Stancetaking and heritage language production: the untold stories of spoken Spanish among third-generation “receptive” bilinguals

ABSTRACT This article extends two conversations in the heritage language (HL) scholarship: 1) the need to strengthen the linguistic self-confidence among receptive bilinguals (who are typically associated with beginning-level HL students); 2) the need for more critical explorations of receptive bilinguals’ self-reported, albeit minimal, spoken Spanish in non-educational settings. This study approaches the relationship between linguistic self-confidence and spoken Spanish by examining the metalanguaging small stories of third-generation Mexican-American adults who do not identify as Spanish speakers, although they have studied Spanish formally and do claim strong comprehension skills. This case study of productive Spanish among “receptive” bilinguals specifically addresses the meta-sociolinguistic stances that study consultants take toward their bilingualism in stories that depict their current engagement with Spanish as adults. Findings indicate that the consultants, in navigating the research interview context, view nonparticipation and strong comprehension as the normative characteristics of their Spanish abilities. However, in other narrated contexts, they resource power and agency from their other social roles to position themselves as ideologically authentic Spanish speakers, though these interactions are unpredictable and infrequent in their emergence. Pedagogical implications for accentuating receptive bilinguals’ positive experiences speaking Spanish and for scrutinizing moments when they are reluctant to speak are addressed.