Measuring and understanding linguistic insecurity in heritage and foreign language contexts: design and validation of a novel scale

Global perspectives on heritage language education and emotion: Introduction to the special issue

“…Namely, our research questions aim to uncover not only affective factors from a bottom‐up perspective that have yet to be acknowledged within the literature (e.g., discomfort and trauma; Driver, 2024, this issue) but also how the emotional landscape of the HL context compares to the “traditional” L2 emotional landscape that has been the focus of the field thus far, as well as the implications for world language educators. Our first two research questions, therefore, act as a guide in mobilizing categories that are directly relevant to HL experiences but still allow us to frame HL emotions within the greater realm of language learning that includes learners from diverse linguistic profiles.…”

“…Intergenerational autoethnographic methods capture the interplay of mixed emotions during HL maintenance from the perspective of both parent and child (Song & Wu, 2024, this issue). Qualitative methods through video recordings, classroom observations, surveys, and student–parent–teacher interviews reveal the emotion‐laden intricacies of HL interactions all the way from the home (Cantas, 2024, this issue), through community‐based (Afreen & Norton, 2024, this issue; Elabdali, 2024, this issue) and primary school settings (Van Gorp & Verheyen, 2024, this issue), and into university HL spaces (Driver, 2024, this issue). Quantitative analyses explore the use of common instruments in L2 emotion for HLE contexts and offer methodological insight for future adaptation and design of emotions scales for HLE (Huang & Chan, 2024, this issue; Van Gorp & Verheyen, 2024, this issue).…”

“…Apart from the range of language contexts (e.g., classroom, home, and lab settings) explored, authors also consider an array of HLs and conceptualizations of emotion for a diversity of stakeholders, including HL learners, speakers, parents, and educators. This special issue brings together researchers exploring emotion and HLE by discussing the role that not only previously studied affective factors—including both positive (Cantas, 2024, this issue; Van Gorp & Verheyen, 2024, this issue) and negative emotions (Van Gorp & Verheyen, 2024, this issue), motivation (Huang & Chan, 2024, this issue), and teacher and learner investment (Afreen & Norton, 2024, this issue)—but also variables underexplored in SLA and specifically relevant to HLE, such as (dis)comfort (Driver, 2024, this issue), conflict (Elabdali, 2024, this issue; Song & Wu, 2024, this issue), and perezhivanie (Cantas, 2024, this issue) play in HL learning and teaching, use, maintenance, and identity.…”

“…Through survey and interview data from HSs in the United States from eight different HL backgrounds, Driver (2024, this issue) explores emotions related to comfort and discomfort in the HL classroom. The study is one of the few in the field to work with not only HL students but also HL educators who themselves identify as HSs, and sheds light on the emotional benefits, challenges, and barriers associated with entering the HL teacher pipeline for those from language minoritized backgrounds.…”

“…Moreover, this focus on the L2 or FL learner may fail to recognize emotions that have not been detected or acknowledged within traditional L2 learning paradigms, or otherwise translate into assumptions of similarity between L2 and FL learners and other learner types. For example, though linguistic insecurity has appeared in narrative work with HLL populations (e.g., Coryell & Clark, 2009; Tseng, 2021), the number of empirical studies addressing this intersection is minimal (e.g., Driver, 2023). Therefore, larger efforts are yet to be seen that situate the HLL experience within emotions research in SLA.…”