Sociolinguistic Approaches to Heritage Languages

¿(Está/Es) Difícil?: Variable Use of Ser and Estar by Heritage Learners of Spanish

“…As many of these speakers are second and third generation residents of the United States, their linguistic connections to other language contexts are reduced, with a much greater tendency to follow the norms identified among Latinx communities in the U.S. (Silva-Corvalán 1994) and to develop their own individual linguistic personas based on their unique social situation (e.g., Lynch and Avineri 2021). This is based on the type of input that these students are relying on; while heritage learners make use of community input, classroom learners are more likely to favor instructional input, causing the former to start off more closely resembling L1 norms.…”

“…She also emphasized the need for further quantitative research to better understand production tendencies. Lynch (2012) and Lynch and Avineri (2021) focused on topics such as the role of social power, agency, and culture in the heritage context to understand factors that propel heritage learners' acquisition. Díaz-Campos et al discussed bilingualism in the context of heritage learning, focusing particularly on the function that linguistic features serve in conveying group identity.…”

“…At the same time, there is a growing body of research examining the speech of heritage learners to determine how bilingual tendencies manifest among second and third generation speakers of the language as a means of tracking acquisition and identity construction among the sizable U.S. Hispanic population (e.g., Cuza and Pérez-Tattam 2016;Cuza et al 2020;Ducar 2012;Lynch and Avineri 2021;Lynch 2012;Putnam and Sánchez 2013;Silva-Corvalán 1986. These heritage speakers are framed by Valdés (2001) as any individual who grew up in a household where a "heritage" language other than the dominant community norm was spoken, leading to a degree of bilingual abilities in both the dominant and heritage languages.…”

“…This is consistent with Montrul's (2008Montrul's ( , 2016 definition of heritage speakers, who she defines as students raised in a non-English household who may use or solely understand the heritage language while also being bilingual in English. These speakers present an interesting context for linguistic examination, particularly in the North American university system, given the power imbalance between Spanish and English in the United States (Lynch and Avineri 2021) as well as the difference in acquisitional approaches of heritage and L2 learners in the language classroom (e.g., Silva-Corvalán 2014). Using a sociolinguistic framework, the current article contributes to the understanding of the variable use of ser and estar and the differences in linguistic patterns produced by heritage speakers and L2 learners.…”