Interfaces in the returnees’ heritage language: Is the complete (re-)activation possible?

Abstract

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The aim of this study is to examine whether the complete (re-)activation of interface domains in the heritage language (HL) is possible or whether interfaces are likely to preserve features typical for the HL even after many years of residing in the country of origin. Design/methodology/approach: We present the group analysis of direct object marking in Turkish, which is a morphology-syntax-pragmatics interface, of Turkish-German returnees, who returned to Turkey after puberty and have been residing in the country for a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 34 years, and compare them with the control group consisting of Turkish speakers who have been living in Turkey all their lives. Data and analysis: The data were collected using a narrative task, a completion task and a grammaticality judgement task, and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Findings/conclusions: The analysis of the narrative task revealed that the returnee participants used case-marking on direct objects productively depending on the discourse and syntactic position of the direct object in their heritage Turkish. However, their performance on the completion and grammaticality judgement tasks diverged from those of the control group. These findings can be considered as a piece of evidence that interface domains stay obstinate to complete (re-)activation and may preserve features typical for the HL many years after the return to the country of origin. Originality: The study suggests relevance of the Interface Hypothesis to the process of HL (re-)activation. Significance/implications: The study contributes to the research on the HL development of returnees after their return to the country of origin.

Heritage Languages: Language Acquired, Language Lost, Language Regained

“…Studies of Turkish-German returnees (Antonova-Unlu et al 2021;Kaya-Soykan et al 2020;Treffers-Daller et al 2007 have shown age effects. Those who returned to Turkey after puberty were often perceived as native speakers of Turkish (based on their accents) and showed native-level performance in their production of relative clauses 8 years after their arrival to Turkey.…”

“I no longer count in German.” On dominance shift in returnee heritage speakers

“…Since returnees move to the country where the HL is now the SL, one may predict that linguistic properties that stagnated in HSs' competence due to restricted contact with the HL during migration may further develop after return (i.e., be reactivated). Supporting evidence comes, mainly, from studies on Turkish returnees, who moved (back) to Turkey from Germany (Antonova-Unlu et al, 2021;Daller, 1999;Daller & Yıldız, 1995;Kaya-Soykan et al, 2020;Treffers-Daller et al, 2007;. Research on other "reactivated" HLs is still residual (see Rato, 2016, on global accent, andKubota et al, 2021, on the narrative abilities of children who returned to Japan from an English-speaking country).…”

“…The Turkish returnees studied by Kaya-Soykan et al ( 2020) revealed nontarget-like use of evidentiality markers in Turkish even a decade after their return. The authors hypothesized that the HL may never fully "reactivate" in all linguistic domains in post-puberty returnees (see also Antonova-Unlu et al, 2021). A possible explanation is based on a maturational account: certain linguistic properties that are not acquired (or stabilized) in the HL will not be acquired (or fully stabilized) if the immersion in the HL environment happens after childhood, due to maturational constraints of language development.…”