Bilingualism and the Heritage Language Speaker

The sociopolitical status of the two languages (primary and secondary languages) plays a fundamental role in language use, degree of acquisition, and eventual linguistic dominance. This chapter discusses recent research within formal linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches to bilingualism, and discusses how the study of heritage language speakers and learners contributes to both theoretical debates about the nature of language and language learning, bilingual acquisition, representation, and use in bilingualism and pedagogical interventions. Since many heritage speakers do not typically reach full linguistic competence in their heritage language, many college-age heritage speakers want to acquire, reacquire, or expand their knowledge of the heritage language in a classroom setting. Linguistic and psycholinguistic studies of heritage speakers focus on describing the grammatical system of bilingual grammars and on identifying potential gaps in linguistic knowledge and processing.