Doctoral Dissertation Research: How flexible are grammars past puberty? Evidence from heritage language returnees

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This doctoral dissertation project addresses a fundamental issue at the heart of understanding language acquisition: how flexible and malleable are grammars after puberty? Age effects have long been discussed in the language acquisition literature. Some have argued that native speaker attainment of a language is impossible if acquisition starts later in life (after puberty). Research on heritage language acquisition provides a new perspective on this debate. Heritage speakers acquire a minority language at home from birth in a setting where the majority language is spoken in the community. Due to the extensive use of the majority language in the society growing up, heritage speakers often have fewer opportunities to interact with their minority (heritage) language and receive overall less linguistic input in the heritage language than a typically developing monolingual speaker in the home country. As a result, non-native-like attainment in several properties of their heritage language is common. This has been taken as evidence that early age of acquisition is a necessary but not a sufficient factor for native-like attainment because linguistic input received in the heritage language in early years plays a role as well. This study examines how age and input factors interact in language acquisition processes and in ultimate attainment.The investigators compare heritage speakers across two different immigrant contexts to returnees who have returned to their country of origin in their adolescence or adult years. Comparing the linguistic abilities of returnees in their former heritage language to that of heritage speakers in the host country informs whether interrupted acquisition before puberty can result in nativelike attainment if heritage speakers become fully immersed in the heritage language after returning to the home country. We also investigate whether the situational factors (e.g., status of and contact with the former majority language, socio-economic status, educational profile) play a role in the degree and speed of development of the heritage language in returnees. To this end, the study obtains production and linguistic judgment data from participants. The results of this project contributes to the limited literature on language identity and linguistic self-esteem in child and adult speakers of a minority language and their reinsertion in their native language and culture. The findings also inform pedagogical interventions in heritage language teaching and the design of teaching materials for heritage speakers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.