Language Attrition and Identity

This chapter will discuss the loss or attrition of a first language (L1) in an immigration setting. Based on two large-scale investigations of migrant populations with German as a first language (Schmid 2002; Schmid 2007), it will be investigated to what degree regular use of the first language in daily life and attitudes toward the culture of origin can influence L1 attrition or maintenance. Investigations of language attrition typically find substantial differences within migrant populations. Some individuals are indistinguishable from native speakers, even after having lived in an emigration setting for many decades, while others are no longer recognizable as original members of the speech community. Over the past decades, many attempts have been made to identify the predicting factors for L1 attrition or maintenance. It has been shown that the impact of factors such as frequent use of and exposure to the language is much less pronounced than might have been expected. On the other hand, there seems to be a rather large role of the attitude toward the community of origin on the part of the speaker. This suggests that culture and identity may be the most important factors for the constitution of multilingual proficiency.