Review article: Second language acquisition welcomes the heritage language learner: opportunities of a new field

Is the heritage language like a second language?

“…This article is concerned with recent advances in the field of heritage language acquisition and its relationship with the field of L2 acquisition (or SLA). Although Valdés et al (2006) have referred to heritage language acquisition and teaching as largely atheoretical, I argue in this article, as I have elsewhere (Montrul, 2008a), that the theoretical questions and methodological paradigms from theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and second language acquisition are highly relevant for heritage language acquisition. Indeed, I will show how these have been successfully extended to heritage language acquisition in the past few years, and I will highlight the significant progress we have been able to achieve as a result in our current understanding of heritage language speakers.…”

“…Although the field of Heritage Language Acquisition has emerged in the United States and Canada as a "new" field (Brinton et al, 2008;Polinsky & Kagan, 2007;Kondo-Brown, 2006;Montrul, 2008a), the study of 2 nd generation bilinguals and what we today call heritage speakers is not new, but has been until now the realm of sociolinguistics (Dorian, 1989;Otheguy et al, 2007;Silva Corvalán, 1994 have learned about the possible dimensions on which these two different types of bilinguals vary or not; and we have learned that the type of knowledge manifested by the two types of learners is profoundly shaped by experience. We can no longer claim that the field is "atheoretical": in fact it has become sophisticated and increasingly informed by sister disciplines.…”

Engelska Hemspråk : Språk i interaktion i modersmålsundervisning i Sverige

“…Heritage language acquisition has been conceptualized as sharing features of both L1 (Kagan & Dillon 2008, p. 143;Valdés et al 2006) and L2 acquisition (Gass & Selinker, 2008, p. 23;Montrul, 2008). There is interest in exploring what existing knowledge on L1 and L2 acquisition has to contribute to understanding of HLLs (Montrul, 2008(Montrul, , 2009.…”

“…Heritage language acquisition has been conceptualized as sharing features of both L1 (Kagan & Dillon 2008, p. 143;Valdés et al 2006) and L2 acquisition (Gass & Selinker, 2008, p. 23;Montrul, 2008). There is interest in exploring what existing knowledge on L1 and L2 acquisition has to contribute to understanding of HLLs (Montrul, 2008(Montrul, , 2009. Similarly, it has been proposed that more knowledge about HLLs may help refine existing theories within the field of SLA (Montrul, 2008, p. 500-501; see also Valdés, 2005, for a rather different take on why this may be the case).…”

“…They have been characterized as neither-nor, or "lost in between" the two (Isurin & Ivanova, 2008, p. 100). Determining the language-specific characteristics of this particular category of speakers has been at the heart of interest in developing a theory of HL pedagogy (Kagan & Dillon, 2011;Montrul, 2008). This work has predominantly relied on the same experimental methodology as classical linguistics and SLA (Kagan & Dillon, 2011).…”