Bilingual Speakers Research Articles

Sociolinguistically-aware computational models of Mandarin-English codeswitching

Current research on computational modeling of codeswitching has focused on the use of syntactic constraints as model predictors (Li & Fung 2014; Li & Vu 2019). However, proposed syntactic constraints (Poplack 1978; Poplack 1980; Myers-Scotton 1993; Belazi et al. 1994) are largely based around Spanish-English codeswitching, and are violated repeatedly (and potentially systematically) by codeswitching involving other languages. Thus, a computational model trained on these syntactic constraints, when applied to codeswitching involving languages that are not Spanish-English, may not capture the naturalistic patterns of those languages in codeswitching contexts. This paper demonstrates the value of sociolinguistic factors as predictors in training a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) model on novel Mandarin-English codeswitch data, which come from 12 bilingual speakers of two different generations from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Participants also answered metalinguistic questions about their own language practices and attitudes and completed a written Language History Questionnaire (LHQ) (Li et al. 2020), which asked for self-evaluations of language habits (proficiency, immersion, and dominance in the two languages). LHQ responses were then quantified into numerical scores serving as sociolinguistic predictors in the CART model. The model, which highlighted that age, L2 Dominance, and L1 Immersion were among the top predictors, achieved an accuracy of 0.804 with the area under its ROC curve being 0.692. This is comparable to, if not more powerful than, previous computational studies (e.g. Li & Fung 2014) that trained models using only proposed syntactic constraints as predictors. This paper shows the importance of sociolinguistic factors in computational research previously focused on syntactic constraints; the intersection of these methodologies could improve a cross-linguistic and computational understanding of codeswitching patterns.

Task effects and the yes-bias in heritage language bilingualism

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study investigated three key issues in heritage language research. Previous research shows heritage language speakers have an advantage on tasks of oral production compared to L2 speakers who instead perform better on written tasks requiring use of metalinguistic skills. Furthermore, both L2 and heritage speakers are claimed to have a yes-bias towards retaining ungrammaticality in grammaticality judgement tests (GJTs). Finally, the morphological domain has been shown to be as problematic for heritage language speakers as L2 speakers, but research in lesser-known languages is needed. Design/methodology/approach: Adult L1, L2, and heritage language speakers of Italian were compared on an oral priming task and timed GJT. Both accuracy and response times were elicited from the latter test. The forms investigated were object and si-passive pronouns which lack corresponding forms in Swedish, the dominant language of the bilingual groups. Data and analysis: Mixed-effects regression was modelled to accuracy on the priming and GJT and response time data from the GJT. In contrast, a d-prime analysis was used to measure the degree of sensitivity to grammaticality and bias towards correct and incorrect answers in the GJT. Findings/conclusions: Overall, the two bilingual groups performed quite similarly across the measures tested. All three groups show high sensitivity to grammaticality and a very similar bias for yes-answers on both grammatical and ungrammatical items. Originality: The study is the first to employ a d-prime analysis to explore in greater detail the differences in knowledge of grammaticality between heritage, L2, and monolingual populations. It also presents a brief review of the limited existing research in heritage Italian. Significance/implications: Any advantages by task for either bilingual group level out by the time high proficiency levels are reached but may be associated with literacy levels when metalinguistic skills are measured. The yes-bias is likely a characteristic intrinsic to GJTs rather than a peculiarity of bilingual speaker knowledge. Morphology is problematic also for heritage speakers of lesser-known languages.

Persian immigrants’ language choice for swearing: the effects of socio-biographical variables and personality traits

ABSTRACT Swearing uses language forms that are taboo and potentially offensive. These are often used for emotional expression. Multilingual research shows that because the first language retains most emotional force (Dewaele [2004]. “The Emotional Force of Swearwords and Taboo Words in the Speech of Multilinguals.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25 (2/3): 204–219; Pavlenko [2012]. “Affective Processing in Bilingual Speakers: Disembodied Cognition?” International Journal of Psychology 47 (6): 405–428), it is often the language of choice for swearing. Furthermore, swearing frequency and language preference are associated with different personality traits (Dewaele [2017a]. “Self-Reported Frequency of Swearing in English: Do Situational, Psychological and Socio-Biographical Variables Have Similar Effects on First and Foreign Language Users?” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 38 (4): 330–345). This study draws together these multilingualism research areas to investigate Persian immigrants’ language choice for swearing, with reference to personality traits and socio-biographical factors, and in light of the Iranian cultural context. A mixed methods approach was adopted combining questionnaire and interview data. 204 Persian–English multilinguals residing outside Iran participated. Key findings revealed nuanced gender and personality dimensions. Specifically, women with higher Social Initiative (Extraversion) used English swearwords more frequently than Persian swearwords. Men who showed lower Emotional Stability (high Neuroticism) used Persian swearwords more frequently than English swearwords. There was also a positive relation between frequency of the use of Persian/English, self-rated knowledge in Persian/English, and Cultural Empathy and Open-mindedness. Semi-structured interviews provided deeper insight into these language choices. The study highlights how language preferences for swearing are shaped by both personality and socio-biographical factors in complex and nuanced ways.

Prediction in challenging situations: Most bilinguals can predict upcoming semantically-related words in their L1 source language when interpreting

AbstractPrediction is an important part of language processing. An open question is to what extent people predict language in challenging circumstances. Here we tested the limits of prediction by asking bilingual Dutch native speakers to interpret Dutch sentences into their English counterparts. In two visual world experiments, we recorded participants’ eye movements to co-present visual objects while they engaged in interpreting tasks (consecutive and simultaneous interpreting). Most participants showed anticipatory eye movements to semantically-related upcoming target words in their L1 source language during both consecutive and simultaneous interpretation. A quarter of participants during simultaneous interpretation however did not move their eyes, an extremely unusual participant behaviour in visual world studies. Overall, the findings suggest that most people predict in the source language under challenging interpreting situations. Further work is required to understand the causes of the absence of (anticipatory) eye movements during simultaneous interpretation in a substantial subset of individuals.

The Effect of Language Contact on /tʃ/ Deaffrication in Spanish from the US–Mexico Borderland

This study examines the sociophonetic variation in the L1 speech of Spanish–English bilingual speakers living in the Ciudad Juárez, Mexico–El Paso, TX border metropolis. The purpose of this research is to analyze the sociolinguistic production of /ʧ/ deaffrication in U.S. Spanish, particularly, in simultaneous and sequential bilinguals. Based on the Revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r), it was hypothesized that L1 production of /ʧ/ deaffrication can be significantly affected by the establishment of a new L2 phonetic category /ʃ/ in bilinguals. Interviews with forty-four adult participants, including fourteen first generation simultaneous bilinguals, twelve sequential bilinguals, and eighteen monolingual Spanish speakers were acoustically and auditorily analyzed. Participants were recorded while they performed two types of tasks: a formal (reading) and two semi-informal speech production tasks. Results showed that simultaneous and sequential bilinguals had a significantly lower realization of [ʃ] than monolinguals, suggesting that L1 sociolinguistic variability is influenced by contact with English. Results also indicate the significance of the preceding segment on the realization of the variable under study in monolingual speech, with preceding /a, n, r, l/ favoring the variation and preceding /s, e, i, o, u/ disfavoring it. Comparisons of the variation in monolingual and bilingual speech show that the sociolinguistic factors (preceding segment, sex, and age) that influence the variation in monolingual controls do not influence the variation in bilingual speech.

Synergic Concepts, Lexical Idiosyncrasies, and Lexical Complexities in Bilingual Students’ Translated Texts as Efforts to Resolve Conceptual Inequivalences

The purpose of this study is to draw on the conceptual blending hypothesis from the socio-cognitive approach to investigate the conceptually equivalent translation written in L2—English—of bilingual students via two tasks of translating and defining individual words and translating texts from L1 to L2. Next, the study demonstrates how translation abilities that vary amongst groups can affect students’ lexical density, lexical diversity, lexical sophistication, and lexical idiosyncrasies in translated text. The translating process in bilinguals could be interpreted via the lens of the conceptual blending hypothesis and dueling contexts framework to demonstrate that bi/multilingual students do not differ from monolingual ones pertaining to cognitive or linguistic abilities. Rather, the distinctive difference between bilingual and monolingual language users is bilingual speakers’ abilities of the third competence of formulating a synergism across word concepts and utilizing a bidirectional translation between two languages. When a word in L2 is acquired, there is a conceptual blending between the new conceptual information, encoded after each time the L2 word is used in an L2 socio-cultural context and the existing socio-cultural conceptual information in L1. The new concept created after the blending is called a synergic concept. If the synergic is not well developed, the language user selects incorrect or inappropriate words in a context, resulting in lexical idiosyncrasies. Data gathered from 30 English–Chinese bilingual university students in a transnational program in sociology were collected and compared against 15 monolingual American students. The preliminary findings are as follows: (1) regardless of the location of where the English (L2) socio-cultural meaning conceptualization mainly takes place (in China or the U.S.A.), English–Chinese bilingual language users demonstrated a significant difference in connotative meaning knowledge of noun word concepts and idiomatic concepts, compared with English native speakers; (2) the synergic concepts were detected in all experimental concepts and demonstrated the conceptual blending to a varying degree that affects their translating process and its outcomes: the domineering L1 socio-cultural concept, the well-blended L1 and L2 socio-cultural concept that results in a “third culture”, and the assimilating L2 socio-cultural concept; (3) the synergistic blending of two socio-cultural loads embedded in lexical concepts detected in the bilingual students in the U.S.A. was more robust than those in China, resulting in significantly fewer sophisticated words and lexical idiosyncrasies in their English translated essays. The study sheds new light on understanding the dynamism in bilingualism via translation tasks to indicate bilingual learners’ lexical development. Implications for using translation tasks and analysis of word concepts across languages to support bi/multilingual students in language and academic learning are discussed.

What long-distance coarticulation can tell us about coarticulatory development

It is widely acknowledged that children’s speech gestures overlap more than adults’ in spoken language. Unlike coarticulation in adult speech, which is largely planned (Whalen, 1990), children’s coarticulation appears to stem from their (1) protracted tongue-jaw coordination and (2) inexperience with language. For example, 4- to 7-year-olds with greater phonological awareness tend to coarticulate less within syllables (Noiray, et al., 2019). Long-distance, inter-morphemic coarticulation is another way to demonstrate that children coarticulate for different reasons than adults: by comparing across multiple segments, and contrasting coarticulation within versus across word morphemes, we can invoke speech planning, not just motor control. Since children’s coarticulation is assumed to reflect inexperience and lack of planning, they should coarticulate less than adults in longer-distance environments. N = 51 5- to 10-year-old children and 10 female adults, all bilingual South Bolivian Quechua-Spanish speakers, completed a Quechua morphological elicitation task. Inter-syllabic coarticulation was quantified using a whole-spectrum measure within bare stems (within-morpheme) and inflected nouns (across-morpheme). Results were compared to speakers’ intra-syllabic coarticulation and showed that while children, unsurprisingly, coarticulate more within syllables, they anticipate segments at a longer distance (inter-syllabic and across morphemes) less than adults, only approximating adult-like patterns around age 9.

The role of native language use in motivational interviewing

Abstract Introduction A native language is a language that a person has been subjected to from birth or within a period in childhood where a language is acquired. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with an emphasis on change. It has been developed to encourage a person’s motivation through compassion and acceptance. ‘The spirit’ of MI is captured through its key concepts include collaboration, evocation, and autonomy. Emotion and the therapeutic relationship are also important features of this connection within the MI process (1). Research on bilingualism and emotions has found that bilingual speakers show stronger emotional responses in their first language compared to their second language (2). Aim To explore the role of native language use between health care practitioners and their clients during Motivational Interviewing and other consultations related to behaviour change. Methods After obtaining ethics consent, participants were recruited using a snowball sampling technique. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 health care practitioners (HCP’s) from various disciplines including pharmacists, psychologists, nurses, a psychiatrist, a G.P and dieticians. The interview schedule included questions about the HCP’s native language, language choices, their professional and MI experience. The interviews were conducted via video calls; eleven in Welsh and eight in English. The transcribed interviews were recorded and analysed using a Thematic Analysis approach and a synthesis of the themes were created. Results Four main themes were identified, with several sub-themes, which included: 1.) Language and Motivational Interviewing (internal dialogue, unique role of the individual’s words, use of translators); 2.) Therapeutic Relationship (respect and empathy, being heard, connection, non-verbal communication, trust, and autonomy) 3.) Emotion (a comfortable environment, depth, emotion, and the process of change) 4.) Culture and Identity (native language, acknowledge individual differences). “I think emotion is crucial to the change process…..so being able to touch people emotionally is really important…..it definitely works much easier in their own native language”(Psychiatrist). Conclusion Many of the HCP’s recognised that communicating with a client in their native language had a positive effect on the therapeutic relationship especially while using MI. This experience was not unique to HCP’s who spoke Welsh as their first language. It was suggested that there is something subtle and powerful occurring on several levels in the process of communicating and maintaining relationships linguistically, particularly when communicating in a native language, and emotion plays a key role in this process. Recommendations Creating a network and a database of Welsh-speaking MI practitioners, offering better training through the medium of Welsh, and recognising that an individual does not have to be fluent in Welsh and should encouraged to speak whatever the standard of their Welsh were key recommendations. The advantage of this research is that it has been possible to gather and analyse individualistic perspectives of the HCPs on a deeper level. The smaller sample size of this research can also be a disadvantage, as a small sample is not always representative of a larger population demographic. References (1) Miller W R, Rollnick S (2002). Motivational interviewing: Preparing people for change. New York: Guilford Press. (2) Caldwell-Harris, C. (2014). Emotionality differences between a native and foreign language: Theoretical implications. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01055

THE LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE OF KOREAN WAVE FROM PAKISTAN’S PERSPECTIVE

This research paper intends to explore the influence of the “Korean Wave" on the language of non-Korean speakers especially the bilingual community in Pakistan who actively indulges in Korean popular music as well as their drama/film industry. The paper discusses how initially a local phenomenon (South Korean media industry) when transforms into a global one, spreads its cultural knowledge across the globe with language becoming a major chunk which gets transferred to the shared knowledge of the speakers being affected by this phenomenon. By taking on a quantitative approach i.e through designing a questionnaire, our data collection and discussion has helped to locate the linguistic traits, inclusive of heavily impacted sound patterns, speech, words and/or phrases, on the language of the Korean culture consumer. The results of our study have also been analysed through the corpus planning perspective, namely through their identification under the categories of “Modernization” and “Graphization”. Through this means we have strived to determine the extent to which bilingual speakers in Pakistan have been influenced by the Korean language in their day to day lives, from their borrowing of Korean terms in regular discourse to their active usage of Hallyu inspired English terminology. Keywords: Korean Wave, Pakistan, Discourse, K-pop, Hallyu, Korean Language

Gender Agreement in a Language Contact Situation

Gender agreement between determiners and nouns, and gender agreement between third-person clitics and their referents, are notoriously difficult to acquire by bilingual speakers who lack them in their first language, or in one of their first languages. We present a study that explores the differences between gender agreement between a determiner and a noun and gender agreement between clitics and antecedents or doubled DPs among Shipibo-Spanish speakers. The oral production data that were elicited from 17 adult Shipibo-Spanish bilinguals by using a picture-based narration task show a notable difference in the agreement patterns between nouns and determiners, and between clitics and their antecedents/doubled DPs. Similar patterns are found among five Spanish-Shipibo bilinguals who were living in the same contact situation. While the participants consistently marked strong gender agreement within the DPs, a lack of gender specification was found in the agreement between clitics and antecedents or doubled DPs in the clitic-doubling and dislocated structures. These results are not unexpected as they mirror the results from previous work, where the clitic gender does not systematically match the antecedent gender, especially with feminine antecedents or doubled DPs. Furthermore, this study confirms previous evidence that the gender-specific clitics, lo/la, have been replaced by the invariable clitic, le, in contexts where agreement with a doubled DP or an antecedent is expected. In contrast, there is evidence of agreement between determiners and nouns in this group of bilinguals. These facts allow us to conclude that, although gender is present in Shipibo-Spanish bilingual speakers’ grammar, it is largely absent and is not operative in Shipibo-Spanish speakers’ clitic agreement in oral production.

Understanding Cross-lingual Pragmatic Misunderstandings in Email Communication

Communication tools such as email facilitate communication and collaboration between speakers of different languages, who use two primary strategies-English as a common language and machine translation (MT) tools-to help them overcome language barriers. However, each of these communication strategies creates its own challenges for cross-lingual communication. In this paper, we compare how people's interpretations of an email sender's social intention, and their evaluation of the email and the senders, differ when using a common language versus MT in email communication. We conducted an online experiment in which monolingual native English speakers read and rated request emails written by native English speakers, emails written by bilingual Chinese speakers in English, and emails written in Chinese then machine-translated into English. We found that participants interpreted the social intentions of the email sender less accurately for machine-translated emails than for emails written by non-native speakers in English. Participants also rated the senders and emails less positively overall for machine-translated emails compared to emails written by non-native speakers in English. Based on these findings, we suggest design possibilities that could better aid multilingual communication.

Variation in first-generation L1 deictic systems: Language attrition and bilingualism effects

Aims and Objectives: This study explored the extent to which bilingual language exposure and practice might alter the way in which bilingual first-generation adult speakers use deictic demonstratives in their first language (Spanish) after immersion in a new language environment (Norwegian). Fully developed L1 systems are expected to be stable and less susceptible to change or restructuring than child systems. In addition, core domains of a language such as deictic demonstrative reference are hypothesized to be more robust. Design: Participants were tested with the Spanish version of the memory game. They completed an ethnolinguistic background questionnaire with questions targeting demographic data, experience with language, and daily routines in language use. Data and analyses: Demonstrative use was analysed using binomial multilevel modelling, allowing residual variance to be partitioned into a between-participant component and a within-participant component. Findings: Results demonstrate a shift in the demonstrative system of Spanish native speakers who have resided in Norway for a median of 6.5 years. This shift is reflected in extensive use of the semantically underspecified item ese at the expense of the form aquel. The latter form is less frequent and highly context-dependent in corpora of the modern language. It can be hypothesized that first-generation speakers are faster in converging on a simplified system of deictic reference than the native speaker group tested in Spain, but this development parallels tendencies observed in the monolingual variety of the language. This faster shift may well be influenced and catalysed by bilingual language practice. Originality: This article addresses a gap in research on deictic terms under conditions of language attrition. It documents a restructuring of the deictic system in first-generation speakers of Spanish residing in another country. The results suggest that marking peri-personal space is a core feature of deictic systems across languages, also preserved under deictic system shift.

Effects of Dominance in Exposure and Linguistic Distance in the Bilingual Proficiency Profiles of Dutch-German and Greek-German School-Age Bilinguals

Bilingual development is characterized by systematic variability, so called profile effects. This paper investigates dominance in exposure and linguistic distance as potential sources of bilingual profile effects by comparing the lexical and narrative profiles of Greek-German bilinguals to those of Dutch-German bilinguals. Both bilingual groups, aged 10–11 years, were recruited from bilingual school-contexts in Germany. The Greek-German bilinguals (N=15) constitute a classic heritage language population with a fairly distantly related language combination, the Dutch-German bilinguals (N=15) constitute an under-researched group of bilingual speakers with a very closely related language combination. Participants were asked about their language exposure and underwent a productive vocabulary task and a narrative production task in both languages. Findings indicate that dominance in exposure did not directly translate into dominance in lexical proficiency, which might be related to a cognate facilitation effect in the lexical tasks for the Dutch-German bilinguals. The narrative analysis indicates that, on group-level, dominance in exposure translated into dominance in narrative performance. A correlational analysis showed that dominance affected narrative measures differently and correlated differently with narrative measures depending on the group and, thus, language combination. However, it could not be affirmed that the linguistic proximity of Dutch and German balanced out dominance effects in general, since dominance in that group of bilinguals was too stark. It is concluded from this that dominance in exposure and linguistic distance interact in bilingual development, but that this relationship is also dependent on the magnitude of dominance and the type of task and linguistic domain under investigation.

Lost in translation, apparently: Bilingual language processing of evidentiality in a Turkish–English Translation and judgment task

AbstractWe investigated how bilingual speakers process evidentiality information in a dual language activation setting (Green & Abutalebi, 2013) using a translation production and confidence judgment task. Due to interaction of multiple factors in bilingual processing a multifactor model CASP (Complex Adaptive System Principles) for Bilingualism (Filipović & Hawkins, 2019) was used as a theoretical frame. Evidentiality indicates the source of information about past events, i.e., whether they were witnessed firsthand or non-firsthand and it is marked obligatorily in the grammar of Turkish and optionally in English using verbs, adverbs or constructions. The results show that firsthand information is translated more correctly than the non-firsthand in both directions and that different bilingual populations all gravitate towards a shared pattern in both languages but in different ways due to the different proficiency (English vs. Turkish as the stronger (L1) language) and different acquisition histories (early heritage vs. migrant late bilingualism).

Automatic sound encoding is sensitive to language familiarity: Evidence from English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals

We investigated whether language familiarity has a modulatory effect on automatic sound encoding in the auditory brainstem by measuring frequency-following responses (FFRs) to repeating speech syllables that played in the background while monolingual English speakers and Spanish-English bilingual speakers watched cartoon videos in English and Spanish. For the English monolinguals, we found that the FFR signal quality was different between the two language conditions, with higher signal to noise ratios emerging for the Spanish compared to the English condition. For the Spanish-English bilinguals, the FFR signal quality was overall higher than the monolinguals, but there no effect of language condition on the FFR. Thus, both language familiarity of the environment and bilingual language experience, may modulate automatic sound encoding.

Brain bases of English morphological processing: A comparison between Chinese-English, Spanish-English bilingual, and English monolingual children.

How do early bilingual experiences influence children's neural architecture for word processing? Dual language acquisition can yield common influences that may be shared across different bilingual groups, as well as language-specific influences stemming from a given language pairing. To investigate these effects, we examined bilingual English speakers of Chinese or Spanish, and English monolinguals, all raised in the US (N=152, ages 5-10). Children completed an English morphological word processing task during fNIRS neuroimaging. The findings revealed both language-specific and shared bilingual effects. The language-specific effects were that Chinese and Spanish bilinguals showed principled differences in their neural organization for English lexical morphology. The common bilingual effects shared by the two groups were that in both bilingual groups, increased home language proficiency was associated with stronger left superior temporal gyrus (STG) activation when processing the English word structures that are most dissimilar from the home language. The findings inform theories of language and brain development during the key periods of neural reorganization for learning to read by illuminating experience-based plasticity in linguistically diverse learners.

Bilingual investments of dual-language immersion program alumni

ABSTRACT The article explores bilingual investments of dual-language immersion program alumni through an intersectional narrative analysis. Focusing on the experiences of bilingualism of six alumni, we investigate how they continue to be invested in bilingualism, the factors that shape their self-positionings as bilinguals, and the extent to which race is implicated in their experiences as bilingual speakers of Spanish and English. The analysis revealed that investment is not always agentive and is obligatory, and habitual – less conscious linguistic behavior. While individual efforts sustain bilingual investment, biculturalism requires a collective practice. Bilingual experiences are racialized, and raciolinguistic ideologies at home school, and society at large shape alumni’s bilingual investments. Across all findings, we discuss individual and collective similarities and differences among Hispanic/Latinx and White alumni. The article ends with implications for future research and practical recommendations for designing equitable bilingual programs.

Bay Area Spanish: regional sound change in contact languages

Compression of the vowel space area and reduced vowel dispersion have been observed as features of the California Vowel Shift (CVS, D’Onofrio, Pratt, and Van Hofwegen 2019). The present research provides empirical data to address the gap in the literature regarding the influence of regional sound change on contact languages, namely the influence of CVS on Bay Area Spanish. Analysis of word list tasks given to bilingual speakers of Bay Area Spanish and monolingual speakers of Mexican Spanish reveals a more compressed vowel space in Bay Area Spanish and patterns that mirror changes in progress in California English. These results suggest that regional sound changes can influence production within contact languages and may provide evidence for perceptual category assimilation among Spanish-English bilinguals in the Bay Area. These results additionally broaden the scope of regional sound change studies by removing the historically Anglo-centric focus and expanding the consideration of what may constitute a regional feature.

Heritage Speakers as Part of the Native Language Continuum.

We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with heritage-Greek, -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. (1) We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. (2) We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. (3) In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike.

(In)felicitous use of subjects in Greek and Spanish in monolingual and contact settings

This paper focuses on subject distribution in Greek and Chilean Spanish, both null subject languages, as evidenced in the oral production of monolingual and bilingual speakers. Narratives elicited from 40 monolinguals and 76 bilinguals of different types, namely, first- generation immigrants, heritage speakers, and L2 speakers, were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively to explore potential differences in expressing subject reference between the groups in monolingual and contact settings. The qualitative analysis of contexts of topic continuity and topic shift showed no overextension of the scope of the overt subject pronoun expected to be found in the bilingual performance according to the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace 2011; 2012) and previous research. The findings also show that the redundancy of lexical subjects observed in topic continuity contexts mostly involved felicitous (pragmatically appropriate) constructions. Moreover, while null subjects in topic shift were found to be mostly felicitous in both monolinguals and bilinguals, cases of ambiguity were observed in the bilingual performance in this discourse context.