Spanish Heritage Research Articles

Spanish and English bilinguals: Between L1 and L2?

The present study explores the vowel and intonation systems of heritage Spanish speakers in California based on a corpus of semi-directed interviews, to establish whether one language influences the other, or whether their English and for Spanish are closer to the monolingual speakers’ system of either language. There is some limited evidence that the vowel systems of Spanish in Spanish heritage speakers of Mexican descent in California is indeed very similar to the system of monolingual Mexican Spanish speakers (in pitch, duration, F1 and F2 values)—their English vowel system, however, and especially the front vowels, is not completely comparable to the published values for monolingual American English speakers’ vowels (Miglio, 2011). Intonation in bilingual Spanish has been shown to be influenced by English pitch movement, as well as signalling information structure (Gries and Miglio, 2015). This study widens the scope of the previous ones using data from natural speech as opposed to carrier sentences read out loud, and uses unpublished data from the same regional varieties of both English and Spanish, as spoken in California (monolingual English, bilingual English-Spanish), and in Mexico (monolingual Spanish) by individuals in the same age group and of comparable socio-cultural background.The present study explores the vowel and intonation systems of heritage Spanish speakers in California based on a corpus of semi-directed interviews, to establish whether one language influences the other, or whether their English and for Spanish are closer to the monolingual speakers’ system of either language. There is some limited evidence that the vowel systems of Spanish in Spanish heritage speakers of Mexican descent in California is indeed very similar to the system of monolingual Mexican Spanish speakers (in pitch, duration, F1 and F2 values)—their English vowel system, however, and especially the front vowels, is not completely comparable to the published values for monolingual American English speakers’ vowels (Miglio, 2011). Intonation in bilingual Spanish has been shown to be influenced by English pitch movement, as well as signalling information structure (Gries and Miglio, 2015). This study widens the scope of the previous ones using data from natural speech as opposed to carrier sentences r...

Cross-language effects of phonological and orthographic similarity in cognate word recognition

Abstract This study investigated the extent to which phonological and orthographic overlap between the two languages of bilinguals predicts word processing abilities in their dominant and non-dominant languages. Forty-four English-dominant L1 English-L2 Spanish speakers and Spanish-dominant Spanish heritage speakers performed a lexical decision task while reading words in English and Spanish. We calculated orthographic and phonological similarity of cognate and noncognate words using the Levenshtein distance measure. Results showed that both bilingual groups benefited from orthographic similarity when reading Spanish and English words, whereas a facilitative effect was restricted to Spanish words that shared phonology across languages. These findings suggest a different contribution of phonological and orthographic similarity in bilingual word recognition, independently of language dominance.

Service learning in Spanish for the health professions: Heritage language learners’ competence in action

AbstractThe present study examined the impact of a service learning activity on students’ perceptions of language, identity, and community in an advanced Spanish for the Health Professions course. Forty‐five advanced Spanish heritage learners (SHLs) participated in health fairs as assistants to health‐care providers as part of the curriculum requirements. The mixed‐methods analysis of students’ reflection essays shows that this experience had the greatest effect on participants’ confidence in the use of Spanish as a professional language, on their awareness and understanding of the local Hispanic communities’ needs, and on their emerging identity as Hispanic health‐care professionals. The findings also support the value of service learning as a domestic immersion experience, targeting the specific language and professional needs of SHLs.

Comparing the self-perceptions and efficacy of Spanish heritage language learners as authors: In search of an effective writing process

En el contexto de los Estados Unidos, el término aprendices de herencia se refiere a aquellos individuos que adquieren una lengua minoritaria en casa, en este caso el español, debido a una exposición temprana (Valdés, 2001). Sin embargo, la preparación académica que reciben es principalmente en inglés. Este estudio analiza la autopercepción de doce aprendices de herencia del español en referencia a su desempeño (estrategias de escritura) y sus atributos (efectividad al redactar) como autores, con la intención de establecer si sus percepciones concuerdan con sus realidades. Para este fin, los participantes completaron una batería tripartita consistente en un cuestionario sobre sus antecedentes lingüísticos y estrategias de escritura, un ensayo persuasivo y una entrevista. Los resultados sugieren que las autopercepciones de los participantes difirieron de sus realidades; los aprendices frecuentemente abordaron el proceso de escritura de una manera diferente a la que inicialmente declararon. También, algunas estrategias —por ejemplo, enfocarse en cuestiones de contenido al hacer revisiones en lugar de crear un esquema— fueron más eficientes que otras para construir textos más efectivos. Este conocimiento y los consejos prácticos aquí ofrecidos pretenden facilitar la formación de escritores eficaces a través del desarrollo de estrategias puntuales, para así empoderar a los aprendices de herencia del español como autores.

Present tense verb morphology of Spanish HL and L2 children in dual immersion

AbstractWe provide a snapshot of childhood morphology development in our investigation of two profiles of bilinguals (age 9–10) in an English-Spanish dual immersion academic setting: Spanish heritage language (SHL,n = 21) and second language (SL2,n = 41) children. Three tasks were given to the 62 bilinguals and 15 age-matched controls (Spanish first language, SL1): oral comprehension of 20 singular-plural present verbs, written sentence production of 10 similar verbs, and a meaning-focused writing task. SHL children were comparable to controls in production of number agreement, and showed no asymmetry between comprehension and production. SL2 learners showed lower accuracy than both SHL and SL1 children. A similar pattern was observed when person agreement and tense, aspect, mood and vowel errors were considered. The most common error among SHL and SL2 children was overregularization of stem vowels, a typical developmental error. The Feature Reassembly model of grammar can accommodate the range of possibilities represented by the data we present.

La Australia argentina (1898): a utopia patagônica de Roberto Payró

La Australia argentina (1898), livro de viagem de Roberto Payró (1867-1928), escritor, intelectual socialista e repórter do importante jornal La Nación, de Buenos Aires, retrata a Patagônia mais de uma década depois da Conquista do Deserto (1879-1885). Em uma visão inspirada pelo determinismo geográfico e pela obra “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893) do historiador estadunidense Frederick Jackson Turner, Payró identifica na região um potencial civilizacional subaproveitado, em função da administração política demasiadamente centralizada e da herança colonial espanhola. O autor advoga pela modernização da Patagônia por meio de uma maior autonomia política e econômica e por meio da imigração europeia, especialmente a de colonos e pioneers anglo-saxões. Payró, aliás, revela um posicionamento fortemente anglófilo, em um período de afirmação da latinidade na intelectualidade hispano-americana, no contexto da Guerra Hispano-Americana (1898).

The Overt Pronoun Constraint through the Spanish (Heritage) Lens

The Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) has been studied on numerous occasions, addressing, in particular, the capabilities and limitations of the second language learner (Gürel, 2003; Kanno, 1997; Pérez-Leroux & Glass, 1997; Rothman & Iverson, 2007). However, studies are increasingly showing that the OPC may not be an unyielding restriction on grammar, as previously proposed by Montalbetti (1984) (Alonso-Ovalle, Fernández Solera, Frazier & Clifton, 2002; Gelormini Lezama, Huepe, Herrera, Melloni, Manes, García & Ibáñez, 2016; Keating, Jegerski, & VanPatten, 2016; Lipski, 1996). This study looks at the interpretation restrictions of the OPC by 20 Spanish heritage and 20 monolingual speakers in two experimental tasks: a sentence selection task and a picture-matching task. Results reveal that while participants show a preference towards the interpretation restrictions of the OPC, they do not respond at ceiling, which allows for variability. Additionally, the heritage speaker group varies from the monolinguals, indicating further divergence. This work provides a descriptive analysis of the findings and contributes to the dialogue on the flexibility of the OPC on language.

Over, Under and Around: Spanish Heritage Speakers’ Production (and Avoidance) of Subjunctive Mood

The present study explores the subjunctive mood production of 29 heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish (17 advanced proficiency and 12 intermediate proficiency) and 14 Spanish-dominant controls (SDCs). All participants completed a Contextualized Elicited Production Task (CEPT), which tested their oral production of both lexically-selected (intensional) and contextually-selected (polarity) mood morphology in Spanish. Between-group analyses of the CEPT reveal that the HSs diverge significantly from the SDCs in subjunctive production, specifically by underproducing, overproducing, and avoiding subjunctive mood morphology. Despite these differences, however, the HSs still exhibited sensitivity to mood, producing significantly more subjunctive mood in expected subjunctive contexts than in expected indicative contexts. Based on HSs’ knowledge of the subjunctive, which both resembles and also diverges from that of the SDCs, it is argued that categorizing HSs as having either acquired or not acquired mood in Spanish is descriptively and conceptually problematic.

Critical language awareness for the heritage context: Development and validation of a measurement questionnaire

Critical language awareness (CLA) is increasingly identified as a central component of the Spanish heritage language (SHL) classroom (Leeman, 2005; Martínez, 2003; among others). As a minority language, SHL is subject to sociopolitical, cultural, and economic forces that devalue its status. It is devalued in the eyes of the public, as a legitimate U.S. language, and as something worthy of being maintained. It is essential that students receive instruction not only in the heritage language, but also on the contextual factors that affect the Spanish-English sociopolitical relationship in the United States. Such instruction will enable learners to begin resisting heritage language loss by questioning language ideologies that promote English monolingualism and standard, monolingual Spanish as the ideal norm. The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire with adequate psychometric properties to measure CLA in the SHL context. The respondents were 301 students enrolled in SHL courses in four U.S. universities. The questionnaire results were submitted to a series of statistical analysis to investigate how well the instrument meets the criteria of reliability and validity specified in this study. The final 19-item instrument had adequate psychometric properties and detected change in the CLA of students in a class where CLA was taught.

Transfer in L3 cognate language acquisition: The role of language background on instructed L3 Portuguese acquisition

Abstract Research on L3 acquisition has highlighted the importance of cross-linguistic influence in adult language acquisition. Specifically, the Typological Primacy Model (TPM) for L3 acquisition predicts full transfer from the most structurally similar background language at the initial stages of acquisition. However, it is unclear how language background might affect transfer. Furthermore, it is not known how applicable the TPM is to instructed L3 language acquisition. Consequently, this study examines Spanish/English bilinguals, their knowledge of mood distinctions in subjunctive-dominant contexts in Spanish and their transfer of that knowledge at the beginning stages of instructed L3 Portuguese acquisition. Data from eight L1 Spanish, 22 L2 Spanish, and 38 Spanish heritage bilinguals were analyzed to determine if the groups differed in their knowledge of mood distinctions, first in Spanish and subsequently in Portuguese. Results indicate a significant role of language background on all tasks.

Prospective English teachers re-examining language ideologies in telecollaboration#

Previous publications in applied linguistics concerning nonnative English speaker teachers have analyzed how native-speakerism associated ideologies engender discrimination and affect students’ and teachers’ sense of self-worth. This qualitative study examines how Colombian English pre-service teachers’ telecollaboration with U.S. Spanish heritage language students (SHLSs) influences the Colombian future teachers’ self-perceptions as (non) native speakers. This research joins the call scholars have made to expand telecollaboration into critical perspectives to challenge pervasive and harmful language beliefs and attitudes. Findings suggest that Colombian participants’ cooperative relationships with U.S. peers provided them affective and knowledge-based resources to build more favorable views of themselves, attitudes to confront the detrimental effects of native-speakerism ideologies, and informed judgments to dismantle them.

Discrepancy between heritage speakers' use of suprasegmental cues in the perception and production of Spanish lexical stress

AbstractThis study investigates Spanish heritage speakers' perception and production of Spanish lexical stress. Stress minimal pairs in various prosodic contexts were used to examine whether heritage speakers successfully identify the stress location despite varying suprasegmental cues (Experiment 1) and whether they use these cues in their production (Experiment 2). Heritage speakers' performance was compared to that of Spanish monolinguals and English L2 learners. In Experiment 1, the heritage speakers showed a clear advantage over the L2 learners and their performance was comparable to that of the monolinguals. In Experiment 2, both the heritage speakers and the L2 learners showed deviating patterns from the monolinguals; they produced a large overlap between paroxytones and oxytones, especially in duration. The discrepancy between heritage speakers' perception and production suggests that, while early exposure to heritage language is beneficial for the perception of heritage language speech sounds, this factor alone does not guarantee target-like production.

Ideologies in the foreign language curriculum: insights from textbooks and instructor interviews

This study presents a critical discourse analysis of underlying language ideologies derived from L2 Spanish textbooks. Although previous research has tended to focus on ideologies contained in Spanish heritage language textbooks, in the present analysis, we expand this narrow scope by focusing on L2 Spanish textbooks, specifically Unidos, Identidades and Revistas. In addition, we conduct semi-structured interviews to gain insights into the beliefs and practices of language instructors who use the aforementioned books. Through this critical discourse analysis of the textbooks considered, we find a systematic globalization of language varieties (language variation is not made evident), stereotypes and the discussion of immigration issues from the point of view of dominant groups in society. Instructor views, on the contrary, reveal a deviation from the ideologies held in the textbooks and an awareness of the problematic nature of the suggestions provided. The results support the fact that unequal economic and social resources are clearly mirrored in these instructors’ notes of Spanish L2 textbooks. In light of this, the study offers pedagogical implications.

“Saber español sí sirve” Academic Validation of Spanish as a Heritage Language

Abstract The article offers an account of the challenges and successes encountered in the process of opening a new Professional Spanish Minor, targeted mainly to Heritage Spanish speakers in a small traditional liberal arts college in the Midwest region of the USA. The article introduces the concept “bi-directional scaffolding”, and some of the topics discussed are the motivation for establishing the new program, the choice of curriculum, and the process used to involve diverse Faculty. Additionally, the results of an opinion survey distributed among Heritage Spanish speakers are presented, in which their career expectations and current perceptions of their life at this college have provided a much more accurate framework to design the new minor. Conclusions include a reflection on programmatic solutions for the needs of Hispanic students in our institution. The article proposes an inter-institutional dialogue regarding program standards and curricular schemes for Heritage Spanish students nationwide.

The Secular Duty: Latin Americanism as Criollo Humanism

Latin Americanism is best understood as a political-theological formation, which produces the "justification" for its literary-philosophic enterprise as a sacrifice unto the payment of debts, the fulfillment of obligations, and, generally, its servitude to the social order. This article advances the argument that Latin Americanist critique has been, despite its best intentions, a deeply criollo endeavor (often with the racialized valences that the signifier suggests). A Spanish colonial heritage and a certain racialized inscription that works to immunize the Latin Americanist endeavor against theoretical speculation has resulted in a Latin Americanism that has been highly inconsequential: belletrism or "political engagement" as the twin face of a field that can too often only understand itself in terms of its service to a power from which it is at pains to maintain its difference. Engaging decolonial thought, on the one hand, and liberal literary criticism, on the other, I argue that Latin Americanist critique's missed encounter with deconstruction remains a symptomatic scene of its failure to emerge from its criollo heritage.

(Not)Everyday Life of the Danish diplomat in Russia (Based on the Travel Diary of Just Juel, 1709–1711

At the beginning of the 18th century, Europe was a theater of war. Most of the European states were engaged in the long and large-scale military conflicts (i.e., the Spanish Heritage War and the Great Northern War). The confrontation of some European rulers and the desire to expand political influence in certain regions has led them to new ways to achieve ambitious goals. In addition to military force, they also referred to the art of diplomacy and the assistance of diplomats, who by their order often collected information about the neighboring states, which were treated both as potential allies and as opponents at the same time.The emergence of some sources written by eyewitness-diplomats and accomplices of the iconic events of the early 18th century was the result of new tactics in the foreign policy of the rulers and their secret advisers. That is why some European diplomats who were in international missions had to be in the role of a spy and an ethnographer-memoirist at the same time.In this article, we would like to focus on the materials of the diplomatic mission of the Danish diplomat Just Juel (1709–1711). Namely, we deal with the travel diary, which, in addition to the description of the journey through Eastern Europe, tells about the features of Danish diplomacy during the Great Northern War and the specifics of the international relations of the early 18th century. Particular attention is paid to Just Juel’s daily life during his stay at the court of Peter the Great and trips around the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth and some Ukrainian territories.Our analysis of the diary casts a new light on the social aspects of the Danish diplomatic mission (1709–1711) and its micro-level. We show how vital was the abundance of food, convenient living conditions, life safety, transportation, leisure time for the early-modern diplomats and their diplomatic activities.

La enseñanza de la escritura en los cursos de Español como lengua de origen. Reflexiones sobre las prácticas

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto identificar y describir la diversidad y la complejidad de las prácticas de enseñanza de escritura que tienen lugar en cursos de español como lengua y cultura de origen (LCO) en Suiza. Para ello, se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a 9 profesores de español LCO, que enseñan en cantones suizo-alemanes y suizo-francófonos. Las preguntas trataban sobre sus prácticas en general, con un énfasis particular en la enseñanza de la escritura: presencia de la producción escrita en el aula; frecuencia de las actividades de escritura, materiales, actividades realizadas para la producción escrita, dificultades y estrategias de remediación. Las entrevistas fueron grabadas y transcriptas literalmente para su posterior análisis. El análisis de las entrevistas puso de manifiesto cómo enseñan a escribir los docentes en los cursos de español como lengua de origen. Asimismo, las respuestas de los docentes permitieron explorar las concepciones de enseñanza subyacentes a las prácticas, como así también los programas de estudio que guían la enseñanza, los contextos y las políticas educativas que las enmarcan.

Normas pedagógicas contra normas lingüísticas en la selección del modo en español como L2: interfaz morfológico-semántica

La selección del indicativo y el subjuntivo en español es una de las áreas más problemáticas para los hablantes nativos de inglés (Terrell et al., 1987; Stokes, 1988). Estas páginas presentan los resultados de un estudio piloto que examina la adquisición de la distinción de modo en español por parte de hablantes nativos de inglés, concretamente se analiza la interfaz morfo-semántica en la selección de subjuntivo. El marco teórico en el que se basa este estudio es la hipótesis de sistemas en conflicto (Rothman, 2008) analizada anteriormente con la distinción aspectual en español. La hipótesis afirma que un sistema de reglas pedagógicas entra en conflicto con la competencia lingüística subyacente del estudiante en el proceso de adquisición de la L2. Los participantes fueron divididos en cuatro grupos: (1) un grupo de estudiantes de español de nivel intermedio; (2) un grupo de estudiantes de español de nivel avanzado; (3) un grupo de hablantes de inglés con español como lengua de herencia; y (4) un grupo de control de hablantes monolingües nativos de español. Todos los participantes completaron dos tareas escritas. Los resultados aportan evidencia de la hipótesis de Rothman en otras áreas de la gramática en las que las reglas pedagógicas difieren de la gramática subyacente de la L2. Los resultados de este estudio apoyan la hipótesis de que las reglas pedagógicas interfieren en la adquisición de la producción de modo en español, pero no evitan la adquisición del rasgo morfo-semántico [± específico].

The Interpretation of Adjective-N Sequences in Spanish Heritage

Adjectives appear predominantly postnominally in Spanish, and when prenominal, cannot be interpreted as restrictive. We explore whether heritage speakers of Spanish have the same interpretive and ordering restriction as monolinguals. Twenty-two US college-age heritage speakers and 17 college-age monolinguals from Peru completed a rating task that manipulated word order and interpretation. Items varied in word order (Adj-N/N-Adj) and interpretation (restrictive-only, color and nationality adjectives, and ambiguous adjectives, restrictive and non-restrictive), all framed within a context that favored a restrictive interpretation. Both groups judged Adj-N orders lower than N-Adj orders, and restrictive adjectives lower in prenominal position than ambiguous adjectives. Consequently, we argue that heritage speakers (HS) have the relevant knowledge regarding word order and interpretation, and the interactions among the two properties. We propose a syntactic representation involving NP-raising for both groups, and suggest that in some cases, the higher copy of the NP is deleted, resulting in the linear order Adj-N. We also argue that this analysis may explain the range of individual variation across heritage speakers.

Uses of Gypsum in Spanish architectural heritage: Typologies and some unique construction techniques

ABSTRACT In Spain, gypsum and its many typologies play an important role as a construction material in Spanish architectural heritage. Its historical use is mainly a direct consequence of the abundance of gypsum deposits and a constructive tradition which began in ancient times. In addition to being a sign of constructive identity, gypsum is a clear example of the strong link between traditional architecture and the natural resources of the territory. The aim of this article is after to identify gypsum deposits and gypsum architectural heritage found in different parts of Spain and to explain the different gypsum typologies—other than powdered gypsum—used. Finally, the most unique construction techniques are described, differentiating between structural elements, partitions, and enclosures, as well as architectural elements and surface finishes.