreign language acquisition,the researchers mainly focus on the influence of learners’ different cognitive styles on foreign language acquisition,especially the influence of field independent-dependent cognitive style on foreign language acquisition.In the field of foreign language attrition,there are few studies on the correlation between field independent-dependent cognitive style and foreign language attrition,especially foreign language lexical attrition.Therefore,based on the Selective Hypothesis and the Regression Hypothesis,the present study,taking the students from a senior high school in Hebei province as the subjects,adopting questionnaire,vocabulary test and interview as the research instruments,studies lexical attrition of senior high school students with field independent-dependent cognitive style and the influence of field independent-dependent cognitive style on foreign language lexical attrition.The study aims at exploring the influence of field independent-dependent cognitive style of senior high school students on lexical attrition by studying the following questions:(1)What is the degree of English lexical attrition of the senior high school students in three months after they finish all English courses?(2)What is the distribution of the senior high school students with field independent-dependent cognitive style and what is the degree of English lexical attrition of field-independent and field-dependent students?(3)What is the correlation between field independent-dependent cognitive style and English lexical attrition among senior high school students?(4)What is the influence of field independent-dependent cognitive style on the attrition of receptive and productive word knowledge and how is the attrition of different part of speech affected by field independent-dependent cognitive style?The results show that(1)The senior high school students suffer lexical attrition in three months after they finish all English courses.(2)The number of the senior high school students with field-independent cognitive style is larger than that of the senior high school students with field-dependent cognitive style.Compared with the field-dependent students,the field-independent students have less English lexical attrition.(3)The more obvious field-independent cognitive style of the senior high school students is,the smaller degree of attrition is.On the contrary,the more obvious field-dependent cognitive style of the senior high school students is,the greater degree of attrition is.(4)The degree of attrition of productive word knowledge of the senior high school students is higher than that of receptive word knowledge.In terms of the attrition of productive word knowledge,there is significant difference between the field-independent students and the field-dependent students.Besides,it is found that there isn’t significant difference between field-independent and fielddependent students from the perspective of the attrition of receptive word knowledge.In addition,the senior high school students suffer attrition of verbs,nouns and adjectives,but the difference in attrition of verbs and nouns is significant,and the degree of attrition of verbs is greater than that of nouns.There isn’t significant difference in the attrition of different part of speech(verbs,nouns and adjectives)between field-independent and field-dependent students.Based on the research results,corresponding suggestions are provided for foreign language learners and teachers.Foreign language learners not only should be aware of the existence of the phenomenon of lexical attrition,but also should learn about their cognitive styles so as to use the appropriate lexical learning strategies to maintain vocabulary.Besides,foreign language teachers need to fully understand the students’ cognitive styles and adopt different vocabulary teaching methods and vocabulary teaching strategies to help the students resist English lexical attrition according to the different cognitive styles. |
