This Language Is Mine: US College Students Navigating Contradictions of “Mother Tongue” and Heritage Language

Abstract

In this essay, I draw on both autoethnography and ethnographic research among college students studying their Heritage Language (HL)—or Heritage Language Learners (HLLs)—at a US university. I explore the felt contradictions and tensions that get voiced when attempting to navigate the uneasy relationship between two terms: “mother tongue” and HL when invoked either together or separately. While both terms can refer to the same language, the choice of one term over the other is used to emphasize different orientations. Whereas “mother tongue” is rooted in notions of kinship, HL constructs a relationship to the language that is largely external to a familial domain. As I suggest here, this distinction is made and collapses situationally as I and my research collaborators attempt to use them to explain the relationships among language and kinship, literacy, and religion.