Language attrition
Language attrition is the gradual weakening of a person's ability to understand or use a language, often following reduced exposure or practice.
Language dominance: The relative strength and use of a person's languages across abilities, settings, and time. Attrition risk and patterns vary with which language is dominant and how dominance shifts.
Psycholinguistics: The study of the mental processes involved in producing, understanding, and acquiring language. Attrition research draws on models of language processing and access.
Language assessment: The systematic evaluation of a person's language abilities using tasks, observations, or tests. Repeated assessment helps distinguish declining ability from temporary performance fluctuations.
Language change: Changes in the forms, meanings, and use of a language across time and communities. Attrition concerns individual language knowledge, not necessarily change in the language system.
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: A temporary failure to retrieve a known word despite a strong sense of familiarity. Word-retrieval delays can make attrition visible even when the word remains known.
Language acquisition: The process by which people develop the ability to understand and use a language. Acquisition and attrition describe opposite directions of change in language knowledge.
Longitudinal study: A study that measures the same people repeatedly over an extended period. Tracking individuals over time can identify changes that a single test cannot show.
Language death: The loss of a language when no community continues to use it as a means of communication. Individual attrition can occur without a language disappearing from its community.
Inhibitory control: The ability to suppress distracting responses or information that is not currently relevant. Managing competing languages can affect which words are accessible during speech.
Language proficiency: A person's ability to use a language across skills such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Attrition is assessed as changes in proficiency rather than as a single all-or-nothing state.