Language Experience Affects Comprehension of Spanish Passive Clauses: A Study of Heritage Speakers and Second Language Learners

Noelia Sánchez Walker,Silvina Montrul

doi:10.3390/languages6010002

Noelia Sánchez Walker, Silvina Montrul

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6010002

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Abstract

Heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish have shown better command with early acquired aspects of grammar than second language (L2) learners, mainly in oral tasks. This study investigates whether this advantage persists with passive clauses, structures acquired early but mastered during the school-age years, with literacy. We examined adjectival passives (La comida estaba servida, “Dinner was served”) with the copula estar in the imperfect, which refer to a description of a state or a final result; and verbal passives with the copula ser in the imperfect (La comida era servida. “Dinner was being served”), which refer to an ongoing or habitual action in the past. A grammaticality judgment task (GJT) testing knowledge of the copulas in different simple sentences and a picture-matching task (PMT) testing the comprehension of the two passive clauses revealed that HL learners’ knowledge of the copulas resembles that of literate monolingually raised native speakers more than that of L2 learners. HL learners are able to integrate their knowledge of the copulas to comprehend syntactically complex clauses, especially in the aural modality.

Highlights

Bilingual development in the United States is characterized by an uneven development of English and the minority language spoken at home
We included a comparison group of monolingually raised native speakers (MRNS) that served to obtain a measure of grammaticality judgments and comprehension of the target construction included in our study, only L2 learners and heritage language (HL) learners were included in the analyses because the focus of this study is the differences and similarities between these two bilingual groups
This study investigated comprehension of Spanish adjectival and verbal passives by heritage language learners and second language learners of Spanish

Summary

Introduction

Bilingual development in the United States is characterized by an uneven development of English and the minority language spoken at home (the heritage language). Studies of Spanish as a heritage language (HL) in the U.S have found that adult early bilinguals’ acquisition and development of English is successful, and that their knowledge of the minority language resembles that of monolingually raised native speakers (MRNS) of Spanish in several aspects, while that of second language (L2) learners of Spanish in other aspects (Montrul 2016; Montrul et al 2013, 2014; Montrul et al 2008b; Foote 2011; Montrul 2005) Most of these studies have focused on aspects of grammar acquired and mastered early, before age 5, when HL speakers are still at home surrounded by Spanish-speaking family. The present study shifts the focus from early acquired grammar to structures that emerge early but are mastered and fully developed later with literacy, during the school-age years This is important in the context of the United States because academic instruction for most heritage speakers occurs in the majority language. We investigate whether HL speakers develop knowledge of passives like MRNS of Spanish, who experienced early Spanish input and literacy development in Spanish, or like instructed L2 learners, who acquired Spanish later in a formal environment primarily through written language

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