1.2 Significance of the study

With the irresistible trend of globalization, our country has been brought into closer contact with overseas. In order to adapt to the new international environment, more and more people hope to learn English well. But the enlarged investment in English education don’t change the embarrassing situation that most English learners are faced with, and the research results about the language acquisition cannot solve the problem fully.

There are still so much unknown about language acquisition and language learning. Among the theoretical arguments are two major issues: 1)the contribution of language attrition research to our understanding of human memory and language change in inpiduals and groups; and 2)the relations and correspondences between processes of acquisition and attrition.(de Bot and Weltens, 1991). It is the significance of the study. By the detailed research, the paper thus can find useful ways to learn English well, which is  helpful to improve the comprehensive abilities of the 21st century talents. The paper here aims to look on extra-linguistic factors as the entry point to investigate the foreign language attrition, and to make the theoretical framework of foreign language attrition more complete and comprehensive; on the other hand, the paper is eager to provide enlightenment to foreign language teaching and learning problems in combination with the current educational situations.