Language attrition and ideology: Two groups of immigrants in Israel

There is a great body of research on the role of attitudes, motivation and emotions for the development of bilingualism, providing compelling evidence that these factors are among the most important for predicting success in the ultimate attainment of second and foreign language learners. Attempts have also been made to establish a similar link between these emotive factors and language attrition. Overall, findings from such investigations have been inconclusive and unsatisfactory. It has been hypothesized that this may in part be due to the fact that there was not enough diversity between the subjects investigated, and that clearer findings might be achieved through investigations which contrast different immigrant populations. The present study presents a comparison of two groups of immigrants in Israel.