John Benjamins Publishing Company
Foreign language acquisition in heritage speakers
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Abstract
L3 acquisition has been a topic of increasing interest throughout the past decade. Nevertheless, linguistically-oriented work has so far paid little attention to the acquisition of foreign languages by second generation minority (or heritage) speakers, who have acquired two languages in early childhood. Our paper investigates article acquisition by German-Turkish speakers, who have grown up in Germany. Specifically, we address the question whether these speakers’ L3 English shows cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from Turkish (their chronological L1) or German (their chronological L2). Results indicate the absence of negative CLI from Turkish and positive CLI from German, their L2. The study can be seen as supporting the view that typological proximity is crucial for CLI, while also allowing for the conclusion that language dominance plays a role.
Abstract
L3 acquisition has been a topic of increasing interest throughout the past decade. Nevertheless, linguistically-oriented work has so far paid little attention to the acquisition of foreign languages by second generation minority (or heritage) speakers, who have acquired two languages in early childhood. Our paper investigates article acquisition by German-Turkish speakers, who have grown up in Germany. Specifically, we address the question whether these speakers’ L3 English shows cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from Turkish (their chronological L1) or German (their chronological L2). Results indicate the absence of negative CLI from Turkish and positive CLI from German, their L2. The study can be seen as supporting the view that typological proximity is crucial for CLI, while also allowing for the conclusion that language dominance plays a role.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction 1
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Capturing superdiversity
- Using correspondence analysis to model immigrant multilingualism over time 27
- Capturing diversity 45
- Measuring language diversity in urban ecosystems 75
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Language acquisition and practice
- Foreign language acquisition in heritage speakers 99
- Heteroglossia in English complementary schools 123
- Enough is enough 143
- The primary classroom as a superdiverse hetero-normative space 161
- Assessing narrative development in bilingual first language acquisition 179
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Examples of language contact and change
- Detecting historical continuity in a linguistically diverse urban area 193
- Four decades of study of synchronic variation in varieties of Dutch. A sketch 227
- Language contact in heritage languages in the Netherlands 253
- Chinese and globalization 275
- Author index 297
- Subject index 301
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction 1
-
Capturing superdiversity
- Using correspondence analysis to model immigrant multilingualism over time 27
- Capturing diversity 45
- Measuring language diversity in urban ecosystems 75
-
Language acquisition and practice
- Foreign language acquisition in heritage speakers 99
- Heteroglossia in English complementary schools 123
- Enough is enough 143
- The primary classroom as a superdiverse hetero-normative space 161
- Assessing narrative development in bilingual first language acquisition 179
-
Examples of language contact and change
- Detecting historical continuity in a linguistically diverse urban area 193
- Four decades of study of synchronic variation in varieties of Dutch. A sketch 227
- Language contact in heritage languages in the Netherlands 253
- Chinese and globalization 275
- Author index 297
- Subject index 301
