A 16‐year longitudinal study of language attrition in Dutch immigrants in Australia

TLDR

Clyne’s 1970s research examined German‑English and Dutch‑English bilinguals in Australia, establishing a baseline for later studies of language maintenance. This article reports a 16‑year longitudinal study of Dutch immigrants in Australia to assess first‑language attrition. The study re‑tested fluent informants in 1987 using identical tests and elicitation procedures, transcribing and analysing all speech from 1971 and 1987. Results show no attrition over 16 years for the selected informants, with few linguistic changes compared to the larger 1971 sample, indicating that early language maintenance predicts long‑term fluency.

Abstract

Abstract In this article a description is given of a longitudinal study of language attrition in Dutch migrants in Australia. In the 1970s, Clyne conducted linguistic research on German‐English and Dutch‐English bilinguals in Australia. In 1987 those informants who were still fluent in Dutch were retested, using the same type of tests and elicitation procedures. All the speech material of the informants from 1971 and 1987 has been transcribed and analysed. It appears that for this selected set of informants there is no evidence of attrition over the 16‐year period. In addition, they show hardly any of the linguistic characteristics of the larger group of informants in the 1971 sample. It is concluded that first‐language attrition does not necessarily take place in an immigrant setting and that those immigrants who manage to maintain their language in the first years of their stay in the new environment are likely to remain fluent speakers of their first language.