LANGUAGE ATTITUDES, EMOTION WORDS AND

IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION:
A CASE STUDY AMONG TWO L1 ATTRITORS

MAGGIE ANNE PETERS

PHD THESIS PROPOSAL JUNE 2015
UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
 Introduction
The Multilingual Speaker
▪Native language (L1) is presumed to remain the dominant language
throughout the course of speakers life
▪In an increasingly transnational world changes in language use & dominance
are observed

implications to native language AND first language loss (L1 attrition)

▪The study of multilingual speakers considers ethnomethodological approaches

in order to understand how factors of:
Attrition, Immigration, Education, & Language Use affect perceptions &
language attitudes across speakers while impacting the construction of their
social identities (Schmid, 2007; 2009)
 Literature Review
▪L1 Attrition – performance shift across two languages (Schmid & Kopke, 2004)

• Age
-Education – L1 retention (Kopke & Schmid, 2004)
Immigration • L1 use -Adolescence – L1 more deeply encoded (Schmid, 2011)
-Psychological & Emotional Experiences
(Pavlenko and Blackledge, 2002) (Jimenez, 2004)

Dynamic Model of Multilingualism (DMM), (Herdina & Jessner, 2002)

❖ L1 attrition can be seen as a process of continuous adjustment to changes in
the multilingual speaker´s environment.
❖ language acquisition and language attrition are intrinsically related, dynamic
systems where one language system directly mirrors the other
❖ Language loss or maintenance is related to domain specificity
 Literature Review
Language use & choice:

-Sociolinguistic & sociopsychological factors towards the

• Affective language and its speakers
Identity • Epistemic -Emotion words – specific to sociocultural & emotional
stances experience (Pavlenko and Blackledge, 2002)
-Not all languages are equal across communities (Schmid, 2008)
-Multiple member group status’ or hybrid identities (Pavlenko,
2002), (Block, 2007)
Membership Categorization (MC), (Block, 2007)
❖ Categories include lexicalized formulations for subjects, activities and behaviors to a
particular community
❖ social identities constructed with social acts – a social and goal-directed behavior
(i.e. requests, contradicting, interrupting)

❖ stances –a socially recognized point of view (i.e. mothers care for their babies, students should study).
❖ through the expression of language inheritance, language affiliation, and language
expertise that the multilingual constructs their identity
Research Aims:
1. How are multilingual and multicultural L1 attritors’
perceptions and beliefs expressed about their language use
in terms of language attitudes, awareness of emotion words,
and their perceived attrition in relation to objective attrition
tests?
2. How do these perceptions evolve over time and are there
certain factors contributing to this evolution? Does the
DMM provide a theoretical and testable framework into
explaining these changes?
3. And how do they construct their identities based off of
these proposed perceptions?
 Participants in Case Study
LUIZ
▪ 26 male, born in Brazil, living in Los Angeles
▪ L1 Portuguese L2 English L3 Spanish
▪ Child & adolescent immigrant
▪ Additive Bilingual
▪ Socioeconomic status: upper
▪ L1 education:
▪ 5 years immersion/4 years bilingual in
Brazil
▪ L1 attritor:
▪ Onset: 3 years after immigration at 15-16
▪ Increased loss in last 2 years at Uni
MARIJETA
▪ 27 female, born in Germany, living in Berlin
▪ L1 Croatian L2 German L3 English L4 French
▪ Immigrant family
▪ Heritage Speaker/Additive Bilingual
▪ Socioeconomic status: lower
▪ L1 education:
▪ 6-7 years weekly class in Germany
▪ L1 attritor:
▪ Onset: after leaving home at 19
▪ Gradual loss
Procedure
▪In order to promote reflection and display of
sociolinguistic identity in discourse, and to obtain
background and linguistic information, questionnaires and
interviews will be used and/or video recorded
▪Interviews will be transcribed, analyzed and coded using
Discourse Analysis and MCA (Day, 1992) (Baker, 2002) (Mann, 2010)
(Ochs, 1993)

▪L1 Attrition will be objectively measured and evaluated

Instruments
▪Self-reports of L1 Attrition: (completed) - Schmid Can-do Scales
▪Oral Questionnaire: (completed) - Based of BEQ (Pavlenko & Dewaele, 2002)
sociobiographical info & likert-type ratings of language attitudes, use and anxiety
▪Interview A: (completed) - open-ended questions: early L2 learning, immigration, and
multilingualism covering language attitudes, use of emotion words, identity and attrition.
▪L1 Attrition Test - cloze test and placement test
▪Questionnaire 1 - objective questionnaire investigating ues of emotion words across Ls,
preference, domain specificity
▪Interview 1 - semi-structured open-ended Interview with participant’s family for further
analysis of participants L1 attrition in terms of changes across time, domain specificity, life
events, and use/preference of emotion words
▪Interview 2 - A semi-structured open-ended Interview stemming from answers from
questionnaire 1 will be carried out in the participants L1.
▪Interview 3 - A semi-structured open-ended Interview stemming from the answers in
interview 2 in English - Participants will listen to their Interview 2 and provide further
feedback, feelings and accounts with regard to their L1 and previous answers.
Work Plan
Thank You