{"title":"Lexical and morphosyntactic variation in Persian heritage language outcomes","authors":"Khadij Gharibi, Fatih Bayram, Gustavo Guajardo","doi":"10.1075/lab.21052.gha","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Individual variation in heritage language (HL) outcomes does not seem to be random. Instead, this variation can be related to the specific exposure and use patterns heritage speakers (HSs) have with their languages in the contexts they reside. In this study, we present data from 38 child HSs of Persian in English dominant contexts (in New Zealand and the UK), their mothers as well as a control group of age-matched monolinguals in Iran. All participants completed a film-retelling task from which their lexical sophistication (LS) and clausal density (CD) were measured. In addition, the HSs’ mothers completed a sociolinguistic questionnaire for their children which was used to calculate proxies for language experiences. Out of the two linguistic measures, the HSs differed from monolinguals only in LS scores. Regarding the relationship between HSs’ linguistic scores and language experiences, Random Forest analyses showed HL literacy to be the most important variable for the CD scores; while it was the HSs’ age-at-testing for LS. The mothers’ scores were only important for the HSs’ LS scores. This study contributes to the ongoing discussions on the nature of HL development, outcomes and individual variation.","PeriodicalId":48664,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Approaches To Bilingualism","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Linguistic Approaches To Bilingualism","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.21052.gha","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Abstract Individual variation in heritage language (HL) outcomes does not seem to be random. Instead, this variation can be related to the specific exposure and use patterns heritage speakers (HSs) have with their languages in the contexts they reside. In this study, we present data from 38 child HSs of Persian in English dominant contexts (in New Zealand and the UK), their mothers as well as a control group of age-matched monolinguals in Iran. All participants completed a film-retelling task from which their lexical sophistication (LS) and clausal density (CD) were measured. In addition, the HSs’ mothers completed a sociolinguistic questionnaire for their children which was used to calculate proxies for language experiences. Out of the two linguistic measures, the HSs differed from monolinguals only in LS scores. Regarding the relationship between HSs’ linguistic scores and language experiences, Random Forest analyses showed HL literacy to be the most important variable for the CD scores; while it was the HSs’ age-at-testing for LS. The mothers’ scores were only important for the HSs’ LS scores. This study contributes to the ongoing discussions on the nature of HL development, outcomes and individual variation.
期刊介绍:
LAB provides an outlet for cutting-edge, contemporary studies on bilingualism. LAB assumes a broad definition of bilingualism, including: adult L2 acquisition, simultaneous child bilingualism, child L2 acquisition, adult heritage speaker competence, L1 attrition in L2/Ln environments, and adult L3/Ln acquisition. LAB solicits high quality articles of original research assuming any cognitive science approach to understanding the mental representation of bilingual language competence and performance, including cognitive linguistics, emergentism/connectionism, generative theories, psycholinguistic and processing accounts, and covering typical and atypical populations.