You Can’t Fix What Is Not Broken: Contextualizing the Imbalance of Perceptions About Heritage Language Bilingualism

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the perceptions of researchers who work on heritage language bilingualism (HLB), educators who teach heritage speakers (HSs), and, crucially, HSs themselves regarding the nature of bilingualism in general as well as HLB specifically. Despite the fact that all groups are invested in HLB and that researchers and educators tend to have a similar basic understanding of HLB development and share common goals regarding heritage language (HL) teaching and learning, there are non-trivial differences and disconnects between them. In our view, beyond the various aspects of the societal milieu that significantly contribute to this state of affairs, we maintain that these differences also reflect unfortunate miscommunication regarding how the object and outcomes of HLB research is packaged, contextualized and communicated to HSs and teachers who have direct influence over their education. Considering this, the main goal and contribution of the present work is to provide a forum in which the many voices involved in HL research/teaching/learning are acknowledged and the knock-on effects of such acknowledgement are meaningfully considered.

Moving away from deficiency models: Gradiency in bilingual speech categorization

“…In fact, for listeners who are surrounded by variability in their everyday lives, gradiency might be more ecological and cognitively efficient than a discrete representation. Furthermore, bilingual research continues to move away from trying to fix so-called deficiencies that do not exist ( Bayram et al, 2021 ). The VAS task, along with many recent theories and methodologies, is one of the tools that can continue to provide researchers with tools to account for individual differences.…”

“…Early bilingualism research was built on deficit models and in part due to methodologies adopted from other disciplines. Consequently, for a long time, bilingualism was treated as a discrete category in comparison to monolingualism, failing to consider variability in language experience, proficiency, and sociolinguistic contexts of each language (on the other hand see Bice and Kroll, 2019 ; Surrain and Luk, 2019 ; Bayram et al, 2021 ; López et al, 2021 ; Tiv et al, 2021 ; Castro et al, 2022 ; Kutlu et al, 2022 ). These early approaches specifically focused on LX learners’ ability to produce native-like utterances in their LX ( Flege et al, 1995a ; Piske et al, 2001 ; Alario et al, 2010 ).…”

Context, intersectionality, and resilience: Moving toward a more holistic study of bilingualism in cognitive science.

“…Bilingual experiences are diverse and multidimensional. As researchers, we must consider how variability at individual and societal levels leads to different, not deficient, outcomes (Bayram et al, 2021; Kupisch & Rothman, 2018; Vaid & Meuter, 2017). We propose a paradigm shift toward a more holistic, intersectional, and resilient model of bilingualism research.…”

Spanish heritage language learners’ motivational profile in the postsecondary classroom: Insights from psychological network modeling

“…Additionally, it is not uncommon for HL learners to display low linguistic self-esteem (e.g., Potowski, 2002) and to experience feelings of judgment when using their home language in classroom settings (e.g., Schreffler, 2007). They may also exhibit linguistic practices that do not follow prescriptive standard language norms, including contact phenomena (e.g., borrowings, semantic extensions) that are common among US-born bilinguals (e.g., Leeman, 2005Leeman, , 2015, and that are sometimes misconstrued in academic contexts as indicators of low HL proficiency (e.g., Bayram et al, 2021;Lynch, 2012).…”