The mutual influence of the first and second languages in German and English L1 speakers in second language environments
The overall research question was whether the L2 in a multicompetent dynamic language system would become faster and more readily accessible to the speaker than his/her L1 after the speaker had lived in L2 environments for a number of years. The participants consisted of two test groups (German L1 speakers in the UK, and English L1 speakers in German speaking Switzerland) and three control groups (monolingual German speakers in Germany with no English, monolingual Swiss German speakers in Switzerland with no English1, and monolingual English speakers in the UK with neither Swiss German nor Standard German). Methods / instruments. A cross-linguistic experiment, a verbal fluency task and a sociolinguistic questionnaire. The analysis was carried out in three steps: 1) Comparison of group and individual access results from the cross-linguistic experiment; 2) testing six basic variables through the sociolinguistic questionnaire: the participantâs attitude towards him/herself as an attriter, the view of the participantâs peers of themselves as an attriter, the âlength of stay in L2 environmentâ, âentry ageâ, âregular use of L1â and âregular use of L2â; 3) identification of factors responsible
Schoofs, Petra
The mutual influence of the first and second languages in German and English L1 speakers in second language environments. The overall research question was whether the L2 in a multicompetent dynamic language system would become faster and more readily accessible to the speaker than his/her L1 after the speaker had lived in L2 environments for a number of years. The participants consisted of two test groups (German L1 speakers in the UK, and English L1 speakers in German speaking Switzerland) and three control groups (monolingual German speakers in Germany with no English, monolingual Swiss German speakers in Switzerland with no English1, and monolingual English speakers in the UK with neither Swiss German nor Standard German). Methods / instruments. A cross-linguistic experiment, a verbal fluency task and a sociolinguistic questionnaire. The analysis was carried out in three steps: 1) Comparison of group and individual access results from the cross-linguistic experiment; 2) testing six basic variables through the sociolinguistic questionnaire: the participantâs attitude towards him/herself as an attriter, the view of the participantâs peers of themselves as an attriter, the âlength of stay in L2 environmentâ, âentry ageâ, âregular use of L1â and âregular use of L2â; 3) identification of factors responsible
mutual influence first_second languages german_english speaker second_language environment overall question_whether dynamic language system would_become faster readily accessible speaker his_her speaker live environment participant consist_two test group german speaker_english speaker german speak switzerland control_group monolingual german speaker germany english monolingual swiss german speaker switzerland english monolingual english_speaker neither swiss german standard german methods instrument cross_linguistic verbal fluency task sociolinguistic questionnaire analysis_carry step comparison group_individual access cross_linguistic test basic variable sociolinguistic questionnaire participant attitude_towards him view participant peer length stay environment entry age regular use regular use identification factor responsible