The Oxford Handbook of Language Attrition

This volume is the first handbook dedicated to language attrition, the study of how a speaker's language may be affected by crosslinguistic interference and non-use. The effects of language attrition can be felt in all aspects of language knowledge, processing, and production, and can offer unique insights into the mind of bilingual language users. In this book, international experts in the field explore a comprehensive range of topics in language attrition, examining its theoretical implications, psycho- and neurolinguistic approaches, linguistic and extralinguistic factors, L2 attrition, and heritage languages. The chapters summarize current research and draw on insights from related fields such as child language development, language contact, language change, pathological developments, and second language acquisition.

1 - Introduction
2 - Language attrition and the Competition Model
3 - Language attrition and the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis
4 - The Interface Hypothesis as a framework for studying L1 attrition
5 - Implications of the Bottleneck Hypothesis for language attrition
6 - A Complex Dynamic Systems perspective on personal background variables in L1 attrition
7 - Psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic approaches to language attrition
8 - Language attrition as a special case of processing change: A wider cognitive perspective
9 - Memory retrieval and language attrition: Language loss or manifestations of a dynamic system?
10 - How bilingualism affects syntactic processing in the native language: Evidence from eye movements
11 - First language attrition and Developmental Language Disorder
12 - Aging as a confound in language attrition research: Lexical retrieval, language use, and cognitive and neural changes
13 - Linguistic regression in bilingual patients with Alzheimer's disease
14 - Electrophysiological approaches to L1 attrition
15 - Neuroimaging perspectives on L1 attrition and language change
16 - Introduction to linguistic factors in language attrition
17 - Phonetic drift
18 - Phonetic attrition
19 - Phonological attrition
20 - Morphological attrition
21 - Lexical attrition
22 - Null and overt pronouns in attrition
23 - Introduction to extralinguistic factors in language attrition
24 - Age effects in language attrition
25 - The impact of frequency of use and length of residence on L1 attrition
26 - L1 attrition, L2 development, and integration
27 - Language contact and language attrition
28 - Introduction to L2 attrition
29 - Exploring the impact of extra-linguistic factors on L2/FL attrition
30 - Syntax and phonology in L2 attrition: Modularity and resilience
31 - L2 lexical attrition
32 - Attrition studies on Japanese returnees
33 - Event-related potentials as metrics of foreign-language learning and loss
34 - Inroduction to heritage language development
35 - Quantifying language experience in heritage language development
36 - Intra-generational attrition: Contributions to heritage speaker competence
37 - 2L1 simultaneous bilinguals as heritage speakers
38 - Language loss and language learning in internationally-adopted children: Evidence from behaviour and the brain
39 - Childhood language memory in adult heritage language (re)learners
40 - Language development in bilingual returnees

Monika S. Schmid is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Essex, having previously held positions at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Her research focuses on various aspects of first language attrition and has been published in journals such as Bilingualism: Language and Cognition and Applied Psycholinguistics. She is the author of several books including Language Attrition (CUP, 2011) and First Language Attrition, Use, and Maintenance: The Case of German Jews in Anglophone Countries (Benjamins, 2002). Barbara Köpke is Professor of Neuropsycholinguistics at the University of Toulouse 2 and head of the Octogone-Lordat Laboratory. Her research involves neuro- and psycholinguistic aspects of language processing in bilingual subjects with specific attention to 'extreme' situations such as L1 attrition, simultaneous interpreting, and aphasia. Her work has appeared in journals such as Language, Interaction and Acquisition and International Journal of Bilingualism, and she is the editor of a special issue of Journal of Neurolinguistics on first language attrition. Monika S. Schmid and Barbara Köpke are co-editors, with Merel C. J. Keijzer and Susan Dostert, of Language Attrition: Theoretical Perspectives (Benjamins, 2007).