Language Attrition and Heritage Language Reversal in Returnees

2021 ◽  
pp. 351-372
Author(s):  
Cristina Flores ◽  
Neal Snape
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Attrition

Sequential bilingual heritage children's L1 attrition in lexical retrieval: Age of acquisition versus language experience

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Kitaek Kim ◽  
Hyunwoo Kim
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Length Of Residence ◽  
Heritage Speakers

Abstract This study investigated the unresolved issue of potential sources of heritage language attrition. To test contributing effects of three learner variables – age of second language acquisition, length of residence, and language input – on heritage children's lexical retrieval accuracy and speed, we conducted a real-time word naming task with 68 children (age 11–14 years) living in South Korea who spoke either Chinese or Russian as a heritage language. Results of regression analyses showed that the participants were less accurate and slower in naming target words in their heritage language as their length of residence in Korea and the amount of Korean input increased. The age of Korean acquisition did not significantly influence their performance. These findings support the claim that heritage speakers’ language experience is a more reliable predictor of first language attrition than age of acquisition. We discuss these findings in light of different approaches to explaining language attrition.

Processing of contrastiveness by heritage Russian bilinguals

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
IRINA A. SEKERINA ◽  
JOHN C. TRUESWELL
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Visual Context ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Cascading Effects

Two eye-tracking experiments in the Visual World paradigm compared how monolingual Russian (Experiment 1) and heritage Russian–English bilingual (Experiment 2) listeners process contrastiveness online in Russian. Materials were color adjective–noun phrases embedded into the split-constituent construction Krasnuju položite zvezdočku . . . “Red put star . . .” whose inherent contrastiveness results from integration of multiple sources of information, i.e., word order, prosody and visual context. The results showed that while monolinguals rapidly used word order and visual context (but not contrastive prosody) to compute the contrast set even before the noun appeared in speech, heritage Russian bilinguals were very slow and took notice of multiple sources of information only when the lexical identity of the noun made the task superfluous. These results are similar to slowed processing reported in the literature for L2 learners. It is hypothesized that this slowdown in HL processing is due to cascading effects of covert competition between the two languages that starts at the level of spoken word recognition and culminates at the interfaces and, with time, it may become a major contributing force to heritage language attrition.

scholarly journals Acquisition outcomes across domains in adult simultaneous bilinguals with French as weaker and stronger language

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
TANJA KUPISCH ◽  
TATJANA LEIN ◽  
DAGMAR BARTON ◽  
DAWN JUDITH SCHRÖDER ◽  
ILSE STANGEN ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
The Other ◽  
Foreign Accent ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Language Context ◽  
Relative Vulnerability

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the adult grammars of French simultaneous bilingual speakers (2L1s) whose other language is German. Apart from providing an example of French as heritage language in Europe, the goals of this paper are (i) to compare the acquisition of French in a minority and majority language context, (ii) to identify the relative vulnerability of individual domains, and (iii) to investigate whether 2L1s are vulnerable to language attrition when moving to their heritage country during adulthood. We include two groups of German-French 2L1s: One group grew up predominantly in France, but moved to Germany during adulthood; the other group grew up predominantly in Germany and stayed there. Performance is compared in different domains, including adjective placement, gender marking, articles, prepositions, foreign accent and voice onset time. Results indicate that differences between the two groups are minimal in morpho-syntax, but more prominent in pronunciation.

Salvaging the Mother Tongue in Exile

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 187-204
Author(s):  
Tomás Espino Barrera
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Progressive Loss ◽  
First Language Attrition ◽  
Lost In Translation ◽  
Deliberate Effort ◽  
Deep Sense

The dramatic increase in the number of exiles and refugees in the past 100 years has generated a substantial amount of literature written in a second language as well as a heightened sensibility towards the progressive loss of fluency in the mother tongue. Confronted by what modern linguistics has termed ‘first-language attrition’, the writings of numerous exilic translingual authors exhibit a deep sense of trauma which is often expressed through metaphors of illness and death. At the same time, most of these writers make a deliberate effort to preserve what is left from the mother tongue by attempting to increase their exposure to poems, dictionaries or native speakers of the ‘dying’ language. The present paper examines a range of attitudes towards translingualism and first language attrition through the testimonies of several exilic authors and thinkers from different countries (Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory, Hannah Arendt's interviews, Jorge Semprún's Quel beau dimanche! and Autobiografía de Federico Sánchez, and Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation, among others). Special attention will be paid to the historical frameworks that encourage most of their salvaging operations by infusing the mother tongue with categories of affect and kinship.

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