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Child Heritage Language Development: An Interplay Between Cross-Linguistic Influence and Language-External Factors
1Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Frontiers in Psychology
|December 6, 2021
Summary
Heritage language (HL) acquisition is challenging due to societal language (SL) influence on case morphology. However, language-external factors can mitigate these negative cross-linguistic influences.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Developmental Psychology
- Bilingualism Studies
Background:
- Heritage language (HL) development is complex, influenced by societal language (SL) properties.
- Case morphology acquisition presents specific challenges for bilingual children.
- Cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the SL can impede HL development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the mechanisms of HL development, focusing on case morphology.
- To assess the impact of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the SL on HL case acquisition.
- To evaluate the role of language-external factors in mitigating CLI effects.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of Russian-Dutch and Russian-Hebrew bilinguals versus monolingual Russian speakers.
- Elicitation tasks to evaluate accusative (ACC) and genitive (GEN) case production.
- Correlation analysis of case production with language-external factors (age, age of onset, parental language input, family language type).
Main Results:
- HL acquisition of case morphology is negatively impacted by the SL.
- Bilingual groups showed lower performance in ACC and GEN case production compared to monolinguals.
- Morphological acquisition is hindered by differing feature mappings (Russian-Hebrew) or absence of marking (Russian-Dutch).
Conclusions:
- Cross-linguistic influence from the SL significantly impedes heritage language case morphology acquisition.
- Language-external factors play a crucial role in mitigating the negative effects of cross-linguistic influence.
- Heritage language development results from an intricate interplay between cross-linguistic influence and language-external factors.
Keywords:
DutchHebrewRussiancase morphologychild bilingualismcross-linguistic influenceheritage language developmentinputMore Related Videos
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