An Overview of International Research on Language Attrition

This study used co-citation analysis in CiteSpace to identify trends and patterns in international research on language attrition. The analysis was based on journal articles from the Web of Science Core Collection, covering 2010 to 2020. The research showed that international studies on language attrition increased significantly over the past decade. Additionally, the citation frequency of these studies has also grown substantially. The research also showed that international language attrition studies have primarily been distributed across multidisciplinary fields such as linguistics, psychology, and education. These studies also seem to be merging with disciplines like pathology and neurology. Another research finding was that topics related to language attrition covered four main areas: first language attrition, foreign language attrition, the factors influencing language attrition, and the linguistic areas impacted by language attrition. Additionally, this study evaluates the research trend of language attrition by analyzing burst keywords. The research concludes with a summary of current international studies on language attrition and offers insights into prospects in this field.