Bilingualism and the Lifespan: Young Adult Heritage Speakers of Spanish

Abstract

A heritage language speaker is defined as a member of a linguistic minority community who has grown up with a language other than the societal majority language in their homes, whether they were born in the majority language country, or immigrated. As defined by Benmamoun, Montrul, and Polinsky (2013), heritage language speakers are asymmetrical bilinguals who learned the heritage language (HL) as a first language (L1) in childhood, but as adults are dominant in a different language. In the present study, we look at an under-investigated population: Naturalistic speakers who are also instructed and literate in their heritage language. We examine the heritage (Spanish) language experiences of young adults, graduates of César Chávez High School (a pseudonym), a small school with a curriculum promoting biliteracy and bilingualism. The purpose of the study is to understand the phenomenon of their lived experiences.