"Heritage speakers are a fascinating group of bilinguals with a unique profile. Living abroad as immigrants of the second generation, they speak the language of their own speech community (the heritage language) at home, and the societally dominant language in most other domains. What exactly they know about their heritage language continues to fascinate the research community as well as teachers and other practitioners working with this group. The different contributions cover a large variety of studies into heritage languages spoken in Europe and North America (including Chinese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish). The volume makes a key contribution to the description and explanation of variability in the outcomes of heritage language acquisition, taking into account a wide range of factors which impact on language acquisition. As comparisons are frequently made with monolinguals and foreign language learners, the volume is also highly relevant for researchers working in monolingual language acquisition and foreign language learning and teaching"--.

• Lost in Transmission
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• Two sides of one coin?: The relevance of first language attrition for the acquisition of heritage languages
  • References
• Definiteness in Wenzhounese Chinese in the Netherlands and in China: Evidence for generational change in two locations
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Theoretical framework
    • 2.1 Cross-linguistic influence and change across the lifespan
    • 2.2 Definiteness marking, language contact and bilingual acquisition
    • 2.3 Definiteness marking in heritage languages
    • 2.4 Definiteness marking on already mentioned nouns in Wenzhounese Chinese and Dutch
    • 2.5 Present study
  • 3. Methodology
    • 3.1 Participants
    • 3.2 Traces of Contact corpus
    • 3.3 Coding
    • 3.4 Data analysis
  • 4. Results
  • 5. Discussion
  • 6. Conclusion
  • References
• Effects of first language attrition on heritage language input and ultimate attainment: Two generations of Turkish immigrants in the UK
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Measuring input quantity and quality
  • 3. Effects of defective input on HL development
  • 4. Evidentiality in Turkish
  • 5. Evidentials in monolingual and bilingual contexts
  • 6. Research questions and hypotheses
  • 7. Participants
  • 8. Instruments
    • 8.1 Sociolinguistic questionnaire
    • 8.2 Semi-structured interview (INT)
    • 8.3 Picture description task (PD)
  • 9. Transcription and coding
  • 10. Predictive variables
    • 10.1 Current L1 contact
    • 10.2 Input quantity
    • 10.3 L1 and L2 richness (input quality)
  • 11. Results
    • 11.1 Evidential accuracy
    • 11.2 Sources for HL variability
    • 11.3 Individual analysis
  • 12. Discussion
  • 13. Concluding remarks
  • Abbreviations
  • References
• Not in the mood: Frequency effects in heritage speakers’ subjunctive knowledge
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Lexically-subjunctive mood: Syntax and acquisition
    • 2.1 Intensional subjunctive mood: Morphology and syntax
    • 2.2 Acquisition of subjunctive mood by Spanish native speakers
  • 3. Experiment 1: HSs’ production of intensional subjunctive mood forms
    • 3.1 Introduction
    • 3.2 Participants
    • 3.3 Experimental task
    • 3.4 Results and statistical analysis
    • 3.5 Discussion of Experiment 1
  • 4. Experiment 2: HSs’ acceptance of intensional subjunctive mood forms
    • 4.1 Introduction
    • 4.2 Participants
    • 4.3 Experimental task
    • 4.4 Results and statistical analysis
    • 4.5 Discussion of Experiment 2
  • 5. Discussion and relevance of the findings
    • 5.1 Summary of results
    • 5.2 Implications for HL acquisition research
  • References
• Word order variation in heritage languages: Subject shift and object shift in Norwegian
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Background
    • 2.1 The structures
    • 2.2 Structural similarity/difference – Norwegian vs. English
    • 2.3 SS and OS in L1 acquisition
    • 2.4 Previous research on heritage Norwegian
  • 3. Research questions and predictions
  • 4. Participants
  • 5. Results
    • 5.1 Subject shift in heritage Norwegian
    • 5.2 Object shift in heritage Norwegian
  • 6. Discussion
  • 7. Summary and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Funding information
  • References
• Language contact: Gender agreement in Spanish L2 learners and heritage speakers
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Theoretical considerations on language contact
  • 3. Gender in Spanish and English
    • 3.1 Spanish
    • 3.2 English
  • 4. Previous research
  • 5. Research questions
  • 6. Methodology
    • 6.1 Participants
    • 6.2 Tasks and procedure
  • 7. Results
    • 7.1 Task 1: Grammaticality judgment task (GJT)
    • 7.2 Task 2: Oral picture description task (OPDT)
  • 8. Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Vocabulary development in the heritage languages Russian and Turkish between ages 6 and 10: How do parental input and socio-economic status account for differences within and between the cohorts?
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. State of research and research questions
  • 3. The study
    • 3.1 Sample and method
    • 3.2 Findings
  • 4. Discussion
  • 5. Conclusion
  • References
  • Funding information
• Heritage and non-heritage bilinguals: The role of biliteracy and bilingual education
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Theoretical background
    • 2.1 Heritage speakers
    • 2.2 Biliteracy
    • 2.3 Sentence repetition task
    • 2.4 Similarities and differences between Greek and Albanian
  • 3. The present study
    • 3.1 Participants
    • 3.2 Materials and procedure
  • 4. Results
    • 4.1 Expressive vocabulary test in Greek
    • 4.2 Expressive vocabulary test in Albanian
    • 4.3 Non-verbal intelligence (fluid intelligence)
    • 4.4 Verbal working memory task
    • 4.5 Non-verbal working memory task
    • 4.6 Sentence repetition task
  • 5. Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Funding information
• High sensitivity to conceptual cues in Turkish heritage speakers with dominant German L2: Comparing semantics–morphosyntax and pragmatics–morphosyntax interfaces
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Study 1: Semantics-morphosyntax interface
    • 2.1 Linguistic background: The interaction of animacy with number marking
    • 2.2 Experimental stimuli
    • 2.3 Method
    • 2.4 Experiment I
    • 2.5 Experiment II
    • 2.6 Comparing the two groups
    • 2.7 Conclusions
  • 3. Study II: Pragmatics-morphosyntax interface
    • 3.1 Linguistic background: The interaction of givenness with overt morphological marking
    • 3.2 Experimental stimuli
    • 3.3 Procedure
    • 3.4 Experiment III
    • 3.5 Experiment IV
    • 3.6 Comparing the two groups
  • 4. Discussion
  • 5. Evaluation of the outcomes from a processing-based linguistic framework and conclusions
  • References
• The Frequency Code and gendered attrition and acquisition in the German-English heritage language community in Vancouver, Canada
  • 1. Introduction: First language attrition as it relates to heritage language research
  • 2. Purpose of this study
  • 3. Defining pitch
  • 4. The Frequency Code
  • 5. Pitch in German and English
  • 6. Methodology
    • 6.1 Participants
    • 6.2 Data collection
    • 6.3 Measuring pitch range
    • 6.4 Hypotheses
  • 7. Results
    • 7.1 Pitch level
    • 7.2 Pitch span
    • 7.3 Bilingual variation in pitch range
  • 8. Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• Does extensive L2 exposure trigger L1 attrition of perfective and durative aspect marking in Mandarin Chinese?
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Background
    • 2.1 The aspect system of Mandarin
    • 2.2 Studies on aspect marking in HL Mandarin
  • 3. The present study
  • 4. Methodology
    • 4.1 Participants
    • 4.2 Material
  • 5. Results and analysis
  • 6. General discussion
  • 7. Conclusion
  • References
• Author index
• Language index
• Subject index