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Chapter 6 The acquisition of syntactic structures in heritage Italian: Assessing the role of language exposure at critical periods

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Studies in Italian as a Heritage Language
This chapter is in the book Studies in Italian as a Heritage Language

Abstract

The present study aims to show that language exposure at certain age ranges is crucial for the successful acquisition of certain syntactic structures, such as complement clauses, adverbial clauses, clauses involving movement and clauses involving both movement and embedding. Twenty-nine Italian heritage children living in Germany and ranging in age between 7;08 and 12;06 took part in the study. We assessed their acquisition of syntactic structures in Italian by using a Sentence Repetition Task. We also assessed their language exposure across different age ranges (between 0 and 3, 3 and 6 and at 6 years) by using parental questionnaires. The results show that the acquisition of different syntactic structures is sensitive to different language exposure variables as related to different age ranges. We interpret the results as showing that the effects of language exposure on the acquisition of syntactic structures are modulated by their timing in monolingual language acquisition. Language exposure in critical periods seems to play a relevant role in bilingual language acquisition.

Abstract

The present study aims to show that language exposure at certain age ranges is crucial for the successful acquisition of certain syntactic structures, such as complement clauses, adverbial clauses, clauses involving movement and clauses involving both movement and embedding. Twenty-nine Italian heritage children living in Germany and ranging in age between 7;08 and 12;06 took part in the study. We assessed their acquisition of syntactic structures in Italian by using a Sentence Repetition Task. We also assessed their language exposure across different age ranges (between 0 and 3, 3 and 6 and at 6 years) by using parental questionnaires. The results show that the acquisition of different syntactic structures is sensitive to different language exposure variables as related to different age ranges. We interpret the results as showing that the effects of language exposure on the acquisition of syntactic structures are modulated by their timing in monolingual language acquisition. Language exposure in critical periods seems to play a relevant role in bilingual language acquisition.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments VII
  3. Contents IX
  4. List of figures XI
  5. List of tables XIII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Chapter 1 Heritage language development: Dominant language transfer and the sociopolitical context 5
  8. Part I: Experimental studies
  9. Chapter 2 Ultimate attainment in long-immersed heritage Italian immigrants: Syntactic and semantic knowledge of direct object clitics and partitive ne 33
  10. Chapter 3 Grammatical competence in adult heritage speakers of Italian and adult immigrants: A comparative study 65
  11. Chapter 4 Ultimate attainment of gender in heritage and L2 Italian 95
  12. Chapter 5 Auxiliary selection in heritage speakers of Italian 127
  13. Chapter 6 The acquisition of syntactic structures in heritage Italian: Assessing the role of language exposure at critical periods 155
  14. Chapter 7 The expression of (deontic and epistemic) modality in Italian as heritage language in Germany 195
  15. Part II: Observational studies
  16. Chapter 8 Italian as heritage language in third generations on social networks: Morphosyntactic code-switching features 231
  17. Chapter 9 Discourse markers in heritage Italian spoken in Flanders 255
  18. Chapter 10 Auxiliary selection in Italo-Romance heritage languages: Argentina and the UK 289
  19. Conclusion and future directions 321
  20. Index 325
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https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110759587-007

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments VII
  3. Contents IX
  4. List of figures XI
  5. List of tables XIII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Chapter 1 Heritage language development: Dominant language transfer and the sociopolitical context 5
  8. Part I: Experimental studies
  9. Chapter 2 Ultimate attainment in long-immersed heritage Italian immigrants: Syntactic and semantic knowledge of direct object clitics and partitive ne 33
  10. Chapter 3 Grammatical competence in adult heritage speakers of Italian and adult immigrants: A comparative study 65
  11. Chapter 4 Ultimate attainment of gender in heritage and L2 Italian 95
  12. Chapter 5 Auxiliary selection in heritage speakers of Italian 127
  13. Chapter 6 The acquisition of syntactic structures in heritage Italian: Assessing the role of language exposure at critical periods 155
  14. Chapter 7 The expression of (deontic and epistemic) modality in Italian as heritage language in Germany 195
  15. Part II: Observational studies
  16. Chapter 8 Italian as heritage language in third generations on social networks: Morphosyntactic code-switching features 231
  17. Chapter 9 Discourse markers in heritage Italian spoken in Flanders 255
  18. Chapter 10 Auxiliary selection in Italo-Romance heritage languages: Argentina and the UK 289
  19. Conclusion and future directions 321
  20. Index 325
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