Classroom Based Dialect Awareness in Heritage Language Instruction: A Critical Applied Linguistic Approach

Abstract

The present paper argues that while the Spanish for Heritage Learners (SHL) profession has given ample attention to sociolinguistic issues such as linguistic standards and language variation in teacher training, it has not yet given sufficient attention to the promotion of dialect awareness among heritage learners themselves. After discussing the role of dialect in heritage language pedagogy, I review some of the ways in which dialect awareness has been fostered in existing SHL textbooks and ancillary materials. I argue that these approaches can be sharpened by attending to the social functions of language variation. I present a critical applied linguistic approach to dialect awareness that focuses on the indexical aspects of language variation in society. I discuss three strands of this approach to dialect awareness: functions of dialects, distributions of dialects, and evaluation of dialects. Finally, I suggest some activities to present these strands in a first year college level Spanish for heritage learners class.