Victoria Lee, a student in the BAMA pathway program in SLS, presented her research in the Spring 2019 Undergraduate Showcase (Undergraduate Research and Creative Work) on May 3, 2019 at the East-West Center.
Victoria’s presentation, “Tracking Potential Attrition in a Child SecondLanguage Learner鈥檚 Phonological Development after a Change in Learning Environment”, was the culmination of several semesters of research and an award from the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP).聽 The purpose of the study was to examine whether second language (L2) attrition would occur in “K”, a L2-English 8-year-old child whose first language (L1) was Japanese.聽 K spent seven months in Hawaii, and then returned to Japan.聽 Victoria looked at the short-term changes in K鈥檚 production of two minimal consonantal pairs in English that are not contrastive in Japanese (/l/-/晒/, /b/-/v/). Findings from the study showed no obvious evidence of attrition in K鈥檚 production over the five months after his return to Japan, but later studies could look at K鈥檚 production a year or two after his return for evidence of attrition.
