Losing Access to the Native Language While Immersed in a Second Language Evidence for the Role of Inhibition in Second-Language Learning

摘要

Adults are notoriously poor second-language(L2) learners. A context that enables successful L2 acquisi-tion is language immersion. In this study, we investigated theeffects of immersion learning for a group of university stu-dents studying abroad in Spain. Our interest was in the effectof immersion on the native language (L1), English. We testedthe hypothesis that immersion benefits L2 learning as a resultof attenuated influence of the L1. Participants were English-speaking learners of Spanish who were either immersed inSpanish while living in Spain or exposed to Spanish in theclassroom only. Performance on both comprehension andproduction tasks showed that immersed learners outper-formed their classroom counterparts with respect to L2proficiency. However, the results also revealed that im-mersed learners had reduced L1 access. The pattern of datais most consistent with the interpretation that the L1 wasinhibited while the learners were immersed.