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The present study investigates how heritage speakers conduct good-enough processing at the interface of home-language proficiency, cognitive skills (inhibitory control; working memory), and task types (acceptability judgement; self-paced reading). For this purpose, we employ two word-order patterns (verb-final vs. verb-initial) of two clausal constructions in Korean--suffixal passive and morphological causative--which contrast pertaining to the mapping between thematic roles and case-marking and the interpretive procedures driven by verbal morphology. We find that, while Korean heritage speakers demonstrate the same kind of acceptability-rating behaviour as monolingual Korean speakers do, their reading-time patterns are notably modulated by construction-specific properties, cognitive skills, and proficiency. This suggests a heritage speaker's ability and willingness to conduct both parsing routes, induced by linguistic cues in a non-dominant language, which are proportional to the computational complexity involving these cues. Implications of this study are expected to advance our understanding of a learner's mind for underrepresented languages and populations in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifier-Negation sentences allow an inverse scope reading in Tibetan but not in Chinese. This difference can be attributed to the underlying syntactic difference: the negation word can be raised at Logical Form in Tibetan but not in Chinese. This study investigated whether Chinese-dominant Tibetan heritage speakers know such difference. We conducted a sentence–picture matching truth value judgment task with 28 Chinese-dominant Tibetan heritage speakers, 25 baseline Tibetan speakers and 31 baseline Chinese speakers. Our baseline data first confirmed the difference between Tibetan and Chinese: the inverse scope reading is allowed in Tibetan but prohibited in Chinese. Our heritage participants' data showed a divergence: one group of heritage speakers allow the inverse scope reading in both Tibetan and Chinese while another group prohibit it in both languages. There is a third group of heritage speakers who are aware of the difference between Tibetan and Chinese. Our findings suggest that while it is possible for heritage speakers to attain nativelike knowledge of an interface phenomenon that differs in their two languages, they may also be subject to crosslinguistic influence and adopt one of two opposite strategies. Both strategies can minimize syntactic differences between their two grammars so an economy of syntactic representations in their repository of grammars can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Recent research on word learning has found that adults can rapidly learn novel words by tracking cross-situational statistics, but learning is greatly influenced by the phonological properties of the words and by the native language of the speakers. Mandarin-native speakers could easily pick up novel words with Mandarin tones after a short exposure, but English-native speakers had specific difficulty with the tonal components. It is, however, unclear how much experience with Mandarin is needed to successfully use the tonal cue in word learning. In this study, we explored this question by focusing on the heritage language population, who typically are exposed to the target language at an early age but then develop and switch to another majority language. Specifically, we investigated whether heritage Mandarin speakers residing in an English-speaking region and speaking English as a dominant language would be able to learn novel Mandarin tonal words from statistical tracking. It helps us understand whether early exposure to the target feature is sufficient to promote the use of that feature in word learning later in life. Methods: We trained 30 heritage Mandarin speakers with Mandarin pseudowords via a cross-situational statistical word learning task (CSWL). Results and discussion: Heritage Mandarin speakers were able to learn the pseudowords across multiple situations, but similar-sounding words (i.e., minimal pairs) were more difficult to identify, and words that contrast only in lexical tones (i.e., Mandarin lexical tone) were distinguished at chance level throughout learning. We also collected information about the participants' heritage language (HL) experience and usage. We did not observe a relationship between HL experience/usage and performance in tonal word learning, suggesting that HL exposure does not necessarily lead to an advantage in learning the target language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Filler particles like uhm in English or ähm in German show subtle language-specific differences and their variation in form is related to socio-linguistic variables like gender. The use of fillers in a second language has been shown to differ from monolinguals' filler particle use in both frequency and form in different language contexts. This study investigates the language-specific use of filler particles by bilingual heritage speakers in both their languages, looking at the dominant majority language in the society and their minority heritage language spoken at home. This is done based on heritage Russian and German data and majority German and English data from the RUEG corpus. Language-specific fillers were extracted from the corpus and analyzed for their occurrence and segmental form. The frequency analysis suggests an influence of bilingualism, age group, and formality of the situation on the filler frequency across all languages. The number of filler particles is higher in formal, older, and bilingual speech. The form analysis reveals an effect of language and gender on the type of filler particle. The vocalic-nasal filler particles (e.g., uhm) are more frequently found in German and English and in female speech of these languages. Heritage speakers of Russian in contact with German and English show higher use of vocalic-nasal forms also in their Russian while producing similar gender related patterns to monolingual speakers in both their languages. The higher frequency of filler particles in formal situations, older speakers and in bilingual speech, is discussed related to cognitive load which is assumed to be higher in these contexts while speech style which differs between situations and social groups is also considered as explanation. The higher use of vocalic-nasal filler particles in German and English suggests language specific filler particle preferences also related to the socio-linguistic variable gender in these languages. The results from heritage speakers suggest and influence on filler particle form in their heritage language, while also revealing socio-linguistic usage patterns related to gender which are produced by heritage speakers similarly to monolinguals in their respective language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the acquisition of verb derivation patterns by 15 Moroccan Arabic heritage speakers in France. The patterns studied were the basic, causative, medio-passive, and reciprocal. The data were gathered through a production experiment. The main finding was that a semantic distinction realized by pattern alternation was neutralized in the heritage language. The basic pattern and periphrastic constructions were used predominantly in medio-passive and reciprocal target data. The basic pattern was acquired by all participants, while only 40% acquired the causative, although the phonological form of the causative pattern was modified in the heritage language. The medio-passive and reciprocal patterns were not acquired. There were significant differences between the four patterns. Less marked and more common morphological structures characterized the heritage language. Neutralization in verb patterns showed that participants spoke a variety of Arabic in which certain morphosyntactic forms were reanalyzed.

Motivated by a growing body of research on heritage Spanish prosody, the current study uses the Sp_ToBi framework for the transcription of Spanish intonation to report trends in phonological targets of broad focus declaratives produced by heritage speakers of Chilean Spanish living in Stockholm, Sweden. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews from six participants belonging to the same social network including two Spanish-dominant first-generation immigrants and four Swedish-dominant second-generation speakers who were born and raised in Sweden and are heritage speakers of Spanish. The G1 participants are the primary source of Spanish input for the G2 speakers. Data were analyzed by identifying word- and phrase-level phonological targets and associating them with the appropriate pitch accent and boundary tones. Results show that the heritage Spanish declarative intonation patterns of the G2 speakers closely resemble those of the G1 speakers. These patterns are scrutinized in terms of the potential influence of Swedish and/or other varieties of Spanish. This analysis exhibits evidence of the importance of source input variety and cross-generational transmission of phonological targets in a heritage language as well as the potential contributions of multiple intonational systems in forming the phonological inventory of heritage speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Filler particles like uhm in English or ähm in German show subtle language-specific differences and their variation in form is related to socio-linguistic variables like gender. The use of fillers in a second language has been shown to differ from monolinguals' filler particle use in both frequency and form in different language contexts. This study investigates the language-specific use of filler particles by bilingual heritage speakers in both their languages, looking at the dominant majority language in the society and their minority heritage language spoken at home. This is done based on heritage Russian and German data and majority German and English data from the RUEG corpus. Language-specific fillers were extracted from the corpus and analyzed for their occurrence and segmental form. The frequency analysis suggests an influence of bilingualism, age group, and formality of the situation on the filler frequency across all languages. The number of filler particles is higher in formal, older, and bilingual speech. The form analysis reveals an effect of language and gender on the type of filler particle. The vocalic-nasal filler particles (e.g., uhm) are more frequently found in German and English and in female speech of these languages. Heritage speakers of Russian in contact with German and English show higher use of vocalic-nasal forms also in their Russian while producing similar gender related patterns to monolingual speakers in both their languages. The higher frequency of filler particles in formal situations, older speakers and in bilingual speech, is discussed related to cognitive load which is assumed to be higher in these contexts while speech style which differs between situations and social groups is also considered as explanation. The higher use of vocalic-nasal filler particles in German and English suggests language specific filler particle preferences also related to the socio-linguistic variable gender in these languages. The results from heritage speakers suggest and influence on filler particle form in their heritage language, while also revealing socio-linguistic usage patterns related to gender which are produced by heritage speakers similarly to monolinguals in their respective language.

We analyzed the production, acceptability and online comprehension of Spanish differential object marking (DOM) by two groups of bilingual speakers living in the U.S.: heritage speakers and L2 learners. DOM is the overt marking of direct objects that are higher on the animacy and referentiality scales, such as animate and specific objects in Spanish, marked by the preposition a (Juan ve a María 'Juan sees DOM María'). Previous studies have reported variability and high omission rates of obligatory DOM in bilingual situations where Spanish is in contact with a non-DOM language. Our study combined different methodologies to tap knowledge of DOM in the two groups. The results showed that heritage speakers and L2 learners (1) exhibited variability with DOM in production (in two oral tasks), comprehension (in an acceptability judgement task), and processing (in an eyetracking reading task); (2) can integrate DOM into their production, judgments and processing, but they do so inconsistently, and (3) type of task and type of sentence each have an effect on speakers' use of DOM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed the production, acceptability and online comprehension of Spanish differential object marking (DOM) by two groups of bilingual speakers living in the U.S.: heritage speakers and L2 learners. DOM is the overt marking of direct objects that are higher on the animacy and referentiality scales, such as animate and specific objects in Spanish, marked by the preposition a (Juan ve a María ‘Juan sees DOM María’). Previous studies have reported variability and high omission rates of obligatory DOM in bilingual situations where Spanish is in contact with a non-DOM language.Our study combined different methodologies to tap knowledge of DOM in the two groups. The results showed that heritage speakers and L2 learners (1) exhibited variability with DOM in production (in two oral tasks), comprehension (in an acceptability judgement task), and processing (in an eye-tracking reading task); (2) can integrate DOM into their production, judgments and processing, but they do so inconsistently, and (3) type of task and type of sentence each have an effect on speakers’ use of DOM.

Motivated by a growing body of research on heritage Spanish prosody, the current study uses the Sp_ToBi framework for the transcription of Spanish intonation to report trends in phonological targets of broad focus declaratives produced by heritage speakers of Chilean Spanish living in Stockholm, Sweden. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews from six participants belonging to the same social network including two Spanish-dominant first-generation immigrants and four Swedish-dominant second-generation speakers who were born and raised in Sweden and are heritage speakers of Spanish. The G1 participants are the primary source of Spanish input for the G2 speakers. Data were analyzed by identifying word- and phrase-level phonological targets and associating them with the appropriate pitch accent and boundary tones. Results show that the heritage Spanish declarative intonation patterns of the G2 speakers closely resemble those of the G1 speakers. These patterns are scrutinized in terms of the potential influence of Swedish and/or other varieties of Spanish. This analysis exhibits evidence of the importance of source input variety and cross-generational transmission of phonological targets in a heritage language as well as the potential contributions of multiple intonational systems in forming the phonological inventory of heritage speakers.

In several countries Russian is spoken by a considerable percentage of the population. The Russian language has been influenced by a number of different languages from throughout the world. As a result, it is crucial to look into how the first language (L1) of a family interacts with the language of the environment in early life and how this affects acquisition outcomes at different stages. This paper reports on a cross-sectional study of the acquisition of Russian plural morphology by preschool-age bilingual and monolingual children. The bilingual children speak Russian as their L1 and acquired English, Finnish, Hebrew or German as their early L2 around age 2 or 3. The L2s in this study belong to three typologically diverse groups. The results of an elicitation study show that all children make qualitatively similar errors but that the Russian/English bilinguals make the most errors, possibly due to the fact that plural morphology in English is much more regular than that in Russian and the other languages in this study. This paper contributes to our understanding of childhood bilingualism; there have been relatively few studies of Russian in the bilingual context. The study is placed within the framework of bilingualism, heritage speakers, and child L2-acquisition. The theories of how morphology develops in early sequential bilinguals / heritage speakers are put forth. Concrete predictions of particular theories are tested. The theoretical part shows how plurals are formed in Russian in contrast with other languages in this study. Our study purports to determine whether L2 affects L1 and makes the claim that availability of a grammar category in L2 is important for acquisition of that category in L1. The article actually consists of two parts, each dealing with qualitative and quantitative analysis, respectively.

The present study investigates how heritage speakers conduct good-enough processing at the interface of home-language proficiency, cognitive skills (inhibitory control; working memory), and task types (acceptability judgement; self-paced reading). For this purpose, we employ two word-order patterns (verb-final vs. verb-initial) of two clausal constructions in Korean-suffixal passive and morphological causative-which contrast pertaining to the mapping between thematic roles and case-marking and the interpretive procedures driven by verbal morphology. We find that, while Korean heritage speakers demonstrate the same kind of acceptability-rating behaviour as monolingual Korean speakers do, their reading-time patterns are notably modulated by construction-specific properties, cognitive skills, and proficiency. This suggests a heritage speaker's ability and willingness to conduct both parsing routes, induced by linguistic cues in a non-dominant language, which are proportional to the computational complexity involving these cues. Implications of this study are expected to advance our understanding of a learner's mind for underrepresented languages and populations in the field., Competing Interests: The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Shin.)

• L1 perception by Korean–English bilinguals is different from L1-i speakers. • Heritage speakers of Korean underuse onset f0 cue to Korean laryngeal contrasts. • Long-term Korean immigrants overuse onset f0 cue to Korean laryngeal contrasts. • Individual cue weighting predicts discrimination performance. • L1 experience and input affect presence and direction of cross-linguistic influence. This study investigates cross-linguistic influence of a second language (L2) on the first language (L1) perception in two distinct bilingual populations: Korean heritage speakers (n = 30) and long-term immigrants (n = 26) in the USA, compared to Korean-immersed speakers in South Korea (n = 30). By leveraging the differences in language-specific cue primacy in stop consonants between Korean and English, the present study examined L2 (English) influence in participants' perceptual cue weighting and discrimination of Korean laryngeal categories through a three-alternative forced-choice identification task and a speeded AX discrimination paradigm. The results indicated divergent patterns of cross-linguistic influence for the two bilingual groups. While heritage speakers showed a decreased reliance on the onset f0 cue, suggesting an assimilatory effect of English, long-term immigrants relied more heavily on this cue than Korean-immersed speakers, suggesting dissimilation with English. Furthermore, in discriminating Korean stops based on f0 differences, heritage speakers demonstrated decreased accuracy while long-term immigrants outperformed Korean-immersed speakers. In addition, individual weighting of f0 in the identification task was found to be predictive of discriminatory performance. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of L1 input and experience in determining the nature of cross-linguistic influence in L1 speech perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a present-day global world, immigrant communities manage multiple cultural and linguistic contexts. To better understand these cross-cultural connections, and bridge the fields of linguistics and transnationalism, the present study analyzes the interconnection between language use and symbolic transnationalism among heritage speakers of Spanish: 1.5- and second generation Cubans in Miami. While transnational studies address both the behavioral (physical) and symbolic (emotional) ties to the origin community, the role that language plays in establishing and maintaining symbolic transnational involvement, is not well-understood. Addressing this gap, a study was conducted with 75 young adults of Cuban origin residing in Miami. Statistical analysis, relying on correlation approach, was applied to analyze written questionnaires on language use and symbolic transnationalism. The results indicate strong evidence for overarching links between the level of symbolic transnationalism and language, such that greater affiliation with the culture of origin is related to a greater use and importance of the heritage language. Their direct correlation highlights symbolic transnationalism as a significant variable in sociolinguistic research with migrant communities, and thus provides a theoretical base for bridging linguistics and transnationalism. Moreover, this work emphasizes the importance of the context-based approach and cross-cultural awareness in language pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Recent research on word learning has found that adults can rapidly learn novel words by tracking cross-situational statistics, but learning is greatly influenced by the phonological properties of the words and by the native language of the speakers. Mandarin-native speakers could easily pick up novel words with Mandarin tones after a short exposure, but English-native speakers had specific difficulty with the tonal components. It is, however, unclear how much experience with Mandarin is needed to successfully use the tonal cue in word learning. In this study, we explored this question by focusing on the heritage language population, who typically are exposed to the target language at an early age but then develop and switch to another majority language. Specifically, we investigated whether heritage Mandarin speakers residing in an English-speaking region and speaking English as a dominant language would be able to learn novel Mandarin tonal words from statistical tracking. It helps us understand whether early exposure to the target feature is sufficient to promote the use of that feature in word learning later in life., Methods: We trained 30 heritage Mandarin speakers with Mandarin pseudowords via a cross-situational statistical word learning task (CSWL)., Results and Discussion: Heritage Mandarin speakers were able to learn the pseudowords across multiple situations, but similar-sounding words (i.e., minimal pairs) were more difficult to identify, and words that contrast only in lexical tones (i.e., Mandarin lexical tone) were distinguished at chance level throughout learning. We also collected information about the participants' heritage language (HL) experience and usage. We did not observe a relationship between HL experience/usage and performance in tonal word learning, suggesting that HL exposure does not necessarily lead to an advantage in learning the target language., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Ge, Rato, Rebuschat and Monaghan.)

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This paper reports on an experimental study investigating the acquisition of grammatical gender in Russian by heritage speakers living in Norway. The participants are 54 Norwegian-Russian bilingual children (4;0–10;2) as well as 107 Russian monolingual controls (3;0–7;0). Previous research has shown that grammatical gender is problematic for bilingual speakers, especially in cases where gender assignment is opaque (Polinsky, 2008; Schwartz et al., 2015; Rodina and Westergaard, 2017). Furthermore, factors such as proficiency and family type (one or two Russian-speaking parents) have been argued to be important. Interestingly, previous findings differ with respect to the kind of errors children make: restructuring to a two-gender system (masculine–feminine, see Polinsky, 2008) or defaulting to masculine (see Rodina and Westergaard, 2017). It is also not clear to what extent children are sensitive to gender cues or whether certain agreement patterns are simply memorized. To investigate this, we used both existing nouns and nonce words and tested both transparent and opaque gender cues. The results were checked against a number of background factors measuring exposure, proficiency, and dominance. Our findings show that bilingual children are clearly sensitive to morphophonological cues for gender assignment. The most common and robust error pattern for all bilinguals involved overgeneralization to masculine (especially affecting neuter and opaque nouns). At the same time, children from families with two Russian-speaking parents and monolinguals also occasionally overused feminine with vowel-final nouns. The following variables were found to be the most reliable predictors of accuracy on grammatical gender tasks: cumulative length of exposure (CLoE) and consistency of input in Russian, as well as the presence of older siblings, with CLoE to Russian being by far the most robust and important predictor. Furthermore, we show that a lexical diversity measure (number of different words in a Russian narrative) is also correlated significantly with the children’s performance on the gender tasks. At the same time, our results indicate that relative measures of dominance (e.g., the difference in exposure between the two languages or the difference in narrative scores) may be redundant when more robust absolute measures are present (CLoE and lexical diversity in the heritage language).

This paper reports on an experimental study investigating the acquisition of grammatical gender in Russian by heritage speakers living in Norway. The participants are 54 Norwegian-Russian bilingual children (4;0–10;2) as well as 107 Russian monolingual controls (3;0–7;0). Previous research has shown that grammatical gender is problematic for bilingual speakers, especially in cases where gender assignment is opaque (Polinsky, 2008; Schwartz et al., 2015; Rodina and Westergaard, 2017). Furthermore, factors such as proficiency and family type (one or two Russian-speaking parents) have been argued to be important. Interestingly, previous findings differ with respect to the kind of errors children make: restructuring to a two-gender system (masculine–feminine, see Polinsky, 2008) or defaulting to masculine (see Rodina and Westergaard, 2017). It is also not clear to what extent children are sensitive to gender cues or whether certain agreement patterns are simply memorized. To investigate this, we used both existing nouns and nonce words and tested both transparent and opaque gender cues. The results were checked against a number of background factors measuring exposure, proficiency, and dominance. Our findings show that bilingual children are clearly sensitive to morphophonological cues for gender assignment. The most common and robust error pattern for all bilinguals involved overgeneralization to masculine (especially affecting neuter and opaque nouns). At the same time, children from families with two Russian-speaking parents and monolinguals also occasionally overused feminine with vowel-final nouns. The following variables were found to be the most reliable predictors of accuracy on grammatical gender tasks: cumulative length of exposure (CLoE) and consistency of input in Russian, as well as the presence of older siblings, with CLoE to Russian being by far the most robust and important predictor. Furthermore, we show that a lexical diversity measure (number of different words in a Russian narrative) is also correlated significantly with the children's performance on the gender tasks. At the same time, our results indicate that relative measures of dominance (e.g., the difference in exposure between the two languages or the difference in narrative scores) may be redundant when more robust absolute measures are present (CLoE and lexical diversity in the heritage language). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Heritage speakers acquire their native language from home use in their early childhood. As the native language is typically a minority language in the society, these individuals receive their formal education in the majority language and eventually develop greater competency with the majority than their native language. To date, there have not been specific research attempts to understand word recognition by heritage speakers. It is not clear if and to what degree we may infer from evidence based on bilingual listeners in general. Purpose: This preliminary study investigated how heritage speakers of Spanish perform on an English word recognition test and analyzed their phoneme errors. Research Design: A prospective, cross-sectional, observational design was employed. Study Sample: Twelve normal-hearing adult Spanish heritage speakers (four men, eight women, 20-38 yrold) participated in the study. Their language background was obtained through the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire. Nine English monolingual listeners (three men, six women, 20-41 yr old) were also included for comparison purposes. Data Collection and Analysis: Listeners were presented with 200 Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 words in quiet. They repeated each word orally and in writing. Their responses were scored by word, word-initial consonant, vowel, and word-final consonant. Performance was compared between groups with Student's ttest or analysis of variance. Group-specific error patterns were primarily descriptive, but intergroup comparisons were made using 95% or 99% confidence intervals for proportional data. Results: The two groups of listeners yielded comparable scores when their responses were examined by word, vowel, and final consonant. However, heritage speakers of Spanish misidentified significantly more word-initial consonants and had significantly more difficulty with initial /p, b, h/ than their monolingual peers. The two groups yielded similar patterns for vowel and word-final consonants, but heritage speakers made significantly fewer errors with /e/ and more errors with word-final /p, k/. Conclusions: Data reported in the present study lead to a twofold conclusion. On the one hand, normal-hearing heritage speakers of Spanish may misidentify English phonemes in patterns different from those of English monolingual listeners. Not all phoneme errors can be readily understood by comparing Spanish and English phonology, suggesting that Spanish heritage speakers differ in performance from other Spanish-English bilingual listeners. On the other hand, the absolute number of errors and the error pattern of most phonemes were comparable between English monolingual listeners and Spanish heritage speakers, suggesting that audiologists may assess word recognition in quiet in the same way for these two groups of listeners, if diagnosis is based on words, not phonemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we elicited grammatical forms (oral production) from a group of child heritage speakers of Spanish (N = 45) in English and Spanish, using the morphosyntax subtest of the Bilingual English–Spanish Assessment (BESA), (Peña et al. 2014). A cross-sectional design was used with 25 participants in kindergarten and 20 in first grade. All children spoke Spanish at home and attended English rural schools. We controlled for L2 class environment and socio-economic status. Research findings indicated children produced more target structures in L1 Spanish. This project supports the view that sequential bilingualism and continuous exposure to the heritage language may assist heritage speakers to maintain some L1 structures (Miller and Cuza 2013; Pascual y Cabo and Gómez Soler 2015). Patterns of L2 development are also addressed.

This study examines the interactions between three vocalic subsystems of multilingual speakers and explores the role language status might play in explaining variability across them. Eight 14-year-olds raised in Germany, who had learnt English at school for 6 years and Polish for 1 year, participated in the study. They were divided into three groups: children of German parents, children with one Polish-speaking parent but with German as the main home language, and children with two Polish-speaking parents and Polish as their main home language. The young multilinguals read a word list and performed a delayed repetition task in all their languages, with both tasks containing tokens of /i, ɪ, u, ʊ, ϵ, æ/. The results show a great degree of individual variability in the production of the vowels in all three languages and point to language status as one factor shaping the phonological subsystems of these multilinguals. The findings are interpreted within the framework of the Dynamic Systems Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper aims to contribute to our understanding of heritage language acquisition by focusing on the results of three studies on heritage speakers of European Portuguese living in Germany ( Flores and Barbosa, 2014; Santos and Flores, 2013; Rinke and Flores, 2014 ), thus highlighting the European perspective on this topic. The participants of these studies are second-generation immigrants who use their heritage language productively in their daily interactions. In particular it is argued that heritage speakers are highly proficient bilingual speakers who develop a particular linguistic knowledge because they are exposed to particular input conditions. In this sense, the proficiency of heritage speakers cannot be described as the outcome of a deficient, incomplete acquisition process, but rather as an instance of native language development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper overviews what we currently know about the phonetics/phonology of heritage speakers of Spanish based on previous research on this topic, and also provides suggestions for future directions to pursue, as inspired by previous work on heritage Spanish, adult learners of Spanish, native Spanish, and other heritage languages. Specifically, we examine the past and future of heritage Spanish phonetics/phonology at both the segmental (i.e., consonants and vowels) and suprasegmental (i.e., intonation, rhythm, stress) levels in terms of how this part of heritage Spanish grammars differs from that of other Spanish-speaking populations. Finally, we discuss a series of methodological factors to consider as investigators continue to advance this area of linguistic inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the competence of heritage speakers of Portuguese living in Germany with respect to clitic placement in Portuguese by comparing their performance with that of monolingual speakers of the same age (7–15 years of age) in a test designed to elicit oral production data. The results of the study indicate that the heritage speakers go through stages in the acquisition of clitic placement that are similar to those of monolingual acquirers even though they take longer to attain the target grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partiendo de la idea de que la explicación de una aparente falta de cortesía en determinados comportamientos comunicativos hispanos no puede quedar limitada a la presencia / ausencia de una forma lingüística, trataremos de reflexionar sobre la importancia de la variación pragmática intercultural a la hora de abordar la enseñanza de la (des)cortesía en el aula de ELE. Para ilustrarlo, analizaremos el “fracaso”, desde el punto de vista de los presupuestos de la cortesía, del primer encuentro de los protagonistas de la película Fresa y chocolate (Juan Carlos Tabío; Cuba, 1995), en un intento por ampliar el concepto de lo (des)cortés.

With the evolving demographics in the U.S. population, Latinos are the largest racial/ethnic community in the United States and face many barriers to psychological well-being and overall health. Some Latinos present with culturally influenced idioms of distress such as ataque de nervios. Associations between ataque de nervios and a range of social and psychiatric vulnerabilities among Latinos living on the United States mainland have been found. An integrative, trauma-informed, and culturally sensitive psychodynamic perspective can help with understanding and treating ataque de nervios. This case study presents the treatment of a young undocumented Latina mother experiencing ataque de nervios. A psychodynamic approach, integrated with narrative therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques, is illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Repeated reading, a procedure involving repetition of the same text, has received copious attention from first language reading research providing highly converging evidence of its potency for reading fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. In contrast, second language research on repeated reading has been scarce. The very few studies extant have, nevertheless, shown similar, albeit inconclusive, findings. The present study was an attempt to foray into a hitherto uncharted area in both first and second language research, by investigating vocabulary gains from implementing a set of repeated-reading-based pedagogical and learning procedures. Using one heritage speaker of Chinese as its subject, the study administered 20 sessions of assisted repeated reading over three weeks. Results indicated both intentional and incidental vocabulary gains that would not otherwise have been possible through conventional reading or vocabulary instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]