Heritage Languages and Their Speakers

The Study of Heritage Language Development From a Bilingualism and Social Justice Perspective

“…On the one hand, a de facto contraction is that indigenous and (post)colonial minority language learning contexts are not regularly framed as involving HLD, Fishman's () oft‐cited definition notwithstanding. For example, Polinsky () signals the exceptional HLD status of endangered language learning by characterizing it as HL learning that happens “in unexpected places” (p. 329) and by confining it to the last chapter of her book. An expansion of contexts, on the other hand, has been proposed by Chen Pichler, Lillo‐Martin, and Palmer (), who have claimed the HLD status for the linguistic development of bimodal bilinguals.…”

“…At the present time, when HLD findings have reached considerable accumulation (Montrul, ; Polinsky, ), an important disciplinary conversation has begun to take place. For example, there has been a move toward giving the bilingualism of heritage language speakers a central place in research programs (Aalberse & Hulk, ; Benmamoun, Montrul, & Polinsky, ; Polinsky, ).…”

“…Several research communities in the last 20 years have turned their attention to HL speakers, each taking up different questions regarding their linguistic development, sociolinguistic experiences, and educational needs (e.g., Kasstan, Auer, & Salmons, ; Łyskawa & Nagy, ; Montrul, ; Pascual y Cabo, ; Polinsky, ; Potowski, ; Trifonas & Aravossitas, ; Wiley, Peyton, Christian, Moore, & Liu, ). A burgeoning community of researchers investigates, specifically, the linguistic development seen in the heritage language (henceforth HLD) and asks: How does the linguistic fate of the home language change when it shares time, space, and resources with the societal language in the life of a child?…”

Redefining Language Death: Evidence From Moribund Grammars

“…While some scholars cast a relatively wide net and consider “any of the phenomena that arise in the native language of a sequential bilingual […] as language attrition” (Schmid & Köpke, , pp. 637–638), others are more cautious in attempting to disambiguate elements of grammar that were once associated with the competence grammar with those that may be the result of lack of activation throughout the course of life in various sociolinguistic contexts (Montrul, , ; Polinsky, , 2011, ; Putnam & Sánchez, ; Scontras, Fuchs, & Polinsky, ). Both definitions in their strongest sense are slightly misguided, for they fail to separate “the behavior of speakers” from “the properties of languages” (J. Milroy & L. Milroy, 1992, p. 16).…”

“…Previous research suggests that certain domains of grammar, and the interfaces between these domains, are potentially more vulnerable to change or to attrition effects than others. For example, the syntax‐morphology and syntax‐pragmatics interfaces have shown themselves to be particularly vulnerable cross‐linguistically in a number of studies (Benmamoun et al., ; Polinsky, ; Sorace, ). Here we seek to advance the discussion on what cognitive and grammatical boundaries can be classified as attrition effects, and what defining those boundaries can yield for the study of moribund HLs and HLs more generally.…”