Heritage languages and their speakers: Opportunities and challenges for linguistics
Heritage languages and their speakers: Opportunities and challenges for linguistics
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DOI：
10.1515/tl-2013-0009
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发表时间：
2013-11-01
影响因子：
0.6
通讯作者：
Polinsky, Maria
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Benmamoun, Elabbas;Montrul, Silvina;Polinsky, Maria
在本文中，我们提请语言学界对遗产语言的最新研究予以关注。将语言注意力从单语者的模式转移到多语者的模式对于提高我们对语言能力的理解是很重要的。母语人士的能力通常是在母语在各种语境中占主导地位的环境中正常的第一语言习得的结果，学习者有广泛和持续的接触母语和使用它的机会。说传统语言的人则是另一种情况：他们是说少数民族或移民少数民族语言的双语者，他们的母语在成年后往往达不到母语水平。我们提出了传承语言研究与理论建构之间的一系列联系，强调了这一群体为语言学研究提供的潜力。我们从它们在传统语言中的表现的角度来研究几个重要的语法现象，包括格，方面和其他界面现象。我们讨论了从遗产演讲者的数据中提出的问题如何能够有效地阐明当前关于语言如何工作以及如何在不同条件下获得语言的争论。最后，我们考虑了在成年期形成传统语言系统的潜在竞争因素。
In this paper, we bring to the attention of the linguistic community recent research on heritage languages. Shifting linguistic attention from the model of a monolingual speaker to the model of a multilingual speaker is important for the advancement of our understanding of the language faculty. Native speaker competence is typically the result of normal first language acquisition in an environment where the native language is dominant in various contexts, and learners have extensive and continuous exposure to it and opportunities to use it. Heritage speakers present a different case: they are bilingual speakers of an ethnic or immigrant minority language, whose first language often does not reach native-like attainment in adulthood. We propose a set of connections between heritage language studies and theory construction, underscoring the potential that this population offers for linguistic research. We examine several important grammatical phenomena from the standpoint of their representation in heritage languages, including case, aspect, and other interface phenomena. We discuss how the questions raised by data from heritage speakers could fruitfully shed light on current debates about how language works and how it is acquired under different conditions. We end with a consideration of the potential competing factors that shape a heritage language system in adulthood.