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Chapter 11. Heritage language development and the promise of Processability Theory

  • Silvina Montrul
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Teachability and Learnability across Languages
This chapter is in the book Teachability and Learnability across Languages

Abstract

Heritage language acquisition is a type of early bilingual acquisition that takes place in a specific sociolinguistic environment. The heritage language is a societal minority language, acquired as a first language, either by itself or simultaneously with the majority language. Very often the heritage language is not supported at school, and it is common for heritage speakers to eventually achieve greater fluency and proficiency in the majority language than in the heritage language. As a result the heritage language shows many of the linguistic characteristics of a second language. The acquisition of heritage languages has been approached from different perspectives within linguistics, bilingualism and language acquisition. This chapter considers the applicability of Processability Theory, primarily conceived to explain second language acquisition and processing, to the acquisition of heritage languages.

Abstract

Heritage language acquisition is a type of early bilingual acquisition that takes place in a specific sociolinguistic environment. The heritage language is a societal minority language, acquired as a first language, either by itself or simultaneously with the majority language. Very often the heritage language is not supported at school, and it is common for heritage speakers to eventually achieve greater fluency and proficiency in the majority language than in the heritage language. As a result the heritage language shows many of the linguistic characteristics of a second language. The acquisition of heritage languages has been approached from different perspectives within linguistics, bilingualism and language acquisition. This chapter considers the applicability of Processability Theory, primarily conceived to explain second language acquisition and processing, to the acquisition of heritage languages.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Teachability and learnability
  5. Chapter 1. Research timeline. The role of instruction 9
  6. Chapter 2. How much English do children know before they are exposed to instruction? 27
  7. Chapter 3. Morpho-syntactic development in the input 51
  8. Chapter 4. Are speech and writing teachable? 71
  9. Part II. Methods and assessment
  10. Chapter 5. The elicitation of oral language production data 97
  11. Chapter 6. Elicited imitation as a diagnostic tool of morpho-syntactic processing 119
  12. Chapter 7. Grammatical accuracy and complexity in a speaking proficiency test 137
  13. Part III. Cross-linguistic aspects of SLA
  14. Chapter 8. Acquisition of nominal morphology in Norwegian L2 163
  15. Chapter 9. Interlingual versus intralingual tendencies in second language acquisition 183
  16. Chapter 10. The acquisition of Turkish (genitive-)possessive structures by adult Norwegian learners 205
  17. Closing chapter
  18. Chapter 11. Heritage language development and the promise of Processability Theory 237
  19. Index 261
https://doi.org/10.1075/palart.6.11mon

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Teachability and learnability
  5. Chapter 1. Research timeline. The role of instruction 9
  6. Chapter 2. How much English do children know before they are exposed to instruction? 27
  7. Chapter 3. Morpho-syntactic development in the input 51
  8. Chapter 4. Are speech and writing teachable? 71
  9. Part II. Methods and assessment
  10. Chapter 5. The elicitation of oral language production data 97
  11. Chapter 6. Elicited imitation as a diagnostic tool of morpho-syntactic processing 119
  12. Chapter 7. Grammatical accuracy and complexity in a speaking proficiency test 137
  13. Part III. Cross-linguistic aspects of SLA
  14. Chapter 8. Acquisition of nominal morphology in Norwegian L2 163
  15. Chapter 9. Interlingual versus intralingual tendencies in second language acquisition 183
  16. Chapter 10. The acquisition of Turkish (genitive-)possessive structures by adult Norwegian learners 205
  17. Closing chapter
  18. Chapter 11. Heritage language development and the promise of Processability Theory 237
  19. Index 261
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