scholarly journals The development of English as a heritage language: The role of chronological age and age of onset of bilingualism

2020 ◽  
pp. 014272372092981 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Armon-Lotem ◽  
Karen Rose ◽  
Carmit Altman
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Chronological Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Heritage Language Acquisition ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Heritage Language Speakers

This study explores typically developing bilingual children’s performance in their English as a heritage language. The aim of this study is to advance our understanding of heritage language expectations and the role of chronological age and bilingual exposure. A broad range of receptive and expressive linguistic domains are investigated as a function of chronological age and age of onset of bilingualism. English–Hebrew typically developing bilingual children ( N = 240), ages 60–77 months, were compared to monolingual norms, using seven subtest standardized scores from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool-2 (CELF-Preschool-2). Descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANCOVAs, multiple regression analysis, and post-hoc comparisons were conducted. English heritage language speakers presented with an asymmetric linguistic system influenced by their chronological age and age of onset of bilingualism. Results demonstrated that performance was more advanced for measures that were less reliant on language-specific skills. Measures dependent on grammatical knowledge were vulnerable to limitations but they were within the monolingual norms. In contrast, the lexicon was heavily influenced by bilingualism. These findings contribute to the literature on bilingual linguistic expectations and will have implications for theories of heritage language acquisition and language acquisition in general.

scholarly journals Effects of parental input quality in child heritage language acquisition

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-736
Author(s):  
Evangelia DASKALAKI ◽  
Elma BLOM ◽  
Vasiliki CHONDROGIANNI ◽  
Johanne PARADIS
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Western Canada ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Input Quality ◽  
Heritage Language Acquisition ◽  
Parental Input

AbstractThis study investigates the role of parental input quality on the acquisition of Greek as a heritage language in Western Canada. Focusing on subject use, we tested four groups of Greek speakers: monolingual children, heritage children, and the parents of each one of those groups. Participants completed an elicited production task designed to elicit subject placement in wide focus and embedded interrogative contexts, where postverbal subjects are preferred/required in the monolingual variety. Results gave rise to two main conclusions: first, the parental input received by heritage children may be qualitatively different from the parental input received by monolingual children, in that it contains a higher rate of deviant preverbal subjects. Second, parental input quality in addition to quantity may affect the outcome of heritage language acquisition, in that children producing a higher rate of preverbal subjects had parents whose Greek input was not only quantitatively reduced, but also richer in preverbal subjects.

scholarly journals What is Difficult about Grammatical Gender? Evidence from Heritage Russian

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Laleko
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Gender Categorization ◽  
Heritage Language Acquisition ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Discourse Interface ◽  
Heritage Language Speakers ◽  
Allocation Strategies

The paper examines the role of lexical, morphological, and discourse-referential factors in gender assignment with animate nouns in heritage Russian in order to explore the extent to which these different interfaces are challenging in heritage language acquisition. The analysis of concordant and discordant agreement patterns with nouns representing each type of gender categorization mechanism points to unequal difficulty associated with different types of gender allocation strategies. In particular, heritage speakers converge with baseline speakers in rating possible and impossible agreement combinations in the presence of fixed and transparent lexical and morphological gender categorization cues; however, they display non-target-like judgments of unmarked and underspecified forms characterized by variable agreement behavior (i.e., hybrid nouns and common gender nouns). Problems with forms whose gender reference is disambiguated at the level of discourse point to the syntax-discourse interface as a locus of systematic difficulty for heritage language speakers.

Overhearing a Language During Childhood

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Kit-fong Au ◽  
Leah M. Knightly ◽  
Sun-Ah Jun ◽  
Janet S. Oh
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Heritage Language Acquisition

Despite its significance for understanding of language acquisition, the role of childhood language experience has been examined only in linguistic deprivation studies focusing on what cannot be learned readily beyond childhood. This study focused instead on long-term effects of what can be learned best during childhood. Our findings revealed that adults learning a language speak with a more nativelike accent if they overheard the language regularly during childhood than if they did not. These findings have important implications for understanding of language-learning mechanisms and heritage-language acquisition.

Similar use of intonation structure in early implanted children and hearing children: The case of Italian

2021 ◽  
pp. 014272372098605
Author(s):  
Paola Zanchi ◽  
Laura Zampini ◽  
Luca Pancani ◽  
Roberta Berici ◽  
Mariapaola D’Imperio
Keyword(s):  
Chronological Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Generation Task ◽  
Story Generation ◽  
Italian Children ◽  
Children's Stories ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
First Time

This work presents an analysis of the intonation competence in a group of Italian children with cochlear implant (CI). Early cochlear implantation plays a crucial role in language development for children who were born deaf in that it favours the acquisition of complex aspects of language, such as the intonation structure. A story-generation task, the Narrative Competence Task, was used to elicit children’s stories. Narrations produced by 8 early implanted children and by 16 children with typically hearing (TH) (8 one-to-one matched considering the chronological age, TH-CA, and 8 considering the hearing age, TH-HA) were analysed considering intonation features (pitch accent distribution, edge tones and inner breaks). Results show that children with CI produce intonation patterns that are similar to those of both TH-CA and TH-HA control groups. Few significant differences were found only between children with CI and children matched for TH-HA in the use of rising edge tones. These results are discussed in light of the role of cognitive development in using prosody and intonation and the importance of early CI implantation. This study shows for the first time that intonation use of early implanted children is not different from that of typically developing children with the same chronological age.

The Relationship between Second and Heritage Language Acquisition: Notes on Research and Theory Building

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Heritage Language Acquisition ◽  
Educational Issues ◽  
The Relationship

This article presents questions and areas of inquiry that should be pursued in Heritage Language Acquisition based on what has been done in Second Language Acquisition. Linguistic, social and educational issues are highlighted, and important parallels are made between the two fields.

Correlations between linguistic change and linguistic performance among heritage speakers of Danish in Argentina

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 690-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Heegård Petersen ◽  
Gert Foget Hansen ◽  
Jacob Thøgersen
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Heritage Language Speakers

Abstract The article addresses the issue of an assumed correlation between heritage language speakers’ linguistic system and their fluency. Previous research has shown that heritage language speakers who have grammatical patterns that are divergent from the language spoken in the homeland also have lexical retrieval problems and speak with a slower speech rate. We approach the issue by examining two linguistic features and 11 different fluency features (‘structural’ and ‘performance features’) of 10 speakers of Argentine Heritage Danish. A factor analysis shows that the 11 performance features can be reduced to 2 factors that characterize the speakers ‘lexical retrieval’ and ‘fluency’. A correlation analysis with the two structural features, weakening of a phonological contrast between /oː/ and /ɔː/ and simplification of the gender system, shows that there are no correlations at all between these two measures of the speakers’ language production, in contrast to what previous research has found.

scholarly journals Input effects across domains: The case of Greek subjects in child heritage language

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evangelia Daskalaki ◽  
Vasiliki Chondrogianni ◽  
Elma Blom ◽  
Froso Argyri ◽  
Johanne Paradis
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
North America ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Heritage Language Acquisition ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Interface Hypothesis

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.

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