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Growing Up Overseas: Perceptions Of Second Language Attrition And Retrieval Amongst Expatriate Children In India, Steve Sider

Education Faculty Publications

This study involves expatriate children whose first language (L1) is English and who learned Hindi as their second language (L2) while their parents worked in India. The purpose of the study was to investigate the linguistic experiences of the children after they had left India, particularly experiences with L2 attrition. Through semi-structured interviews, subjects shared their stories of L2 acquisition and attrition. Common experiences which contributed to the attrition of the L2 included periods of non-use of the L2, social responses to the use of the L2, the lack of development of Hindi literacy and subjects’ attitude toward using the …