scholarly journals Exploring the source of differences and similarities in L1 attrition and heritage speaker competence: Evidence from pronominal resolution

Lingua ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 164 ◽  
pp. 266-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Kaltsa ◽  
Ianthi Maria Tsimpli ◽  
Jason Rothman
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Speaker ◽  
L1 Attrition

scholarly journals What is the source of L1 attrition? The effect of recent L1 re-exposure on Spanish speakers under L1 attrition

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 520-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
GLORIA CHAMORRO ◽  
ANTONELLA SORACE ◽  
PATRICK STURT
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Tracking Data ◽  
Native Spanish Speakers ◽  
Knowledge Representations ◽  
Permanent Change ◽  
L1 Attrition ◽  
Interface Structures

The recent hypothesis that L1 attrition affects the ability to process interface structures but not knowledge representations (Sorace, 2011) is tested by investigating the effects of recent L1 re-exposure on antecedent preferences for Spanish pronominal subjects, using offline judgements and online eye-tracking measures. Participants included a group of native Spanish speakers experiencing L1 attrition (‘attriters’), a second group of attriters exposed exclusively to Spanish before they were tested (‘re-exposed’), and a control group of Spanish monolinguals. The judgement data shows no significant differences between the groups. Moreover, the monolingual and re-exposed groups are not significantly different from each other in the eye-tracking data. The results of this novel manipulation indicate that attrition effects decrease due to L1 re-exposure, and that bilinguals are sensitive to input changes. Taken together, the findings suggest that attrition affects online sensitivity with interface structures rather than causing a permanent change in speakers’ L1 knowledge representations.

scholarly journals Syntactic L1-Attrition and Re-Exposure

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Cairncross ◽  
Magreet Vogelzang ◽  
Ianthi Tsimpli
Keyword(s):  
L1 Attrition

Problematizing heritage language identities

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-213
Author(s):  
Rebecca Pozzi ◽  
Lina Reznicek-Parrado
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Study Abroad ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Mexican Descent ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Language Pedagogy ◽  
Heritage Speaker ◽  
Linguistic Awareness ◽  
Relevant Topic

Abstract Heritage speaker identities have traditionally been a relevant topic of inquiry among scholars of heritage language pedagogy. Nevertheless, there is little research on Spanish heritage language identities in a study abroad context. Additionally, most existing studies on this topic focus on heritage speakers of Mexican descent studying in Mexico (e.g., de Félix & Cavazos Peña, 1992; McLaughlin, 2001; Riegelhaupt & Carrasco, 2000). This study examines heritage language identities in a non-heritage context by exploring the experiences of three heritage speakers of Mexican descent studying in Mendoza, Argentina. By focusing on a non-heritage context, we move away from the presumption that all heritage speakers seek to (re)claim a specific ethnic identity through language study (see Leeman, 2015). Instead, our qualitative analysis illustrates the diverse ways heritage speakers in a non-heritage context construct, contest, and negotiate their identities with respect to linguistic awareness, negotiation between varieties, and perceptions of their abilities.

Who did what to whom, and what did we already know?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Ionin ◽  
Maria Goldshtein ◽  
Tatiana Luchkina ◽  
Sofya Styrina
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Heritage Languages ◽  
Heritage Speaker ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Speakers Of Other Languages ◽  
Prior Literature

Abstract This paper reports on an experimental investigation of what second language (L2) learners and heritage speakers of Russian know about the relationship between word order and information structure in Russian. The participants completed a bimodal acceptability judgment task, rating the acceptability of SVO and OVS word orders in narrow-focus contexts, under neutral prosody. Heritage speakers behaved like the control group of baseline speakers, preferring SVO order in answer to object questions, and OVS order in answer to subject questions. In contrast, L2 learners preferred SVO order regardless of the context. While the heritage speaker group was more proficient than the L2 group, proficiency alone cannot account for differences in performance: specifically, with regard to acceptance of OVS order for subject narrow focus, heritage speakers improved with proficiency, but L2 learners did not. It is proposed that heritage speakers have an advantage in this domain due to early age of acquisition (cf. Montrul, 2008). This finding is consistent with prior literature on narrow focus with heritage speakers of other languages, and suggests that this phenomenon is not particularly vulnerable in heritage languages.

Preposition Stranding in Spanish as a Heritage Language

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Pascual y Cabo
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Comparison Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Heritage Speaker ◽  
The Core ◽  
Preposition Stranding ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence ◽  
Spanish Heritage Speakers ◽  
Timing Of Exposure

Previous research examining heritage speaker bilingualism has suggested that interfaceconditioned properties are likely to be affected by crosslinguistic influence (e.g., Montrul & Polinsky, 2011; White, 2011). It is not clear, however, whether the core syntax can also be affected to the same degree (e.g., Cuza, 2013; Depiante & Thompson, 2013). Departing from Cuza’s (2013) and Depiante and Thompson’s (2013) research, the present study seeks to determine the extent to which this is possible in the case of Spanish as a heritage language. With this goal in mind, a total of thirty-three Spanish heritage speakers (divided into sequential and simultaneous bilinguals) and a comparison group of eleven late Spanish-English bilinguals completed a battery of off-line tasks that examined knowledge and use of preposition stranding (i.e., a syntactic construction whereby the object of the preposition is fronted while the preposition itself is left stranded), an understudied core syntactic phenomenon that is licit in English but precluded in Spanish. Overall findings reveal that the sequential heritage speakers pattern with participants from the control group. The simultaneous heritage speakers, on the other hand, seem to have a grammar that is not so restricting as they accept and produce ungrammatical cases of preposition stranding. Herein, we argue that these results do not obtain the way they do due to incomplete acquisition or L1 attrition but crucially because of the timing of exposure to the societal language. We propose that this property was completely acquired, although differently acquired due to the structural overlap observed between the two languages involved (e.g., Müller & Hulk, 2001), and most importantly, to the timing of acquisition of English (e.g., Putnam & Sánchez, 2013).

Serving the Heritage Speaker across a Five-Year Program

ADFL Bulletin ◽  
2000 ◽  
pp. 27-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Gonzalez Pino ◽  
Frank Pino
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Speaker

Roadblocks to Bilingualism

2019 ◽  
pp. 66-90
Author(s):  
John Evar Strid ◽  
James A. Cohen ◽  
Autumn Gathings ◽  
Raven Stepter ◽  
Amor Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Heritage Speaker ◽  
The Us ◽  
Bilingual Teacher

Most teacher candidates have little experience with learning other languages. They therefore become cogs in the assimilationist machine that causes immigrants to lose native languages and become monolingual in English (Rumbaut, Massey, & Bean, 2006). In a time of devaluing immigrants (and their languages) and failure on the part of most Americans to learn other languages, educators need to focus on the role of other languages in promoting multicultural understanding and to increase language learning in the US. This chapter examines bilingual teacher candidates' experiences with language learning. For four years, students studying for ESL/bilingual licensure were asked to rate their language abilities, finding that 30% rated themselves as bilingual, with 70.43% of bilinguals describing themselves as heritage speakers. The authors report the overall findings as well as the bilingual heritage speaker candidates' own words on their experiences with language learning and maintaining their bilingualism.

scholarly journals The Interaction of Functional Predictors and the Mechanical Predictor Perseveration in a Variationist Analysis of Caribbean Spanish Heritage Speaker Subject Pronoun Expression

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Ana de Prada Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Reference Tracking ◽  
Heritage Speaker ◽  
Functional Predictors ◽  
Caribbean Spanish ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Rule Analysis

Subject pronoun expression (SPE) in Spanish has been widely studied across monolingual and bilingual varieties, showing a consistent effect of functional predictors. In recent papers, the role of the mechanical predictor priming, or perseveration, has been the source of debate. Additionally, little is known about the interaction of perseveration and significant functional predictors (e.g., grammatical person). In this paper, we expand on previous research by examining first-person singular (1sg) and third-person singular (3sg) data from sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish–English bilinguals from Florida to explore the possible difference in priming in deictic vs. referential subjects. The results from a mixed-effects variable rule analysis only offered clear evidence of priming in 1sg. We hypothesize that this result could be due to either surprisal (1sg overt pronominal subjects are rarer in the corpus that 3sg overt pronominal subjects) or to 3sg involving reference-tracking and perseveration only being evident in contexts where the subject form does not signal for pragmatic content.

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