The Metapragmatic Regimentation of Heritage Language Use in Hispanic Canadian Caregiver–Child Interactions

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 230-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Guardado
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-329
Author(s):  
Tamara Vorobyeva ◽  
Aurora Bel

Abstract This study focuses on the issue of language proficiency attainment among young heritage speakers of Russian living in Spain and examines factors that have been claimed to promote heritage language proficiency, namely, age, gender, age of onset to L2, quantity of exposure and family language use. A group of 30 Russian-Spanish-Catalan trilingual children aged 7–11 participated in the study. In order to measure heritage language proficiency (L1 Russian), oral narratives were elicited. The results demonstrated a significant relationship between L1 proficiency and three sociolinguistic variables (age of onset to L2, quantity of exposure and family language use). Additionally, the multiply regression model demonstrated that the only significant variable affecting language proficiency was family language use and it accounted only for 33% of the variation of children’s language proficiency. The study raises the question about what are the other, yet unknown factors, which can affect heritage language proficiency.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Doris Stolberg

AbstractIt is well known that migration has an effect on language use and language choice. If the language of origin is maintained after migration, it tends to change in the new contact setting. Often, migrants shift to the new majority language within few generations. The current paper examines a diary corpus containing data from three generations of one German-Canadian family, ranging from 1867 to 1909, and covering the second to fourth generation after immigration. The paper analyzes changes that can be observed between the generations, with respect to the language system as well as to the individuals’ decision on language choice. The data not only offer insight into the dynamics of acquiring a written register of a heritage language, and the eventual shift to the majority language. They also allow us to identify different linguistic profiles of heritage speakers within one community. It is discussed how these profiles can be linked to the individuals’ family backgrounds and how the combination of these backgrounds may have contributed to giving up the heritage language in favor of the majority language.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 348-371
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Brown ◽  
Benjamin Carpenter

Wisconsin has a long history of heritage language use, which continues to the present. Latinos, Hmong, and Somalis are groups, which now call Wisconsin home. As new generations of American-born individuals emerge, more removed from immigrant culture, the vitality of the language as a heritage language may weaken. This study examines the vitality of Somali as a heritage language in Barron, Wisconsin. It investigates the negotiation of identities in the context of heritage Somali in the rural Upper Midwest.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ladilova

Collective identity construction as a discursive action is highly dependent on language use. Migration settings offer a wide range of linguistic repertoires to fall back upon in order to mark identity. While the ‘majority’ language is usually neutral in this sense, the use of the ‘minority’ or the heritage language, defined as a language “other than the dominant language (or languages) in a given social context” (Kelleher 2010, 1), can act as a specific means of identity construction. Moreover, the heritage language acts as a vehicle for transmission of collective memory which is also central in the process and will thus be discussed in this paper. These questions will be analysed by drawing on the results of an empirical study carried out in 2010 in Volga German communities in Argentina.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evangelia Daskalaki ◽  
Vasiliki Chondrogianni ◽  
Elma Blom ◽  
Froso Argyri ◽  
Johanne Paradis

A recurring question in the literature of heritage language acquisition, and more generally of bilingual acquisition, is whether all linguistic domains are sensitive to input reduction and to cross-linguistic influence and to what extent. According to the Interface Hypothesis, morphosyntactic phenomena regulated by discourse–pragmatic conditions are more likely to lead to non-native outcomes than strictly syntactic aspects of the language (Sorace, 2011). To test this hypothesis, we examined subject realization and placement in Greek–English bilingual children learning Greek as a heritage language in North America and investigated whether the amount of heritage language use can predict their performance in syntax–discourse and narrow syntactic contexts. Results indicated two deviations from the Interface Hypothesis: First, subject realization (a syntax–discourse phenomenon) was found to be largely unproblematic. Second, subject placement was affected not only in syntax–discourse structures but also in narrow syntactic structures, though to a lesser degree, suggesting that the association between the interface status of subject placement and its sensitivity to heritage language use among children heritage speakers is gradient rather than categorical.


2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Stell ◽  
Marko Dragojevic

This study examined how six different ethnolinguistic groups in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, adjust their language use during intergroup encounters. Invoking communication accommodation theory, we predicted that relatively low-vitality groups (high-vitality groups) would be inclined towards linguistic convergence (maintenance), but that these general patterns would be moderated by prevailing sociocultural norms and each group’s language proficiency. These hypotheses were largely supported. Relatively low-vitality groups tended to linguistically converge (typically via lingua francas), whereas relatively high-vitality groups tended to engage in linguistic maintenance. This resulted in two distinct patterns of adjustment: (a) symmetrical accommodation in interactions involving groups of relatively equal vitality, typically consisting of mutual convergence to lingua francas or mutual maintenance of a shared heritage language and (b) asymmetrical accommodation in intergroup interactions involving groups of relatively unequal vitality, typically consisting of upward convergence among lower vitality groups, and maintenance among higher vitality groups.


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