Factors of variation, maintenance and change in Scandinavian heritage languages

Abstract

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions:I investigate variation and change in heritage languages, focusing on descendants of 19th-/early 20th-century North Germanic immigrant languages in America. A battery of predictors (e.g. token frequency, language attitude) are compared against a baseline grammar, something often framed in terms of ‘transfer’, ‘incomplete acquisition’ and ‘attrition’. I examine which particular changes have been attributed to which factors.Design/methodology/approach, data and analysis:I synthesise and draw new conclusions from previous research on heritage Scandinavian.Findings/Conclusions:Relevant factors belong to two main categories: those favouring maintenance and those more likely to trigger change. Factors that support maintenance are structural ones (typically syntax, phonology and morphology), frequency of use and external factors. Factors that contribute to change are articulation, language attitudes and a series of cognitive aspects: incomplete acquisition and attrition, transfer and convergence, processing, memory, complexity and overgeneralisation.Originality:I undertake a comparative synthesis of patterns of change and non-change from baseline varieties.Significance and implications:This opens a door to investigating how factors correlate, what causal connections can be found and what levels of language are affected by what factors.