Abstract

The category “native speaker” is flawed because it fails to consider the diversity between the speaker groups falling under its scope, as highlighted in previous literature. This paper provides further evidence by focusing on the similarities and differences between heritage speakers (HSs) and monolingually-raised speakers (MSs) of their heritage and majority languages. HSs are bilinguals who acquire a family (heritage) language and a societal (majority) language in early childhood. Naturalistic exposure from early childhood qualifies them as native speakers of their heritage language. Some HSs are simultaneous bilinguals, which makes them native speakers of their majority language as well. Others are early second language acquirers who may be indistinguishable from simultaneous bilinguals. Previous research shows that the heritage language productions of German HSs in the United States do not completely overlap with those of German MSs, who are, by default, native speakers. In overall clause type selection (independent main, coordinate main, and subordinate), the HSs differ from German MSs in German but are similar to English MSs in English. The present study examines the distribution of finite subordinate clauses and their types (relative, complement, and adverbial) across registers in 27 adolescent HSs of German in the United States, compared to 32 adolescent MSs of German and 32 MSs of English. All participants described a short video in two settings (formal/informal) and two modes (spoken/written). Results demonstrate that, even with respect to a specific phenomenon (subordinate clauses), HSs show similarities and differences to MSs of both languages. Concerning the distribution of subordinate clause types, HSs behave similarly to both English and German MSs. Concerning subordinate clauses in general, HSs use them less frequently than MSs in German. In English, the difference is more nuanced: HSs differentiate between settings in both modes, while MSs do so only in the written mode. This indicates that the category “native speaker” is not a meaningful descriptor since it covers speakers with varying production patterns. We propose that studies including native speakers should assure transparency and replicability of research by specifying and taking into account speaker characteristics such as bilingualism, proficiency, exposure and dominance.

Highlights

  • The category “native speaker” has been used to characterize a particular speaker population for many years

  • These results illustrate a more nuanced difference in clause type productions of monolingually-raised speakers (MSs) and heritage speakers (HSs) in their heritage language. These findings indicate that the category “native speaker” fails to adequately reflect the variation between the speaker groups who fall under its scope, in this case, HSs and MSs

  • Tukey’s multiple comparison test (MCT, run with emmeans package, Lenth, 2021) revealed a significant difference between the formal and the informal settings in the written mode and an absence of such a difference in the spoken mode. This shows that German HSs and English MSs partially overlapped in their SC productions

Read more

Summary

Introduction

The category “native speaker” has been used to characterize a particular speaker population for many years (see Hopp, 2016; Azar et al, 2019; Ionin et al, 2021; Redl et al, 2021 as recent cases in point). It has been criticized for being a political and ideological construct (Bonfiglio, 2010; Dewaele, 2018) and for discrediting late second language (L2) speakers as “deficient versions of natives” Another point of criticism is that the category is underspecified because it does not reflect the variation within the subgroups under its scope (Davies, 2004; Lowe, 2020) This criticism holds for the specific native speaker population considered in the present study, namely heritage speakers (HSs). They are broadly defined as “bilinguals who have acquired a family (heritage language) and a majority societal language naturalistically in early childhood” They are native speakers of both of their languages (Montrul, 2016; Kupisch and Rothman, 2018) irrespective of them being simultaneous bilinguals or early L2 acquirers of the majority language (Rothman and Treffers-Daller, 2014, p. 96)

Objectives
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call