Pixel International Conferences

As is widely disputed, the first language attrition is defined as the partial forgetting of a mother tongue due to several reasons, including excessive exposure to the second language. Schmidt (2012) argues that language attrition is a “more accurate and specific term for the loss of a language by a healthy individual”, i.e., who does not suffer from any brain injuries or health conditions (p. 3). Evaluating the causes of language attrition, Köpke (2004) proposed several sociolinguistic factors that contribute to the process, among which are age, language use, education level, and attitudinal factors. The most recent research studies on the first language attrition have been conducted on migrants who had little or no input of their mother tongue. However, the first language attrition is a phenomena that has been currently observed in international schools where English is used as a medium of instruction, and, thus, “[h]aving a fragmented or substandard level in the local language and a good level of English may well open some doors internationally, but it will close almost all doors locally” (Is There a Potential Pandemic of Language Loss in International Schools?, 2019). The purpose of this case study is to investigate the performance and competent-oriented attrition in an international school context based on the observation and interview with one of the secondary school students in an international school in Baku, Azerbaijan. Due to the constant exposure of the second language, the subject’s understanding and use of some fixed expressions in L1 have been supplanted by their English counterparts with the course of time, i.e., L2 interference has been taking place at a phraseological level. The results of the study demonstrate that the academic environment as well as other sociolinguistic factors invest in the deterioration of the L1 performance and competence based on the quality and quantity of L2 input.