You Can’t Fix What Is Not Broken: Contextualizing the Imbalance of Perceptions About Heritage Language Bilingualism

Fatih Bayram,Alicia Luque,Jason Rothman,Maki Kubota,Diego Pascual Y Cabo

doi:10.3389/feduc.2021.628311

Fatih Bayram, Alicia Luque + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.628311

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Abstract

In this article, we discuss the perceptions of researchers who work on heritage language bilingualism (HLB), educators who teach heritage speakers (HSs), and, crucially, HSs themselves regarding the nature of bilingualism in general as well as HLB specifically. Despite the fact that all groups are invested in HLB and that researchers and educators tend to have a similar basic understanding of HLB development and share common goals regarding heritage language (HL) teaching and learning, there are non-trivial differences and disconnects between them. In our view, beyond the various aspects of the societal milieu that significantly contribute to this state of affairs, we maintain that these differences also reflect unfortunate miscommunication regarding how the object and outcomes of HLB research is packaged, contextualized and communicated to HSs and teachers who have direct influence over their education. Considering this, the main goal and contribution of the present work is to provide a forum in which the many voices involved in HL research/teaching/learning are acknowledged and the knock-on effects of such acknowledgement are meaningfully considered.

Highlights

Since the 1960s there has been a shift in the way researchers conceive of and approach the study of bilingualism
Using the same Likert scale, Questions 8–12 assessed participants’ agreement or disagreement with statements related to attitudes towards heritage language bilingualism (HLB) : 8. In my view, the linguistic needs of bilingual/heritage speakers are different from traditional second language learners and because of that bilingual/heritage speakers need to be provided with tailormade/specific language instruction in order to address their needs
There is a stark difference in responses among the three groups for the following questions/statements: (10) In your view, do you think it is important to promote native/home language maintenance among bilingual/heritage speakers?, x2 (2) 9,03., p 0.01, (9) In my view, heritage speakers mix their languages (Spanish and English) when they speak as a strategy to compensate for their lack of linguistic knowledge in either of their two languages., x2 (2) 10.76., p 0.004, and (8) In my view, the linguistic needs of bilingual/heritage speakers are different from traditional second language learners and because of that bilingual/heritage speakers need to be provided with tailormade/specific language instruction in order to address their needs., x2 (2) 47.81., p < 0.001

Summary

Introduction

Since the 1960s there has been a shift in the way researchers conceive of and approach the study of bilingualism. It is true that bilingualism is relatively exceptional ( not exceedingly so) in some Western societies, especially where English is the majority native language, acquiring two or more languages from a very early age in other contexts such as Asia and Africa represents a more accurate, comprehensive view of Imbalance of Perceptions About HLB the world’s population. Given that roughly 60% of the global population is bilingual (even multilingual) (e.g., Romaine, 1995; Grosjean, 1998; Grosjean, 2019)—in some countries over 90%—it does not make much sense a priori that acquiring more than one language would be a good candidate for stunting “natural” development in children. Unless there were some discernible differences one could meaningfully attribute to the ranges of outcomes (and correcting for co-occurring variables such as socioeconomic status) seen in children in defaultmonolingual as compared to societal default-bi-multilingual contexts, a deficit null hypothesis seems ill-conceived from the outset.

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