Studies In Turkish As A Heritage Language

Heritage language bilingualism refers to contexts where a minority language spoken at home is (one of) the first native language(s) of an individual who grows up and typically becomes dominant in the societal majority language. Heritage language bilinguals often wind up with grammatical systems that differ in interesting ways from dominant-native speakers growing up where their heritage language is the majority one. Understanding the trajectories and outcomes of heritage language bilingual grammatical competence, performance, language usage patterns, identities and more related topics sits at the core of many research programs across a wide array of theoretical paradigms. The study of heritage language bilingualism has grown exponentially over the past two decades. This expansion in interest has seen, in parallel, extensions in methodologies applied, bridges built between closely related fields such as the study of language contact and linguistic attrition. As is typical in linguistics, not all languages are studied to the same degree. The present volume showcases what Turkish as a heritage language brings to bear for key questions in the study of heritage language bilingualism and beyond. In many ways, Turkish is an ideal language to be studied because of its large diaspora across the world, in particular Europe. The papers in this volume are diverse: from psycholinguistic, to ethnographic, to classroom-based studies featuring Turkish as a heritage language. Together they equal more than their subparts, leading to the conclusion that understudied heritage languages like Turkish provide missing pieces to the puzzle of understanding the variables that give rise to the continuum of outcomes characteristic of heritage language speakers.

Over the past three decades studies investigating heritage speaker (HS) linguistic competencies have shown, time and again that, despite being L1 or 2L1 native speakers of their home language(s), HS outcomes display variation across a wide spectrum of differences as compared to each other, other types of bilinguals as well as their monolingual peers. Studies have traditionally used—mostly behavioral—methodologies rooted in adjacent established fields (e.g., L1 acquisition, adult L2 acquisition) offering, in addition to documenting and describing HS performance, important insights for linguistic theory and challenges related to (home/minority) language maintenance, contact, policy and more. A birds-eye view makes it clear that the methodologies one uses to tap into HSs’ linguistic knowledge areas, if not more, are important than the phenomena under investigation, especially in light of how their unique experiences with their heritage and other languages are present across a continuum.

This volume covers the multidimensional and international field of Heritage Language Education, including concepts, practices, and the correlation between culture and language from the perspectives of pedagogy and research. Heritage Language Learning is a new dimension in both the linguistic and pedagogic sciences, and is linked to processes of identity negotiation and cultural inheritance. It is a distinct pedagogical and curricular domain that is not exhausted within the domains of bilingualism and second or foreign language education. A heritage language is not a second or foreign language, it is the vehicle whereby cultural memory is transmitted over time, across distances, communities, and generations. Heritage languages play an important role ensuring the balance between coherence and pluralism in contemporary societies that have come to realize that diversity is an advantage for social, cultural, and economic reasons. The volume includes topics like First Nation indigenous languages, languages in diaspora, immigrant and minority languages, and contributions from North, central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. It addresses the social, linguistic, and cultural issues in educational contexts in a new way by taking up questions of globalization, difference, community, identity, democracy, ethics, politics, technology, language rights and cultural policies through the evolving field of Heritage Language Education.

An authoritative overview of research into heritage language acquisition, covering key terminological and empirical issues, theoretical approaches, and research methodologies.

Heritage speakers are a fascinating group of bilinguals with a unique profile. Living abroad as immigrants of the second generation, they speak the language of their own speech community (the heritage language) at home, and the societally dominant language in most other domains. What exactly they know about their heritage language continues to fascinate the research community as well as teachers and other practitioners working with this group. The different contributions cover a large variety of studies into heritage languages spoken in Europe and North America (including Chinese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish). The volume makes a key contribution to the description and explanation of variability in the outcomes of heritage language acquisition, taking into account a wide range of factors which impact on language acquisition. As comparisons are frequently made with monolinguals and foreign language learners, the volume is also highly relevant for researchers working in monolingual language acquisition and foreign language learning and teaching.

Heritage languages, such as the Turkish varieties spoken in Berlin or the Spanish used in Los Angeles, are non-dominant languages, often with little prestige. Their speakers also speak the dominant language of the country they live in. Often heritage languages undergo changes due to their special status. They have received a lot of scholarly attention and provide a link between academic concerns and educational issues. This book takes a language contact perspective: we consider heritage languages from the perspective of their history, their structural properties, and their interaction with other surrounding languages.

Turkish is a member of the Turkic family of languages, which extends over a vast area in southern and eastern Siberia and adjacent portions of Iran, Afganistan, and China. Turkic, in turn, belongs to the Altaic family of languages. This book deals with the morphological and syntactic, semantic and discourse-based, synchronic and diachronic aspects of the Turkish language. Although an interest in morphosyntactic issues pervades the entire collection, the contributions can be grouped in terms of relative attention to syntax, semantics and discourse, and acquisition.

Russian as a Heritage Language: From Research to Classroom Applications brings together linguistically and pedagogically oriented research traditions in a comprehensive review of current Russian heritage language (HL) studies. Divided into three parts, the collection offers a variety of frameworks and approaches spanning research on HL speakers’ linguistic and pragmatic competence, literacy development, and sociocultural characteristics of Russian in diaspora. Presenting a wide range of new empirical findings, the volume explores topics at the forefront of HL studies, from assessment of HL learners’ linguistic competence and language attitudes to research on communities and institutional affordances impacting HL acquisition and maintenance. Each chapter connects current research with specific classroom applications, presenting Russian as a global language in various sociopolitical and majority-language contexts. Combining methodological rigor with theoretical insights across diverse areas of language study, Russian as a Heritage Language advances the field of HL pedagogy and serves as essential reading for HL educators and researchers as well as for linguists studying bilingualism.