The Effects of English as Foreign Language Proficiency on Lexical Retention of Iranian Learners

Subject Areas : Journal of Teaching English Language Studies

Zinat  Sha'bani ¹ (Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, College of Humanities, Takestan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Takestan, Iran)
Mohammad  Taghi Hasani ² (MA, Department of English Language and Literature, College of Humanities, Takestan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Takestan, Iran)

Received: 2016-06-29 Accepted : 2016-08-02 Published : 2016-09-01

Keywords: Proficiency, lexical retention, Nouroz holidays,

Abstract :

This study aimed at investigating the effects of English as foreign language proficiency onlexical attrition of Iranian learners in Nouroz holidays. For this purpose, 90 students studiedEnglish translation at Qazvin Azad University were selected. They were sophomore and wereaccessible for the present study. After administering a proficiency test (OPT), 60 students wereselected according to the result of their OPT test for this study in which 25 students were maleand 35 were female. In Time 1 administration and just before Nouroz vacation, OPT(OxfordPlacement Test) was given to 90 participants to determine their level of proficiency and classifythem into three high, middle, and low groups of proficiency level according to their scores on thetest. Then, the devised test of receptive/productive vocabulary, modeled on The VocabularyLevels Test, was administered to the same participants to measure their acquisition of nounscovered in their Reading Comprehension book. The receptive/productive vocabulary test isadministered independently of the participants' final exam and before it. The results indicatedthat both types of tests were exposed to attrition. The results indicate that both types of tests wereexposed to attrition. Therefore, the hypothesis that both receptive and productive wordknowledge of learned vocabularies are more prone to attrition rather than retention after Englishdisuse by Iranian learners over Nouroz vacation is confirmed.

References:

Altenberg, E. (1991). Assessing first language vulnerability to attrition, in H. Seliger & R.
Vago, eds, ‘First Language Attrition’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.
189–206.
Chomsky, N.(1995). Conditions on transformation, in M. Anderson & P. Kiparsky, eds, ‘A
Festschrift for Morris Halle’, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, pp. 81–160.
JOURNAL OF TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES, Vol. 5, NO. 1, Summer 2016
67
Clyne, M.(1994). Thirty Years later: Some observations on “Refugee German” in Melbourne, in
H. Scholler & H. Reilly, eds, ‘Lexicography and Dialect Geogra- hy: Festgabe for Hans
Kurath’, Wiesbaden: Steiner, pp. 96–106.
de Bot, K. & Clyne, M. (1994). ‘A 16 year longitudinal study of language attri- tion in Dutch
immigrants in Australia’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 15(1),
17–28.
Ellis, R. (1994), The Study of Second Language Acquisition, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gurel, A. (2004). Linguistic Characteristics of Second Language Acquisition and First
Language Attrition: Turkish Overt Versus Null Pronouns, PhD thesis, McGill
University, Montreal.
Hansen, L., ed. (1980). Second Language Attrition in Japanese Contexts, Oxford: Ox- ford
University Press.
Hutz, M. (2004). Is there a natural process of decay? in M. S. Schmid, B. Kopke, M. Keijzer &
L. Weilemar, eds, ‘First Language Attrition: Interdisciplinary Per-spectives on
Methodological Issues’, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 189– 206.
Jakobson, R. (1941), Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals, The Hague:
Mouton.
Kopke,¨ B. (2004). ‘Neurolinguistic aspects of attrition’, Journal of Neurolinguistics 17, 3–30.
Kopke,¨ B. & Schmid, M. (2004). Language attrition: The next phase, in M. S. Schmid, B.
Kopke,¨ M. Keijzer & L. Weilemar, eds, ‘First Language Attrition: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on Methodological Issues’, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 1–43.
Schmid, M. (2011). Language Attrition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmid, M. (2005). The Language Attrition Test Battery: A Research Manual. ms, University of
Groningen.
JOURNAL OF TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES, Vol. 5, NO. 1, Summer 2016
68
Schmid, M. (2002). First Language Attrition, Use, and Maintenance: The Case of Ger-man Jews
in Anglophone Countries, Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins.
Seliger, H. (1996). Primary language attrition in the context of bilingualism, in W. Ritchie & T.
Bhatia, eds, ‘Handbook of Second Language Acquisition’, San Diego: Academic Press,
pp. 605–626.
Tsimpli, I. M., Sorace, A., Heycock, C. & Filiaci, F. (2004), ‘First language attrition and
syntactic subjects: A study of Greek and Italian near-native speakers of English’,
International Journal of Bilingualism 8(3), 257–277.
Waas, M. (1996), Language Attrition Downunder: German Speakers in Australia, Frankfurt:
Peter Lang.
Weltens, B. & Cohen, A. (1989), ‘Language Attrition Research: An Introduction’,Studies in
Second Language Acquisition 11(02), 127–133.
Wilson, F. (2009), Processing at the Syntax-discourse Interface in Second Lan-guage
Acquisition, PhD thesis, The University of Edinburgh.
Yagmur,ˇ K. (2004), Issues in finding the appropriate methodology, in M. S. Schmid, B. Kopke,¨
M. Keijzer & L. Weilemar, eds, ‘First Language Attrition: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
on Methodological Issues’, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.