Heritage speakers are people raised in a home where one language is spoken who subsequently switch to another dominant language. The version of the home language that they have not completely acquired – heritage language – has only recently been given the attention it deserves from linguists and language instructors. Despite the appearance of great variation among heritage speakers, they fall along a continuum based upon the speakers’ distance from the baseline language. Such a continuum-based model enables researchers and instructors to classify heritage speakers more accurately and readily. This article discusses the results of research on lower-proficiency speakers, identifying recurrent features of heritage languages in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Preliminary results indicate that different heritage languages share a number of structural similarities; this finding is important for the understanding of general processes involved in language acquisition. The article also presents implications of the main findings for language education and identifies areas needing further study.

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Heritage Languages: In the 'Wild' and in the Classroom

In this article I invite a reconceptualization and expansion of the field of second language acquisition (SLA) by examining possible intersections between SLA and the area of language instruction currently referred to as the teaching of heritage languages. I discuss the ways in which the opportunity of broadening SLA-and-instruction research can be seized by current researchers so that it can address the most intractable educational problems involving language. Drawing from current research on bilingualism, I first describe the challenges of providing language instruction for heritage speakers and examine the bilingualism of these unique language learners. I then offer an overview of the questions raised by the study of heritage language learners. Finally, I describe communities of professional practice and existing disciplinary boundaries and conclude with a discussion of the ways in which the field of SLA can draw from other areas in order to affect the educational futures of language minority children around the world and, at the same time, contribute to our greater understanding of the human language faculty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilingualism, Heritage Language Learners, and SLA Research: Opportunities Lost or Seized?

This paper investigates how parents explain, frame and defend their particular family language policies. We focus here on 24 families who are attempting to achieve additive Spanish-English bilingualism for their children, an aim which in many cases requires parents to use and to teach a language that is not their first language, nor the primary language of the home or wider community. We explore how parents make these decisions; how parents position themselves relative to ‘expert’ advice and other members of their extended families; and how these decisions are linked to their identities as ‘good’ parents. Our data suggest that parents draw selectively from expert advice and popular literature, using it to bolster their decisions in some cases while rejecting it in others. Extended families, in contrast, generally were raised in the interview discourse as points of (negative) contrast. Overall, we find that parents primarily relied on their own personal experiences with language learning in making decision...

Bilingual Parenting as Good Parenting: Parents' Perspectives on Family Language Policy for Additive Bilingualism.

The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and should not be attributed to UNESCO. The papers can be cited with the following reference: " Paper commissioned for UNESCO " For further information, please contact y. kaga@

Enhancing learning of children from diverse language backgrounds: Mother tongue-based bilingual or multilingual education in the early years

Although Chinese has become the third largest mother tongue in both Canada and the USA, Chinese/English biliteracy development has received little attention in educational research.This article explores three Chinese-Canadian first and second graders’ biliteracy (Chinese/English reading and writing) and trilingual (Mandarin, Cantonese, and English) practices in the home milieu. Findings suggest that the home context is a crucial environment for success or failure in achieving biliteracy. All families expected their children to become biliterate and multilingual, but the three children vary in their preferences and use of different languages and literacies at home. Factors such as parents’ perceptions of their minority status in the host society, their attitudes toward the role of heritage language and their own proficiencies in the dominant language, as well as several school and societal factors, such as quality of instruction in heritage language schools, language policies in the mainstream schools, and...

Kay Moon

Papers

Heritage Languages in America: Preserving a National Resource