Doctoral Dissertation Research: Parent Input Effects on Heritage Speakers Knowledge of Mood Selection

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

Heritage language speakers, who grow up in household where a minority language is used in addition to the society's majority language, have a grammatical system that differs in patterned ways from monolingual speakers and those learning the heritage language as a second language, but many questions remain about the nature of this process. Characterizing and explaining what aspects of the language's grammar are most commonly changed, and where in the transmission process these changes occur is a longstanding question.

Heritage grammars have been primarily studied in adult bilinguals in university settings, and group differences are assumed to occur at the level of the child. However, parents' grammars have also been shown to change over speakers' lifespans. Direct evidence of language performance from child and parent speakers can inform which structures were present but not acquired and which structures were absent from the input itself.

Statistical methodological advances can aid in understanding questions of parent-child input/transfer related to language transmission. By studying these small-scale intergenerational changes in speakers' grammatical representations and the speaker characteristics involved, this study contributes to an understanding of bilingual acquisition processes.

This study uses a dyadic design (1 parent, 1 child), which offers novel methodological and analytical contributions to the study of heritage grammars. Parent–child input transfer is explored through the comprehension–production of mood selection (indicative vs. subjunctive), a well-established variable phenomenon, in the heritage language through timed acceptability ratings and an elicited production task.

The study examines 1) child–parent mood selection, 2) the effect of internal (categorical vs. variable contexts) and external factors (e.g., speakers' language experience and proficiency), and 3) the direct effect of parent's use of mood on child production. Statistical models including dyadic analyses will directly test the effect of parent mood production on child comprehension and the individual factors that contribute to members' own performance.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.