Sources of variability in the acquisition of Differential Object Marking by Turkish heritage language children in the United States

Aylin Coskun Kunduz,Silvina Montrul

doi:10.1017/s1366728921001000

Abstract

AbstractDifferential object marking (DOM) is an area of vulnerability in adult heritage speakers. This study traces such vulnerability to childhood by examining Turkish DOM in child Turkish heritage speakers in the U.S and the parental generation, who are the main input providers. Twenty first-generation immigrants, 20 adult and 20 child (aged 7–14) Turkish heritage speakers, and the monolingual group including 20 Turkish-speaking adults, 20 7–14-year-old and 20 3–6-year-old Turkish-speaking children in Turkey completed a story retelling task and a picture selection task. Results showed that the first-generation immigrants patterned with the monolingual adults. However, the heritage speakers (children and adults) omitted DOM in both tasks, showing more variable performance than the monolingual groups. These findings suggest that instability of DOM in heritage grammars is more likely due to insufficient input in the early years of heritage language development than to changes in parental input or attrition in later years.

Highlights

Heritage speakers are early bilinguals who acquire a minority language in a bilingual setting where the socio-politically majority language is spoken by the community (Montrul, 2015; Valdés, 1995)
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which child and adult heritage speakers of Turkish who were born in the U.S show variability and omission of differential object marking (DOM) in Turkish as compared to first-generation immigrants as well as monolingual controls in Turkey
We have shown that variability in adult heritage speakers with respect to Turkish DOM can be traced back to childhood since child heritage speakers show variability in their comprehension and production of Turkish DOM, as measured by the tasks used in this study

Summary

Introduction

Heritage speakers are early bilinguals who acquire a minority language in a bilingual setting where the socio-politically majority language is spoken by the community (Montrul, 2015; Valdés, 1995). Since extensive exposure to the majority language takes place in childhood, heritage speakers are exposed to less input in their native language (the heritage language) than a typical monolingual child. They can be exposed to qualitatively different input because they are growing up in a language contact situation. Investigating the role of parental input quality on the acquisition of pre-verbal and post-verbal subject positions in Greek as a heritage language in Western Canada, Daskalaki et al (2020) compared 27 mother-child dyads, consisting of 23 second-generation immigrant parents (adult heritage speakers born and raised in Canada) and 4 first-generation immigrant parents (born and raised in Greece).

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Conclusion