Measuring the dynamic impact of personal social networks on language learning outcomes

The process of learning and maintaining knowledge of a language is significantly influenced by both individual capacities and social interactions. Previous studies have focused on understanding how individual variability in linguistic background and cognitive skills may impact language outcomes. However, the impact of the speaker’s social network for language acquisition and maintenance remains unclear.

This project extends the inquiry to consider how the characteristics of the immediate social network of speakers influence their ability to learn and use a language. Specifically, this project focuses on heritage speakers of Spanish, an increasing community of people in the US who grow up with a strong familial or community connection to Spanish, while also being fluent in English.

Heritage speakers provide a unique lens through which to study the interplay between individual capacities and social factors in language learning. This project includes the creation of the Bilingual Experience ARchive (BEAR), an online repository that provides access to language and social network data and modeling tools for bilingual language science.

This project is driven by two principal questions: First, do the compositional and structural features of a speaker's personal social network predict their language learning outcomes? Second, how do these network characteristics influence language outcomes over time? Utilizing interdisciplinary methods from language science, social network science, and cognitive science, this research involves participants from a university-level heritage language program.

During the project, participants engage in tasks designed to both map their personal social networks and measure their language skills through written and oral tests. The assessments in this project include (1) a personal social network interview, (2) measures of written and oral fluency in both languages, (3) measures of sensitivity to the subjunctive verb mode in the heritage language, and (4) measures of attention and executive functioning that have been shown to play a role in language learning.

Participants are tested at the beginning and at the end of a semester. The longitudinal approach used in this project allows for an analysis of how changes in social networks over time correlate with language learning outcomes.

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.