Spanish Heritage Research Articles

Spanish heritage speakers’ perception of use and socio-geographical distribution of Spanish in public spaces of San Diego county

ABSTRACT This study investigated how comfortable and secure heritage Spanish speakers feel about communicating in Spanish in public spaces of San Diego County, as well as the geographic distribution of Spanish use there. The goal was to determine the prevalence of Spanish use in the public sphere. Adult heritage Spanish speakers completed a survey about their language use in various public places, which were then mapped to determine the distribution of Spanish use. The results showed that participants felt Spanish was more welcomed in the south region of the county, close to the Mexican border, and less accepted in wealthy locales and in government institutions. Finally, the sociolinguistic distribution of Spanish in the county was analyzed to identify which areas and public spaces can be considered bilingual.

Telecollaboration as a Tool to Enhance Critical Pedagogy in Spanish Heritage Language Instruction

Abstract: This paper describes and evaluates our experience implementing telecollaboration in Spanish Heritage Language instruction in order to develop students’ critical reflection on issues that affect Latinx communities in the United States. Data and students’ samples collected in four SHL courses taught at Queens College-CUNY, New York City and Saint Xavier University, Chicago are presented and analyzed. We begin by explaining the motivation for the use of telecollaboration, and then outline the three modules of this project in relation to our goals: (1) to develop students’ understanding of the discursive and sociopolitical nature of language and identity; (2) to engage students in a discussion of the historic presence of Latinxs in the country and the patterns of Latinx migration to the US in the 20th and 21st centuries; and (3) to promote a critical reflection on the current living and working conditions of Latinx communities in New York and Chicago. We conclude with a general assessment of the project based on students’ work and our own reflections.

Audiovisual Assignments as Service-learning for Social Justice in Latinx Communities

Although digital media projects are not new to Spanish heritage language education, the increased digitization of communication during the Covid-19 pandemic has afforded new digital educational opportunities (Guillén, Sawin, & Avineri, 2020). In Fall 2020, in lieu of a service-learning assignment in which students had to be physically present in a classroom context, I created a new final assignment for my SHL course: in small groups, students collaborated (virtually and/or in-person) to create a Spanish-language audiovisual project, such as a short video, to address an issue of social equity that affects Latinxs in Kansas, and they disseminated their work to a local Spanish-speaking public. The students engaged in the project in different phases throughout the semester: planning and investigation, script writing and revising, production, dissemination, and reflection. The assignment allowed them to develop both written and oral communication skills, gain experience working in teams, and connect their Spanish language development with their career goals and with social justice (Avineri et al., 2018). In Kansas, where many of our Latinx students describe having been instructed not to speak Spanish in school or targeted for their use of Spanish in public, students had the opportunity to challenge previously held perceptions and circulating societal and institutional discourses about what they, as children of immigrants, could do with the Spanish language.

Racialized Experiences of Language Identities: Spanish Heritage Learners Studying Spanish in a Non-Heritage Country

The most recent Open Doors report by the Institute of International Education (IIE, 2020) indicates that the number of non-white U.S. study abroad students has been steadily growing over the past 10 years, and now it accounts for 31% of all students pursuing part of their education abroad. This study focuses on four Spanish heritage language learners (SHLLs) of Dominican, Mexican, Peruvian, and Colombian/Venezuelan descent with differing Spanish proficiency who enrolled in a short-term study abroad (SA) program for Spanish in Quito, Ecuador during May-June of 2017, 2018, or 2019. This SA program was sponsored by a four-year college in the southeastern U.S. This study included a closed-ended questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, (classroom) observations, e-portfolios, journals, and e-mails. A poststructuralist lens and Norton’s theory of investment were employed to explore the identities of these four undergraduates, their social networks, language, and culture learning opportunities, and how these experiences shaped their individual development. Considerations will be offered in terms of how a social justice-oriented curriculum can be a powerful approach to support the emergence of heritage language identities abroad in socially situated contexts. Civically oriented SA programs have the potential to help SHLLs construct global identities, increase communication skills, and gain global understanding, compassion, and tolerance for social change.  

Problem Points of Various Research Methods and Prospects for Their Solution in the Study of 16th- to 18th- Century Spanish Florida

Making use of the method and the results of Herbert Eugene Bolton, founder of the Latin American Historical Review who proved that Spanish heritage is crucial for understanding American history, the article examines some of the main questions every researcher studying 16th-centiry Spanish Florida is confronted with. The author identifies important methodological problems regarding the topic and proposes some solutions, while also initiating specific debates on the development and Christianization of Spanish Florida during the 16th to the 18th centuries. The methodological conviction of the article is that scientists cannot avoid historicism; it also shows specific problems of the narrative and typological method, as well as the potential for further analysis of such methods as source studies and documentary. One also discusses the cartographic problem and the periodization of what is considered Spanish Florida in the 16th century.

Analysis of the fostering and constraining factors for learners’ participation in the Spanish Heritage Education Program ALCE in Germany: proposals for improvement

ABSTRACT In recent years, Heritage Language Programs have been attracting more and more attention in the European academic and educational policy contexts. In Germany, many efforts are being undertaken to foster the teaching of heritage languages in schools. This paper provides an overview of the teaching of Spanish as a Heritage Language in Germany through the long-established Program ‘Spanish Culture and Language Lessons’ (Aulas de Lengua y Cultura Españolas) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education for school-aged Spanish heritage speakers. The principal objectives of the study are to analyze the main fostering and constraining factors to participate in this program and to propose improvement measures. To achieve these purposes, a mixed quantitative and qualitative research methodology has been used. The findings are discussed according to these main topics arising during the research process: reasons for students to participate and learning needs, teaching challenges, family implication, relationship with the regular formal education system, blended learning, linguistic and culture diversity. Moreover, improvement measures for this Spanish Heritage Language program are suggested. The main conclusions may be useful for heritage language teachers and program managers in other heritage language (HL) programs in Germany and more generally in Europe.

“It wasn’t just about learning how to speak Spanish”: Engaging Histories of Oppression and Enslavement in Spanish Heritage Language Education

ABSTRACT We present a curricular intervention in elementary Spanish heritage language in a Hispanic serving institution located in the US Northeast (Bronx, NYC), that aims to contextualize Latinx students’ experiences and perceptions of Blackness within broader histories of oppression and enslavement. Our practice brings together critical Latinx pedagogy and critical approaches to Spanish heritage language education to facilitate sociohistorical consciousness for both language instructors and students through the use of open-access Latinx archival resources. We outline a three-week unit designed using the First Blacks in the Americas online collection curated by the City University of New York Dominican Studies Institute. During the unit, the students practice their full linguistic repertoires and develop historical thinking skills. We discursively analyze survey responses, instructor fieldnotes, and students’ coursework collected throughout the course to measure the impact of this pilot project. We find that students value learning about Latinx history as a mechanism to practice their Spanish, especially as it relates to the (internalized) racism they experience within their families and communities. We discuss the implications of a critical Latinx language pedagogy to anchor Spanish language education in the experiences and knowledge of Latinx people, histories, and cultures.

Medical Spanish Endocrinology Educational Module.

IntroductionHispanic/Latinx patients experience health disparities in endocrine disease, such as higher rates of mortality due to diabetes mellitus, worse outcomes in the surgical treatment of thyroid cancer, and lack of knowledge about bone health and osteoporotic fracture prevention. Educational strategies to teach cultural and linguistic medical Spanish knowledge to medical students have the potential to improve Hispanic/Latinx endocrine health.MethodsWe created an 8-hour medical Spanish endocrine module targeting language and cultural skills acquisition. Specifically, students practiced obtaining a past medical history, obtaining a medications history, providing and explaining a diagnosis, explaining discharge instructions, and discussing sociocultural aspects of endocrine health. We divided the module into four 2-hour sessions: (1) preclass self-study, (2) class period, (3) role-play/interviewing practice session, and (4) case/cultural activity assignment. Participants completed a pre- and postassessment to measure student confidence level and knowledge.ResultsWe implemented the module four times at one medical school, with 47 fourth-year medical students with intermediate or higher general Spanish skills. Confidence increased for all learners in the endocrine-focused interview and exam in Spanish. Heritage Spanish learners, who were exposed to Spanish at home as children, reported higher postmodule confidence in eliciting the past medical history of endocrine problems.DiscussionThe medical Spanish endocrine module improved the communication skills of medical students with intermediate through advanced Spanish proficiency. Future study should evaluate learner clinical performance metrics and applications to other groups of learners, such as resident physicians or health professions involved in the care of patients with endocrine disease.

Heritage Spanish Speakers’ Writing Development: Online vs. In-Person Peer-Tutoring Interventions

This article analyzes the writing development of heritage speakers (hs) of Spanish in an intermediate level composition course at the University of California, Davis. The data comprised 480 essays written by 80 students from two groups: one who received face-to-face peer tutoring before the covid-19 pandemic (Fall 2019), and one who received online tutoring during the pandemic (Fall 2020). These data were analyzed in terms of lexical richness as measured by (a) lexical density, (b) lexical sophistication, and (c) lexical variation in both in-person and online settings. Findings revealed that lexical density and lexical sophistication were similar in both groups. However, the online group had higher levels of lexical variation throughout their essays. We conclude that online tutoring is an effective alternative to face-to-face tutoring, showing no disadvantages in terms of students’ lexical richness and offering a significant advantage with respect to lexical variation. Finally, we offer suggestions for hs tutor training in an online setting.

The Prosodic Expression of Sarcasm vs. Sincerity by Heritage Speakers of Spanish

Motivated by existing research gaps exploring heritage Spanish, the current study analyzes the prosodic manifestation of sarcasm versus sincerity in 19 English-dominant, English-Spanish bilinguals residing in the Midwest region of the USA. In order to explore cross-generational effects and source input varieties, a subset of participants from within the same family was analyzed, including their Spanish-dominant, adult immigrant parents, but only for Spanish. Participants produced sarcastic and sincere utterances in response to contextualized stimuli in both English and Spanish. Data were analyzed for f0 mean, f0 range, and speech rate using Praat. A linear mixed-effects analysis examined the main and interactive effects of language, language dominance, gender, bilingual type, place of birth, and age on sarcasm and sincerity. Results show that sincere speech is faster than sarcastic speech and that speakers have a higher speech rate when speaking English as compared to Spanish. Results show that sincere speech is faster than sarcastic speech and that speakers have a higher speech rate when speaking English compared to Spanish. Results also indicate that the effect of attitude on speech rate can be modified by age, and that the effect of language on speech rate can be modified by age, gender, and dominance, as well as a two-way interactive effect of attitude and language on speech rate. Speaking in Spanish yields a higher f0 mean and range. Results also indicate two-way interactive effects of attitude and bilingual type, and language and dominance on f0 mean and range, as well as a three-way interactive effect of attitude, language, and age on f0 mean. In terms of intrafamilial findings, parents and their adult children pattern the same way in Spanish with respect to speech rate and f0, highlighting the role of source input variety. These results expand our knowledge of how different language experiences and sociolinguistic variables influence prosodic outcomes in heritage speakers of Spanish in the USA.

Production and comprehension of grammatical gender by Spanish heritage speakers: Evidence from accusative clitic pronouns

Objectives: This study investigates (a) the accuracy of Heritage Speakers (HSs) in production and comprehension of Spanish clitic pronouns when compared to monolingual children, (b) the differences in error patterns between groups, and (c) the possible asymmetry in production and comprehension in gender clitics. Methodology: The participants included six groups, a group of Spanish-HS divided into three age groups, PreKinder, 3rd-Grade, and Adults, and a group of Spanish-monolinguals of the same ages. Agreement data were obtained using a cloze-format task for production and a picture selection task for comprehension. Data and Analysis: The results compared accuracy and response time scores between HSs and monolingual speakers, between age groups, and target gender using a 2 × 3 multivariable analysis of variance. Findings: Children in the HS-group scored lower in accuracy than the monolingual children, but Adult-HS performed at the same level as Adult-Monolinguals. HSs, but not monolinguals, overused the masculine form. Production and comprehension scores showed an asymmetrical development in which speakers are better at clitic production than comprehension. Gender clitic agreement is a difficult aspect at age 4, even in monolingual contexts. Originality: The potential contribution of this study is twofold. First, it contributes to the continuing debate on the development of HSs’ grammar by comparing comprehension and production data of monolinguals and HSs, matched for age. Second, it provides evidence of high rates of gender agreement in Adult-HSs. Significance: Grammatical gender is a vulnerable aspect of Spanish-HS grammar, but it is not an incompletely acquired representation. Results support a dissociation between production and comprehension of gender clitic.

Challenging the Argentine Melting Pot: Peronism, Hispanidad, and Cultural Diversity

On 12 October 1947, Argentine President, Juan Domingo Perón, used the events of the Hispanidad Day to extoll the Spanish heritage in Latin America. Within a few years, however, Perón well understood the futility of using Hispanidad as the basis of a new national consciousness for the Argentine immigrant society. Instead, he opted for a corporative mode of political representation under the aegis of the ‘organized community’. This model was designed to be of an inclusive nature and to offer space not only to different social groups, but also to the variety of ethnic and immigrant groups of Argentine society. This new concept of corporative citizenship facilitated a heightened recognition of collective rights, which manifested in the gradual integration of Argentines of Jewish, Arab, or Japanese origins in the political system, as well as that of indigenous peoples’ movements. By the early 1950s, Peronism had adopted a more inclusive perspective and began to demonstrate respect for all religions. Peronism aspired to confront the transgressions of the privileged few by protecting the rights of minorities and marginalized groups. Thus, it also challenged the traditional melting pot with its emphasis on White, European, and Christian Argentines.

Heritage Mexican Spanish Speakers’ Sociophonetic Perception of /s/ Aspiration

The present study explores the sociophonetic perception of second-generation Mexican Americans in the United States to determine (a) whether heritage Spanish speakers associate coda /s/ aspiration with social meaning, (b) if their perceptions align with those of monolingual Mexican Spanish speakers, and (c) how coda /s/ variation is perceived in in-group (Mexican) and out-group (Puerto Rican) voices. To answer these questions, 75 listeners participated in a matched-guise study in which they rated Mexican and Puerto Rican male voices presented with coda [s] and coda [h] along a matrix of social properties (e.g., niceness and intelligence). Mixed-effects linear and multinomial regression models fitted to 7,500 evaluations showed that heritage Spanish speakers perceive coda [h] as a marker of lower status and confidence, older age, and a Caribbean identity (p < 0.01), similar to the social evaluations held bymonolingual Mexicans in a previous study (Chappell, 2019a), but speaker origin played a pivotal role in heritage listener evaluations. In-group Mexican voices received nuanced evaluations based on phonetic variant, while social evaluations of the Puerto Rican voices were less variable. Additionally, the listeners’ written comments, which often made use of local relationships or community knowledge, support the notion that heritage listeners perceive new voices in light of their own lived experiences and expectations of their family’s variety of Spanish. Through its combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, this article highlights the sociolinguistic competence of second-generation speakers, repudiating deficit perspectives toward heritage Spanish.

Heritage Spanish Speakers (Back) in Mexico

Children who have learned to speak Spanish at home, have had some or all of their schooling in English, and who go (back) to the homeland of their family—in this case, Mexico—are a type of heritage speaker. Informed by a decade-long, qualitative research study based in Mexico, I discuss the educational trajectories of such students in order to identify ways to support their transition to schooling in Spanish. Because the field of Spanish as a Heritage Language has been supporting student achievement in reading andwriting for decades, its pedagogies and methods offer a ready source of applicability to the Mexican context. However, I conclude that Mexican educators and decision-makers must also consider locally appropriate applications and broader curricular changes.

The Indian, The Mestizo, and The Impostor: The Fictionality of Race in Inca Garcilaso de la Vega

Inca Garcilaso de la Vega is perhaps one of the most racially conscious authors of early modernity. In fact, he is the first American-born author to self-identify as a direct descendant of a colonized indigenous nation. As such, Inca Garcilaso understood well the epistemic implications of his biracial and bicultural status (his mestizo condition). Most literary critics have analyzed the incessant reiteration of his mestizaje throughout his texts as a way of countering the racist colonial labels imposed on Amerindians and their descendants. However, there is a complex and somewhat contradictory usage of racial terminology throughout his works. Sometimes Garcilaso claims to be a mestizo, sometimes an Indian, and at times he seems to only highlight his Spanish heritage, depending on the situation. In this sense, Inca Garcilaso’s depiction of his authorial persona is not a straightforward decolonial counter-discourse. Instead, I argue that the Inca Garcilaso that appears in his texts is a fictional author whose deliberately inconsistent use of the different racial labels amounts to a modern decolonial strategy: a critique that ironizes the traditional meaning of racial labels, thus destabilizing their epistemic status. In this paper, I aim to flesh out Garcilaso’s complex decolonial strategy, through a literary reading of his authorial persona.

Adjectival and verbal agreement in the oral production of early and late bilinguals

Abstract Extended oral production has seldom been used to explore adjectival and verbal agreement in L2 Spanish. This study examines oral narrations to compare the agreement behavior, speech rates, and patterns of errors of highly proficient Spanish heritage and L2 learners (early and late bilinguals, respectively), whose L1 is English, with those of native controls. Although both bilingual groups displayed high agreement accuracy scores, only the early bilinguals performed at or close to ceiling. In addition, the L2 learners spoke significantly more slowly than the heritage and native speakers, who displayed similar speech rates. Explanations accounting for the differences in speech rates and agreement accuracy include age of acquisition of Spanish, syntactic distance between a noun and its adjective, and task effects. All of these factors favored the early bilinguals, enhancing their advantages over L2 learners. Findings suggest that the integrated knowledge and automatic access needed for native-like attainment in agreement behavior in extended oral production is more easily achievable by early than by late bilinguals.

What Can L2ers Tell Us about Codeswitching? Mood Selection in Spanish

An increasing amount of research shows that bilinguals that engage in codeswitching (CS) may show different patterns of usage and sensitivity to particular linguistic structures depending on community norms. Additionally, proficiency may play a different role in sensitivity to code-switched utterances depending on speaker background, as well as the structure investigated. In this study, we aim to examine how bilinguals not exposed to CS in the community rate CS vs. unilingual sentences involving mood selection in Spanish. In an online acceptability judgment task (AJT), 20 Spanish L2ers rated sentences containing verbs in the indicative and subjunctive mood in restrictive relative clauses manipulated for the specificity of the antecedent in two separate sessions: a Spanish monolingual mode and a CS session. The L2ers did not show evidence of a CS effect and maintained a mood distinction according to the specificity of the antecedent both in unilingual and codeswitched sentences. These results are in contrast with the results previously reported for Spanish heritage speakers (HSs), where a CS effect is attested in the loss of preference for the subjunctive in nonspecific relative clauses in the CS vs. the monolingual Spanish condition. Additionally, this distinction is found at both lower and higher proficiency levels. The differences between these speakers and HSs are consistent with data from previous research on CS effects on phonology and Det–N switches. We argue that exposure to community norms is necessary for the acquisition of patterns not related exclusively to the grammaticality of switch junctures (I-language).

The other side of heritage language education: Understanding Spanish heritage language teachers in the United States

AbstractIn response to the growth of Spanish heritage language (SHL) learners in the United States, researchers and instructors in the field of SHL teaching proposed a set of goals and pedagogical approaches to meet these learners’ needs. However, because few studies focused on SHL teachers’ professional preparation and practice, it is unclear whether these developments have reached language teacher preparation and professionalization, or how SHL teachers are implementing these pedagogies. This study seeks to better understand the experiences, practices, and needs of teachers of SHL to inform and improve professional development models. By analyzing data from a nationwide online survey and exploring individual experiences through scripted interviews, we offer a snapshot of the realities of these educators working in different educational contexts in the United States. The analysis highlights the challenges faced by SHL instructors, the gaps in their teacher education, and the need for additional resources and targeted support. The implications of these results for SHL teacher preparation are discussed considering feasible options to foster their professional growth.

The switch to remote instruction in Spanish heritage language courses: Why social presence matters


 
 
 
 The pandemic amplified the educational disparities that Latinx students face in virtual courses. This research project describes Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) learners’ experiences with remote instruction, and it proposes using the Community of Inquiry Model (Garrison et al., 2000) and modified versions of the Theory of Social Presence (Fayram, 2017; Hauck & Warnecke, 2012; Strong et al., 2012; Whiteside, 2015) as guiding frameworks to obtain information about social presence (SP) aspects in the online classroom. A total of 126 SHL learners took a validated online survey to evaluate the challenges of switching to a remote modality of instruction. This research emphasizes the need to design effective online courses that foster SP as a key element to diminish feelings of isolation and encourage active participation in the classroom. We propose that teaching presence is an important component of social presence in online SHL courses, and we offer pedagogical implications for practitioners.
 
 
 

Understanding and Addressing Linguistic Aggressions in the Spanish Heritage Language Classroom

Understanding and Addressing Linguistic Aggressions in the Spanish Heritage Language Classroom