Abstract
The study presented here has three goals: (1) to identify types of errors in the noun inflectional morphology in Russian as a heritage language among Russian-speaking adolescents in Israel (n=11), the United States (n=11), Finland (n=14), and Germany (n=9), (2) to compare errors in speech production between these groups, and (3) to investigate the impact of Russian language use at home and in educational settings (formal bilingual education versus after-school classes) on the preservation of Russian noun morphology. The participants’ speech was elicited through retelling of Mayer and Mayer’s (1978) picture book 'Frog, Where Are You?' Case and gender errorsin speech production were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The groups were found to be clustered at the opposite ends of a proposed continuum of noun morphology knowledge, with Russian German and Russian Finish bilinguals outperforming their counterparts in Israel and the U.S. The results of the study indicate the advantage of predominantly Russian use at home and formal bilingual schooling for the acquisition of Russian morphology.
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