“A mí no me gusta España mucho” vs.“Yo quiero ir a toda España, me encanta España”

Abstract

Research on heritage speakers abroad constitutes a growing field. Of particular interest is linguistic accommodation by heritage speakers in Spain. Previous work suggests that such accommodation may be affected by participants’ social networks and Spanish fluency. Most work, however, has not directly examined interactions with local peers, nor has it considered participants’ receptiveness to Spain as a possible factor. This study analyzes the linguistic choices of four heritage speakers in interaction with Spanish peers at the midpoint of a semester-long program in central Spain. Spain was the desired destination of two participants, while the other two would have preferred Latin America. However, all showed minimal accommodation. Receptiveness to Spain does not seem to explain their choices; rather, their language use in interaction was likely driven by their identity stances and their desire to create relationships of either closeness or distance with their particular Spanish interlocutors.