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!