Doctoral Dissertation Research: Acquisition of Phonological Processes in Heritage Language Speakers

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

Heritage bilinguals are speakers that have acquired their first language, a minority language in the society, simultaneously or sequentially with the majority language. The pressure of the majority language typically results in majority-to-heritage language transfer in these speakers' adult pronunciation systems. However, little is known about the strength, development, and direction of language transfer as heritage speakers gain systematic exposure to the majority language during childhood.

By comparing child heritage speakers to adult heritage speakers, this dissertation seeks to examine the effect of age and degree of heritage language exposure on the rate of bidirectional language transfer.

This dissertation project examines the production of word-external junctures in consonant-to-vowel sequences in a heritage language. Child and adult heritage speakers, monolingual speakers of the minority language, and monolingual speakers of the majority language will participate in two picture-naming tasks in each language. The two tasks will elicit sequences of function and content words, the first using real words and the second using novel words.

A background linguistic questionnaire to examine degree of language exposure to the heritage language will also be administered to the caregivers and the adult participants. Understanding the acquisition of phonological processes in the heritage language will help educators develop heritage language programs and it will bring awareness to the importance of including phonological instruction targeting specific pronunciation phenomena.

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.