The Linguistic Similarities of Spanish Heritage and Second Language Learners

Lynch, Andrew

doi:10.1111/j.1944-9720.2008.tb03292.x

Cited by 61 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Advanced HL students already have receptive and productive skills, and they usually have little need to develop their basic communicative abilities. They are closer to the native speaker norm than are lower‐proficiency speakers, who more closely resemble the L2 norm (see Lynch, 2008, for detailed discussion). Furthermore, a current “bio‐developmental definition” of native speaker (Davies, 1996, p. 156) also applies to HL speakers, as “an individual is a native speaker of the L1 learnt in childhood” (Cook, 1999, p. 186).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Their first and only HL class disappointed them because the emphasis was on prescriptive grammar rather than oral proficiency. Lynch's (2008) study of five lower‐proficiency HL students and four L2 learners found that, even though all of the HL students had initially acquired and used Spanish as a first language (L1), their grammatical and lexical abilities in an oral interview strikingly resembled those of the L2 learners. Lynch attributed this linguistic similarity to the social exposure to the language: The HL learners spoke primarily English at home, used English as the main language of formal cognitive development and peer socialization, and did not have significant Spanish language contact experiences.…”

Section: Review Of the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Advanced Heritage Learners of Spanish: A Sociolinguistic Profile for Pedagogical Purposes

Alarcón¹

2010

Foreign Language Annals

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This article reports on an extensive survey administered to advanced heritage language (HL) learners to examine their language behaviors, attitudes, and backgrounds. To date, there have been no detailed categorizations of advanced HL learners to guide classroom instruction and curriculum design. Thus the present study is a first attempt to fill this gap by providing a sociolinguistic profile of these speakers, including their identifying characteristics, linguistic needs, and similarities and differences with lower‐proficiency speakers. Survey responses indicate that advanced HL learners possess both productive and receptive skills in the HL, always use Spanish at home, are fluent speakers of a standard variety, already have basic academic skills in Spanish, and are therefore primarily interested in perfecting their academic writing skills.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Review Of the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Advanced Heritage Learners of Spanish: A Sociolinguistic Profile for Pedagogical Purposes

Alarcón¹

2010

Foreign Language Annals

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“…In sociolinguistic terms, immigrant parents are the first generation, their children second and their grandchildren are the third generation (Silva-Corvalán, 1994). Previous research has shown that each new generation of an immigrant community becomes less proficient in their HL (Lynch, 2008). When immigrant communities progressively replace their HL with the language of the socially or economically dominant group, ML, language shift takes place.…”

Section: Language Contact Language Anxiety and Immigrant Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritage language anxiety and majority language anxiety among Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands

Sevinç

Dewaele

2016

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims and objectives: This study examines the language anxiety that occurs in immigrants' daily lives when speaking the heritage language and the majority language, both in their host country and during visits to their home country. It compares the levels of heritage language anxiety and majority language anxiety across three generations of the Turkish immigrant community in the Netherlands and explores the link between immigrants' language anxiety, and sociobiographical (i.e. generation, gender, education) and language background variables (i.e. age of acquisition, self-perceived proficiency, frequency of language use).Design: A Likert scale-based questionnaire was administered to 116 participants across three generations who reported their language anxiety levels when speaking the heritage language and the majority language in three social contexts (i.e. family, friendship and speaking with native speakers).Findings: Statistical analyses revealed that heritage language anxiety and majority language anxiety were prevalent in immigrants' daily life, and that levels of both forms of anxiety differed across generations, and in different daily life situations. First-and second-generation immigrants typically experienced majority language anxiety, while second-and predominantly third-generation immigrants suffered from heritage language anxiety. Relationships emerged between language background variables and both forms of anxiety, but only in certain situations. These findings suggest that language background variables on their own may be insufficient to explain immigrant 2 language anxiety in certain social contexts (i.e. within family). Rather than merely language background factors, a variety of other issues within social, cultural and national currents must be considered when examining language anxiety in the immigrant context. Implications:Taking an interdisciplinary approach that combines language contact and foreign language anxiety/second language anxiety research, this study suggests that the concept of foreign language anxiety/second language anxiety should be expanded beyond the confines of the classroom in order to include daily interactions immigrant or minority communities.Originality: This study contributes to the limited body of evidence on the topic of language anxiety in immigrant contexts and presents a new construct 'majority language anxiety'.

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“…(Montrul, 2005;2012), but it also has very important pedagogical implications. Researchers and practitioners alike debate over whether it is more advantageous to enroll adult L2 and HL students attending post-secondary education in the same classes or in different classes that meet their specific needs (Bowles, 2011a;Lynch, 2008;Mikulski, 2010;Potowski et al, 2009). HL and L2 learners' linguistic systems have been found to differ in terms of age of acquisition, learning context, language variety, or connections to language and culture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spanish heritage language learners vs. L2 learners: What CAF reveals about written proficiency

Camus

Adrada-Rafael

2015

E-JournALL

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ENRecently, great interest has emerged in identifying the learning needs of heritage language (HL) learners. In comparing HL and second language (L2) learners, research suggests that L2 learners outperform HL learners when examining writing abilities (Montrul, 2010;Potowski, 2013). However, complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) have been overlooked when examining HL learners' writing proficiency, and it could provide a better picture of their writing skills in a spontaneous untimed assignment. To address this issue, 28 L2 learners and 18 HL learners completed an untimed written production task on a non-academic subject and their written proficiency was assessed through CAF measures (Norris & Ortega, 2009). Results showed HL learners significantly outperformed L2 learners on two complexity measures: accuracy and fluency. A possible explanation for these findings could be the type of task used (more spontaneous, less-controlled), which taps into a more implicit type of knowledge, favoring HL learners (Bowles, 2011). Key words: HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS, WRITING, CAF.ES En los últimos años ha habido un mayor esfuerzo para identificar las necesidades de los aprendientes de una lengua de herencia (LH). Los resultados de estudios comparativos indican que los aprendientes de una L2 superan a los aprendientes de una LH en pruebas de habilidades de escritura (Montrul, 2010;Potowski, 2013). Sin embargo, a la hora de analizar la producción escrita en la HL, la complejidad, la precisión y la fluidez (CAF por sus siglas en inglés) han sido ignoradas, a pesar de que podrían ofrecer una descripción más precisa de las habilidades de escritura en la HL en tareas espontáneas no cronometradas. Con el objetivo de aportar esta perspectiva, 28 aprendientes de L2 y 18 aprendientes de LH completaron una tarea de producción escrita en ámbito no académico y no cronometrada, y sus habilidades de escritura fueron evaluadas según los parámetros CAF (Norris & Ortega, 2009). Los resultados muestran que los aprendientes de HL superaron a los de L2 en dos parámetros, complejidad y fluidez. Una posible explicación de estos resultados puede estar relacionada con el tipo de tarea (más espontánea y menos controlada), que requiere un conocimiento más implícito y favorecería así a los aprendientes de HL (Bowles, 2011 IT I bisogni di apprendimento di apprendenti una lingua ereditaria (HL) sono recentemente diventati oggetto di un crescente interesse.Nelle ricerche che hanno confrontato apprendenti di una HL e di una lingua seconda (L2), il secondo tipo di apprendenti consegue risultati migliori del primo nell'abilità di scrittura (Montrul, 2010;Potowski, 2013). Tuttavia, nell'esame della capacità di scrittura nella lingua ereditaria, complessità, precisione e fluidità (CAF nell'abbreviazione inglese) sono spesso sottovalutate, mentre potrebbero fornire un quadro più accurato delle loro abilità di scrittura in compiti spontanei non a tempo. A tal fine, 28 apprendenti L2 e 18 apprendenti HL hanno svolto un compito di produzione scritta non a...

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The Linguistic Similarities of Spanish Heritage and Second Language Learners

Cited by 61 publications

References 41 publications

Advanced Heritage Learners of Spanish: A Sociolinguistic Profile for Pedagogical Purposes

Advanced Heritage Learners of Spanish: A Sociolinguistic Profile for Pedagogical Purposes

Heritage language anxiety and majority language anxiety among Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands

Spanish heritage language learners vs. L2 learners: What CAF reveals about written proficiency

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