Portuguese as Heritage Language in Germany—A Linguistic Perspective

Rinke, Esther; Flores, Cristina

doi:10.3390/languages6010010

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Overall, the written narratives of the Portuguese-German bilingual children show extremely low rates of errors in all relevant domains considered, which seems to hold for both languages. This observation is consistent with previous studies on Portuguese HSs living in German-speaking environments (Flores, 2015;Rinke & Flores, 2021) that have been shown to develop very stable linguistic knowledge also in other domains beyond the verb phrase. These results contrast with some widespread deficit-based perspectives and recurrent misconceptions regarding the nature of the bilingual competence, which is à priori assumed to be lacking compared to monolingual norms.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Language separation and stable syntactic knowledge: verbs and verb phrases in bilingual children’s narratives

Flores

Rinke

Torregrossa³

et al. 2022

Journal of Portuguese Linguistics

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The present study analyses written narratives of 60 Portuguese-German bilingual children between 8 and 15 years living in Switzerland, in both their languages. Portuguese is the children’s heritage language (HL) and German the environmental language. The analysis focusses on the children’s lexical, morphological and structural knowledge in the verb domain (verb types, agreement morphology, verbal tense, word order within the VP, orthography) and aims to determine the role of language dominance, general proficiency, current age and age of onset of bilingualism (AoO) in bilingual language acquisition at later stages of development (i.e., at school-age). The results show that the bilingual children display stable syntactic and morphological knowledge in both their languages. Lexical knowledge is positively correlated with age and proficiency. Morphological and syntactic deviations are residual in both languages and not correlated with AoO. No effects of cross-linguistic influence are observed. We only find performance differences between the Portuguese and the German corpus at the level of orthography. We conclude that in the analysed age span children have received enough exposure to both languages to develop stable morphological and syntactic knowledge, at least in the verb domain.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Language separation and stable syntactic knowledge: verbs and verb phrases in bilingual children’s narratives

Flores

Rinke

Torregrossa³

et al. 2022

Journal of Portuguese Linguistics

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“…The reason why it is plausible for the two settings to be similar is because both are a subtype of natural languages (Kupisch & Rothman, 2018;Polinsky, 2018, forthcoming;Rinke & Flores, 2014). Along these lines, it has been proposed that since HSs rely on colloquial input sources, their language may indicate ongoing diachronic change that is hard to identify in the standard variety of a language (Flores & Rinke, 2021;Pires & Rothman, 2009;Rothman, 2007). The reason might be that homeland speakers are subject to a constant standardization process, which ensures, such as through educational institutions or linguistic 'academies' (e.g., Accademia della Crusca in Italy, Académie Française in France) that some kind of agreed-upon norm is maintained.…”

Section: Predicting Change Without a Long Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language history on fast forward: Innovations in heritage languages and diachronic change

Kupisch

Polinsky

2021

Bilingualism

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There has been a substantial amount of research on heritage language acquisition and diachronic change. Although recent work has increasingly pointed to parallels between those two areas, it remains unclear how systematic these are. In this paper, we provide a bird's eye view, illustrating how patterns of diachronic change are mirrored in heritage language grammars. In doing so, we focus on one of the best-described grammaticalization processes – namely, the formation of articles from demonstratives and numerals, reviewing studies on heritage varieties which mirror those processes. Based on this review, we make two main points: that change in heritage language can be predicted based on established diachronic scenarios, and that heritage languages often amplify incipient changes in the baseline. After discussing a number of attested changes in a bilingual context, we identify directions for future research in the domain of determiners in heritage languages.

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“…As mentioned above, HSs usually receive formal instruction in the SL and not in the HL. This may affect the stabilization of complex structures, such as the ones involving the syntax-discourse interface, which tends to be related to literacy exposure Bowles & Torres, 2021;Caloi & Torregrossa, 2021;Rinke et al, 2019;Van Osch et al, 2019). However, only a few studies consider school-aged HSs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The production of preverbal and postverbal subjects by Italian heritage children: Timing of acquisition matters

Listanti

Torregrossa

2023

First Language

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Heritage language (HL) speakers seem to diverge from monolingual speakers in the acquisition of syntax–discourse interface phenomena. However, most of the studies reporting this finding do not make any distinction between different types of syntax–discourse interface structures. Therefore, it is an open question whether these structures are difficult for HL speakers across the board or whether different types of structures are associated with different acquisition outcomes. In this study, we investigate whether the timing of the acquisition of syntax–discourse interface structures among monolingual children affects their acquisition by HL children. We consider the acquisition of the alternation between preverbal and postverbal subjects with unaccusative, unergative and transitive verbs in Italian. This alternation involves the syntax–discourse interface across all verb types. However, mastery of this alternation has a different timing in monolingual acquisition depending on the verb type: it emerges earlier in association with unaccusative verbs than unergative and transitive ones. We elicit narratives in Italian from 42 Italian heritage children living in Germany and ranging in age from 7 to 14 years. We focus on the analysis of preverbal and postverbal subjects, considering the effect of verb type and discourse status of the subject. The children show a good mastery of the alternation between preverbal and postverbal subjects with unaccusative verbs, whereas they exhibit difficulties with the same alternation in association with transitive and unergative verbs. Furthermore, postverbal subjects with transitive verbs are particularly vulnerable to cross-linguistic effects from German. The results of the study suggest a gradient interpretation of heritage speakers’ difficulty with syntax–discourse interface structures, with timing in monolingual acquisition being a relevant factor that modulates the degree of this difficulty. The results are not affected by children’s dominance of exposure to Italian or age.

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Portuguese as Heritage Language in Germany—A Linguistic Perspective

Cited by 7 publications

References 42 publications

Language separation and stable syntactic knowledge: verbs and verb phrases in bilingual children’s narratives

Language separation and stable syntactic knowledge: verbs and verb phrases in bilingual children’s narratives

Language history on fast forward: Innovations in heritage languages and diachronic change

The production of preverbal and postverbal subjects by Italian heritage children: Timing of acquisition matters

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