An Empirical Study On Oral English Attrition Among Chinese English Major Graduates

Since Lambert formally proposed the concept of language attrition in 1980,this concept has stimulated the research interest of foreign scholars and made increasingly fruitful achievements.However,the domestic research on language attrition started relatively late,and the current research focus of domestic scholars was more on theoretical introduction,while the empirical research on language attrition based on the domestic environment was rare.Therefore,this study takes second language attrition and the critical threshold hypothesis as the theoretical foundation to conduct an empirical study on oral English attrition among Chinese English major graduates.This study aims to answer the following three research questions:(1)What is the specific manifestation of oral English attrition among Chinese English major graduates after completing college English courses for one year?(2)Does oral English attrition among Chinese English major graduates verify the critical threshold hypothesis?(3)What factors can affect the oral English attrition among Chinese English major graduates?This thesis adopts the method of combining quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis,taking 66 English major graduates of grade 2018 in Sichuan International Studies University as the research subjects,and uses three research methods including oral English ability test,oral English ability questionnaire and semi-structured interview to obtain the research data of the subjects in two stages before and after they completed college English courses for one year.SPSS 22 statistical software was used for comparative analysis of the data of the two stages.The research results were as follows:(1)One year after the subjects completed all college English courses,their oral English performance in the second stage decreased significantly compared with that in the first stage,indicating that the subjects’ oral English skills have been attrited,which was specifically manifested as increased reaction time,decreased oral English fluency,and one or two major pronunciation errors.(2)One year after the subjects stopped learning English courses,the degree of oral English attrition in the high level group was significantly lower than that in the middle and low level groups,indicating that when the language level of the subjects reached a certain threshold,the degree of oral English attrition was weakened,which was consistent with the critical threshold hypothesis.(3)Subjects’ learning motivation and English proficiency level before attrition affected oral English attrition to some extent,but gender and language attitude had no significant correlation with oral English attrition.This thesis diachronically studies the phenomenon of oral English attrition among Chinese English major graduates,which has certain theoretical value and practical significance.The theoretical significance lies in the fact that this study explores the specific performance of oral English attrition among Chinese English major graduates after they completed English courses for one year,which expands and deepens the field of second language attrition research in China.This study also provides some evidence for the verification of the critical threshold hypothesis,which enriches the theory of language attrition hypothesis in China.The practical significance lies in the fact that this study explores the factors affecting oral English attrition and language maintenance strategies,which provides a new idea for oral English teaching in college English courses.