In the vast body of research on language learning, there is still surprisingly little work on the attrition or retention of second/foreign languages, particularly in multilinguals, once learning and/or use of these languages ceases. The present study focuses on foreign language attrition and examines lexical diversity and (dis)fluency in the oral productions of 114 multilingual young adults, first language German speakers who learned English as their first (FL1) and French or Italian as their second foreign language (FL2), shortly before and approximately 16 months after graduation from upper secondary school. The level of foreign language use after graduation was found to have a noticeable impact on the measured change in output quality in the FL2, but only little in the FL1, where participants’ initial proficiency was considerably higher. The amount of use in the FL1 had no visible connection with attrition/maintenance in a rarely used FL2. Those participants who felt their speaking skills in one of their foreign languages had improved were correct in their self-assessment, but the degree to which the remaining subjects felt their speaking skills had deteriorated was not reflected in their productions.

中文翻译：

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学校外语的流失：多语言视角

在关于语言学习的大量研究中，令人惊讶的是，一旦停止学习和/或使用这些语言，关于第二语言/外语，尤其是多语种语言的损耗或保留的工作仍然很少。本研究侧重于外语磨损，并检查了 114 名多语种年轻人的词汇多样性和（不）流利程度，他们是第一语言德语使用者，他们以英语作为第一语言 (FL1)，将法语或意大利语作为第二外语。 FL2)，高中毕业前不久和毕业后大约 16 个月。发现毕业后的外语使用水平对 FL2 输出质量的测量变化有显着影响，但在 FL1 中影响很小，参与者的初始熟练程度要高得多。FL1 中的使用量与很少使用的 FL2 中的损耗/维护没有明显联系。那些认为他们的一种外语口语能力有所提高的参与者在他们的自我评估中是正确的，但其余受试者认为他们的口语能力下降的程度并没有反映在他们的作品中。