Language Attrition: A Loss and a Gain
“Hola Gabby! ¿Cómo va la escuela? ¿Cómo va todo?”
“Hey mom! Everything is going really well. I’m pretty busy with my classes and work, but I’m still making time to see all my friends…”
This is what a normal conversation sounds like between me and my mother. She speaks to me in Spanish while I speak to her in English.
Many of my monolingual friends stare at me in surprise when they hear us converse over the phone or in person.
“Are you just embarrassed to speak Spanish in front of people?”
“Does she speak English?”
“I just don’t get it!”
My responses to these questions are always “no,” “yes” and “I do not blame you.”
However, our daily conversations were not always like this.
Throughout my childhood, I never dreamed that my Spanish speaking skills would decline.
My first word was “agua.” The songs I connect the most to my adolescence were the ones by Vicente Fernandez and Juanes that blasted through the radio every morning on my way to school. Every evening had its special hours reserved for Telemundo news on channel 52 and God forbid I even touch the remote while any novelas were playing. Trips to the nearest panaderias and carnicerias always took longer than imagined because my family would end up catching up with the shop owners for what felt like hours. I sincerely looked forward to watching the skits on Sabado Gigante every weekend with my parents.
Above everything else, my four siblings and I were prohibited from speaking English inside our home.
This is a striking contrast to my reality today. I find myself Google translating certain words that come up in conversations with my mother. While speaking to others in Spanish, I have to defend myself by saying “Entiendo mucho mas de lo que puedo hablar,” which translates to “I understand much more than what I can speak.”
So, where did this loss of language come from?
Carmen Silva-Corvalán, a professor of Spanish and linguistics at the University of Southern California, says this phenomenon is not uncommon at all.
Language attrition, which is the course of decay a language experiences for lack of use, is experienced in many homes throughout the world. It is especially common throughout second and third generation children whose parents or grandparents were immigrants.
“A minority language is maintained with a reasonable level of proficiency only if it is reinforced in the community or in elementary school,” she said.
Language attrition may occur for a variety of reasons. Sociolinguistic languages, for example, are affected by a wide range of social factors like differences in dialects, environmental boundaries and the dynamics of bilingualism.
Psychologist Francois Grosjean wrote about the process of forgetting a language in Psychology Today. He says it is much like learning a language, but on the flip side. It is a gradual process followed by the intermingling of two languages, which in turn reduces a person’s original speaking abilities. While a person is not likely to forget the language completely, their skills and capabilities may falter substantially because it is easier to understand certain phrases and colloquialisms than it will be to respond.
“People who are in an extended process of forgetting a language avoid using it because they no longer feel sure about it and they do not want to make too many mistakes,” he said. “If they do have to use it, they may cut short a conversation so as not to have to show openly how far the attrition has progressed.”
Shifts in what people hear at school will have a large impact on their language skills. In addition, a child’s parent may also become increasingly proficient in the second language, which may lead to communication conducted in two languages.
“Communication develops into languages, the parents speak in Spanish, the children answer in English. It is also the case that to maintain and develop a minority language requires much effort,” said Silva-Corvalán. “If children don’t use the minority language frequently enough they will find it more and more demanding of effort to use it. Parents don’t want to antagonize their children by forcing them to speak the home language.”
Although learning about language attrition fills me with remorse, it also pushes me to retain what I do know and work harder to develop my skills so that I will be able to talk to my mother in the first language I learned to speak in.
