27.4649, Review: Applied Ling; Language Acq; Psycholing; Socioling: Montrul (2015)

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Subject: 27.4649, Review: Applied Ling; Language Acq; Psycholing; Socioling: Montrul (2015)

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Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2016 10:42:22
From: Laura Dubcovsky [lauradubcovsky at gmail.com]
Subject: The Acquisition of Heritage Languages

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-219.html

AUTHOR: Silvina A Montrul
TITLE: The Acquisition of Heritage Languages
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Laura Dubcovsky, University of California, Davis

SUMMARY

 “The acquisition of heritage languages,” by Silvina Montrul, focuses on the
nature, characteristics, and differences between heritage speakers, native
speakers and second language learners. Montrul takes into account theories and
principles from different perspectives and reflects on social, educational,
and linguistic implications. In the “Introduction” (Chapter 1) the author
situates the field of heritage language acquisition in the context of the
global economy and geopolitical changes. She highlights the importance of
profiling heritage speakers, based on the growing numbers of immigrant
students, and on the consequences of teaching heritage languages in the
current educational curriculum.  Montrul acknowledges the contribution of
interrelated disciplines, such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and
formal linguistics. The former enables clarification of relevant language
issues  of prestige, diachronic changes, and language varieties, while
psycholinguistic factors enlighten critical age, developmental stages, and
sequential and simultaneous acquisition, and formal linguistics front loads
salient grammatical aspects of the acquisitional process.  The author closes
the introduction with a clear layout of the main themes interwoven in the
book.

Chapter 2 explores the nature and scope of “Heritage languages and heritage
speakers.” Montrul chooses an operational definition of heritage speaker as
somebody who grew up in a bilingual and bicultural environment, where the home
language and the majority languages were spoken (Valdés 2001). Following
sociolinguistic environments, she exemplifies various types of heritage
languages, such as immigrant, national minority, and aboriginal (Table 2.1
p.15). Montrul also characterizes heritage speakers and heritage language
learners, according to cultural and educational criteria (Table 2.3 p.21), and
extends the definition to include immigrant and nonimmigrant communities. 
Finally she incorporates simultaneous and sequential bilinguals, immigrant
children and youth, speakers of historical minority languages and indigenous
languages, and returnees and international adoptees, as part of the broad
umbrella of heritage speakers (Table 2.7 p.40). Montrul pays special attention
to the complex notion of competence and the variety found among heritage
speakers. She explains the controversial term through the related notions of
language dominance, which represents the more frequent use of one language
over the other, and language proficiency, which includes grammatical ability
and fluency in a language. Generally speaking, heritage speakers tend to be
dominant in the majority language and unevenly proficient in the two
languages. 

In Chapter 3 Montrul clarifies how dominance and proficiency are strongly
influenced by biographical and psycholinguistic factors, social and cultural
contexts, and language practices and schooling (Figure 3.2 p.44). However, she
focuses mainly on “The language of heritage speakers” and analyzes particular
grammatical features that inform speakers’ levels of competence in the
heritage language. For the lexical module she finds reduction of the
vocabulary size, compared to the first generation, and easier retention of
concrete and early-acquired words, compared to more abstract and less frequent
terms (Table 3.5 p.53).  For the morphological module the author observes
inconsistencies in nominal gender agreement and regularization of irregular
plural forms, as well as reduction of modes and aspects in the verb system
(Table 3.8, p.71).  For the syntactic module Montrul evaluates challenges
given by the interpretation of long-distance references and objective relative
clauses. In contrast, for the phonetic/phonological module she observes that
heritage speakers reach an overall native-like level in aural perception,
pronunciation, fluency, and processing speed. The author then concludes that
heritage language acquisition is not only a long and complex process, but it
also presents linguistic modules that develop unevenly at different paces. The
finding of differentiated modules for heritage speakers challenges traditional
notions of stability, uniformity, and universalism, taken for granted in most
studies of first and second language acquisition.

Chapter 4 addresses “The bilingual development of heritage speakers.” Montrul
revises typical categories of first and second language studies, such as order
of acquisition, dominance, and function, and explores them in the context of
heritage languages. She wonders which language comes first among heritage
speakers, whether the heritage language is dominant, which is more frequently
used and in which type of context (extended or reduced). The author also
exemplifies heritage speakers’ transitional stages, showing developmental
milestones in early language development (Table 4.2 p.103), and structural and
pragmatic development in 6-to-8-year-old-children (Table 4.4 p.106).  Montrul
stresses the need for including affective, educational and attitudinal
factors, as they interact and play a role in heritage language acquisition and
proficiency (Figure 4.9 p.123). Among these variables the author examines
quality and quantity of input, different language practices that help in
developing specific oral or written modalities, and identity issues.  Finally
the author explains language status from a sociopolitical perspective,
pointing out that a minority language runs the risk of undergoing attrition,
or not advancing further in its development.  Therefore she relates notions of
incomplete acquisition or acquisition without mastery to heritage speakers who
did not have the chance to develop their first language fully in a bilingual
environment. 

In Chapter 5 Montrul departs from previous descriptive chapters and addresses
“Theoretical approaches” to first and second languages to strengthen the
foundation of the less explored field of heritage language acquisition. 
Following main features of nativism, emergentism and variationist
sociolinguistics, the author analyzes idealized speakers and norm,
relationships between language and cognition, and roles of transfer and
interlanguages, respectively (Table 5.1 p.149). She also suggests that
observable facts concerning the old concepts of input, predictable stages,
variable outcomes, and effects of the dominant language call for new
examination in light of the acquisitional process of heritage speakers (Table
5.2 p.150). Finally Montrul illustrates theoretical approaches through studies
in different languages and settings.  Silva-Corvalán (1994) uses a
sociolinguistic approach to explain the simplification of tense-aspect-mood in
the Spanish verb system observed in three generations living in Los Angeles
(1994), while Polinsky (2006) draws from formal linguistics to analyze
morphosyntactic features among second generation Russian speakers in the
United States. Likewise O’Grady et al. (2001) examine case marking and scope
interpretation in Korean according to emergentist principles, and Bayram
(2013) chooses processability theory to understand the heritage acquisition of
Turkish by speakers living in Germany.  

Supported by the previous theoretical framework, Montrul lays out
“Methodological considerations” for studies on heritage language acquisition
in Chapter 6. Among them she highlights whether to undertake longitudinal or
cross-sectional studies, select large number of participants or a single case,
conduct experimental or descriptive research, and collect data from routines
and chunks or spontaneous language.  The author stresses the importance of
finding the appropriate baseline group, which can be chosen among heritage
speakers themselves, speakers raised monolingually in the country of origin or
in the host country, first generation immigrants either with several years of
residence in the host country or recently arrived, monolingual children in the
country of origin or bilingual children in the host country, etc. Another
primary methodological decision consists of taking a unilingual or a bilingual
approach. While in the former, language is considered dominant and the norm
against which the heritage language is compared, in the latter the two
languages are considered equally in order to investigate linguistic and
communicative competences (Grosjean 2008).  A final methodological decision
involves the assessment of heritage speakers’ proficiency. Montrul encourages
the development of valid and reliable tools that can both discriminate
appropriately between foreign language learners and heritage speakers, and
measure specific aspects of language proficiency, such as speech and oral
fluency, literacy and written proficiency, grammar and lexicon, receptive and
productive vocabulary, task-based performances, and acceptability judgments,
etc.  

The following two chapters compare heritage language proficiency to the
competencies found in native and second languages. In Chapter 7 Montrul asks,
“How native are heritage speakers?” examining commonalities and differences
between heritage speakers and monolingual or bilingual native speakers with
full command of the target language. The author explains that heritage
speakers are a type of native speaker, because they are exposed to the
heritage language early in life. Nevertheless, only some develop native-like
abilities in specific linguistic domains and under propitious conditions, such
as frequent exposure, consistent input, active use of the language, and school
instruction. In contrast, most heritage speakers exhibit non-native like
grammatical mastery and can communicate at low-to-intermediate level only
(Carreira and Kagan 2011).  Montrul finds that heritage speakers generally
receive insufficient input, and are exposed to a social network that exhibits
first language attrition and flaws in their second language. Moreover heritage
speakers show a broad inherent variability that also affects proficiency
levels.  Due to the few longitudinal studies on heritage languages, Montrul
suggests conducting indirect studies that illuminate explanatory mechanisms of
how heritage languages develop, stabilize and avoid regression. 

Chapter 8 poses the question, “Are heritage speakers like second language
learners?”   and exemplifies with the profile of heritage speakers and second
language learners of Korean living in the United States (Table 8.1 p.251).
Montrul compares categories of order of acquisition, sociopolitical status,
and functional dimension/dominance pattern, although she also incorporates
into the discussion contextual and experiential factors. She finds out that
language transfer in the dominant language is common for both heritage
speakers and second language learners and may lead to fossilization and
incomplete acquisition, overruling in some cases the effect of age of
acquisition.  The author confirms the differentiated levels of mastery for
particular modules, which are acquired, regulated and preserved by different
mechanisms, and are sensitive to different schedules. For example, heritage
speakers show stronger speech perception and pronunciation than second
language learners, while they are usually less accurate and more vulnerable to
simplification and reduction in morphology, semantics and pragmatics. Finally
Montrul assigns a predictor role to the interface between specific grammatical
aspects and age, as in the case of phonetic aspect with a native-like
pronunciation among speakers who acquired the language at an early age.  

Chapter 9 offers “Some implications” for the research and practice of heritage
languages, guided by language acquisition and bilingualism, language education
and language policies. Montrul summarizes useful definitions of heritage
speakers, and distinguishes between resilient and vulnerable properties of the
different linguistic modules. She emphasizes inherent variability and issues
of dominance and proficiency that intertwine with the concept of heritage
language competence.  Above all the author stresses the benefit of integrating
multiple and sometimes contrastive perspectives to enrich and deepen the
understanding of the complex heritage language acquisition process. Montrul
also provides practical implications for the education field, such as the
design of curriculum and classrooms that meet the specific needs of heritage
speakers. She focuses on appropriate teaching preparation programs that need
to infuse stronger linguistic, cultural, and social knowledge. Teachers should
be able to differentiate between teaching foreign languages, second languages,
and heritage languages. The author points out that explicit instruction and
the incorporation of effective strategies already used in second language
classrooms, such as negative evidence, focus on form, and classroom
interactions, will facilitate heritage speakers’ linguistic awareness,
grammatical knowledge and writing skills. Finally she calls for language
policies that support heritage languages’ survival, development and enrichment
around the world.

EVALUATION

“The acquisition of heritage languages” offers up-to-date information,
developing the main topics around heritage speakers thoroughly and in
well-organized manner. Montrul draws from different theories and principles,
and a rich wealth of robust studies.  Although the author privileges
linguistic analyses, she also includes socio-cultural factors, varied
environments, and educational conditions that build on the complex process of
heritage language acquisition.  Each chapter includes clear explanation of
main ideas, figures and tables that facilitate the comprehension of more
abstract concepts, and final comprehensive summaries that ease the transition
to the following chapter. The author is well aware of her broad audience of
professionals, students and researchers; and she sometimes addresses readers
directly, inviting them to move faster or skip parts, as necessary.  Montrul
vividly illustrates major topics with examples in different languages and
settings. However, sometimes she extends the description of these studies and
provides unnecessary details, which may make unfamiliar or novice readers feel
overwhelmed by excessive information or distracted from key central points.
Although we agree with the author in the need for deepening the language
analysis of heritage acquisition, we find that the final bibliography would be
sufficient for the scope of the book. Undoubtedly “The acquisition of heritage
languages” constitutes a reference book that contributes to the field of
heritage language acquisition with profound theoretical and practical
insights.

REFERENCES

Bayram, F. 2013. Acquisition of Turkish by heritage speakers: A processability
approach. England: University of Newcastle.

Carreira, M. and O. Kagan.  2011. The results of the national heritage
language survey: Implications for teaching, curriculum design, and
professional development. Foreign Language Annals 44(1). 40-64.

Grosjean, F. 2008. Studying bilinguals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

O' Grady, W., et al. 2001. The acquisition of relative clauses by heritage and
non-heritage learners of Korean as a second language, a comparative study.
Journal of Korean Language Education 12. 283-294

Polinsky, M. 2006. Incomplete acquisition: American Russian. Journal of Slavic
Linguistics 14. 191-262

Silva- Corvalán, C. 1994. Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Valdés, G. 2001. Heritage language students: Profiles and possibilities. In J.
Peyton, D. Renard and S. McGinnis(eds)  Heritage languages in America:
Preserving a national resource (37-77). Washington DC: Center for Applied
Linguistics.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Laura Dubcovsky is a lecturer and supervisor in the Teacher Education Program
from The School of Education at the University of California, Davis. She has a
Master’s in Education and a PhD in Spanish linguistics with special emphasis
on second language acquisition. Her areas of interest combine the fields of
language and bilingual education. She is dedicated to the preparation of
prospective bilingual Spanish/English teachers, especially on the use of
Spanish for educational purposes. She collaborates as a reviewer with the
Linguistic list serve and bilingual associations, as well as with teachers,
principals, and specialists at the school district. She has taught a course
that addresses Communicative and Academic Spanish needed in a bilingual
classroom for more than ten years. She has published the article, Functions of
the verb decir (''to say'') in the incipient academic Spanish writing of
bilingual children. Functions of Language, 15(2), 257-280 (2008) and the
chapter, “ Desde California. Acerca de la narración en ámbitos bilingües
(2015) Homo Sapiens:127- 133.





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