comparing heritage speakers and late acquirers in the context of...
TRANSCRIPT
Tammer Castro1, Jason Rothman1, 2 & Marit
Westergaard1 CASTL – UiT Arctic University of Norway1, University
of Reading2
Heritage Language Acquisition Workshop
September 19, 2016
Comparing heritage speakers and late acquirers in the context of bidialectal-
bilingualism: Data from production
Introduction
- Bilingualism: Ex: L1 French, L2 English; 2L1 English, Italian - Bidialectalism: Ex: D1 AAVE, D2 English (Isaacs, 1995) D1 Stril dialect, D2 Bergen dialect (Kerswill, 1994) - Bidialectal-Bilingualism: Ex. Brazilian Portuguese (BP)/European Portuguese (EP) (this study)
This study
- i) adult heritage speakers (HS) of BP who acquired EP as an L2 as children in Portugal
- ii) BP natives who have acquired EP as an L2 in Portugal as adults.
Roadmap 1) HERITAGE AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 2) EMPTY CATEGORY DISTRIBUTION IN BP AND EP
3) RESEARCH QUESTIONS
4) PREDICTIONS 5) GROUPS AND METHODOLOGY 6) OVERALL RESULTS
7) CONCLUSIONS
Heritage Language Acquisition HERITAGE SPEAKERS (Montrul, 2011, p.157)
• “(a) simultaneous bilinguals, those exposed to the heritage and the majority language before the age of 3–4;
• (b) sequential bilinguals or child L2 learners, those exposed to
the heritage language at home until age 4–5 and to the majority language once they start preschool;
• (c) late child L2 learners, children monolingual in the heritage
language, who received some elementary schooling in their home country and immigrated around ages 7–8”
Adult Second Language Acquisition – Exposure to L2 takes place post-puberty
– associated with inability to reach native-like proficiency (Long, 2005, 2013);
– variability in end state, less so in naturalistic
learners (Isabelli, 2004; Rothman, 2008)
Empty Category Distribution
EUROPEAN PORTUGUESE
BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE
European Portuguese (EP) Brazilian Portuguese (BP)
NULL vs. OVERT SUBJECTS
Ex: O João disse que Ø/ ele comprou um computador.
"John said that he bought a computer. "
- Pragmatic effects such as focus or topic shift
(Carminati, 2002, 2005)
- No pragmatic effects (Duarte, 1993, 1995)
European Portuguese (EP) Brazilian Portuguese (BP)
NULL vs. OVERT OBJECTS
Ex: - Onde está o livro? "Where is the book? "
- O João levou Ø /-o (EP) /ele (BP) para casa.
"John took Ø /it home. "
- No semantic constraints (Costa, Lobo & Silva, 2009)
- Semantic constraints (animacy) (Cyrino, 2004)
European Portuguese (EP) Brazilian Portuguese (BP)
NULL vs. OVERT OBJECTS
Ex: - Onde está o Pedro? "Where is Peter? "
- O João levou Ø /-o (EP) /ele (BP) para casa.
"John took Ø /him home. "
- No semantic constraints (Costa, Lobo & Silva, 2009)
- Semantic constraints (animacy) (Cyrino, 2004)
The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2011)
External interfaces (e.g. syntax-discourse) are more prone to optionality in advanced non-native grammars than internal interfaces (e.g. syntax-semantics) or structures involving purely syntactic computations
EP
BP
Null vs. Overt Subjects Syntax-discourse interface Not at an interface
Null vs. Overt Objects Not at an interface Syntax-semantics interface
The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2011)
General pattern found: overextension of overt pronouns in place of a null counterpart, irrespective of language pairing Found in L1 English, L2 Italian (Belletti et al., 2007) Found in L1 Italian, L2 English (Tsimpli et al., 2004) Found in 2L1 Spanish/Italian (Sorace et al., 2009)
both adults and children
The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2011)
This overuse of overt pronouns is a strategy used by bilinguals, and at times, by monolinguals, to compensate for occasional inefficiency in computing mappings involving syntax and discourse, as opposed to a result of CLI.
Sorace (2011)
Research Questions
• In the language scenario tested here, are crosslinguistic effects predicted? If so, in what direction: unidirectional (L1->L2 or L2->L1) or bidirectional (L1<->L2)?
Crosslinguistic effects only from BP to EP, and only for subjects.
• If crosslinguistic effects are found, should HSs and L2ers display
similar behavior, or will there be differences between the two groups that might be explained by age of L2 onset, dominance etc.?
Since HSs are child acquirers of EP, the prediction is that no differences will be seen between the two target groups.
Participants
Data Collection
Target Groups and
EP Monolinguals
Braga, Portugal
Data Collection
BP Monolinguals
Fortaleza, Brazil
Task Elicited Production Task – MAIN
(Gagarina et al., 2012)
conducted both in BP and EP by native speakers of each variant
Elicited Production Task
Distribution of Pronominal Subjects: Control Groups
Distribution of Pronominal Subjects: HSs
Distribution of Pronominal Subjects: L2ers
Results - subjects
Distribution of Pronominal Objects: Control Groups
Distribution of Pronominal Objects: HSs
Distribution of Pronominal Objects: L2ers
Results - objects
Summary of Results
Crosslinguistic effects only from BP to EP, and only for subjects.
Conclusions
Only for subjects?
Only from BP to EP?
a) yes b) no
- EP -> BP for HSs - Bidirectional BP <-> EP for
L2ers
Since HSs are child acquirers of EP, the prediction is that no differences will be seen between the two target groups.
a) HSs = L2ers? b) both showed an overuse
of overt pronouns?
a) yes b) no
Conclusions
- Our data do not provide evidence in favor of the IH. - In this language pairing, child and adult L2 acquisition have similar outcomes (both with respect to ultimate attainment and L1 attrition).
Conclusions
- Similar study with typologically different languages; - Comprehension tasks with similar populations testing the same variables.
Further directions
Obrigado! Thank you!