Understanding the nature and outcomes of early bilingualism: Romance languages as heritage languages

In this introduction to the special issue on Romance languages as heritage languages, I aim to contextualize the scope of this issue and the contribution it makes to the emerging field of linguistic studies to heritage language bilingualism. Key issues pertaining to the empirical study and epistemology of heritage language bilingualism are presented as well as a critical introduction to the individual articles that comprise this issue.

[1]  Antonella Sorace,et al.  Native language attrition and developmental instability at the syntax-discourse interface: Data, interpretations and methods , 2004, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

[2]  S. Montrul.  Incomplete acquisition and attrition of Spanish tense/aspect distinctions in adult bilinguals , 2002, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

[3]  Guadalupe Valdés,et al.  The Teaching of Minority Languages as Academic Subjects: Pedagogical and Theoretical Challenges , 1995 .

[4]  Monika S. Schmid,et al.  Bilingualism and attrition , 2007 .

[5]  Maria Polinsky,et al.  Heritage Languages: In the 'Wild' and in the Classroom , 2007, Lang. Linguistics Compass.

[6]  S. Montrul,et al.  Gender Agreement in Adult Second Language Learners and Spanish Heritage Speakers: The Effects of Age and Context of Acquisition , 2008 .

[7]  Maria Polinsky,et al.  Gender under Incomplete Acquisition: Heritage Speakers' Knowledge of Noun Categorization. , 2008 .

[8]  Caroline Heycock,et al.  First language attrition and syntactic subjects: A study of Greek and Italian near-native speakers of English , 2004 .

[9]  M. Schmid.  The role of L1 use for L1 attrition , 2007 .

[10]  S. Montrul.  Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism: Re-examining the Age Factor , 2008 .

[11]  S. Montrul.  Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morphosyntactic convergence , 2004, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

[12]  Maria Polinsky,et al.  American Russian: Language Loss Meets Language Acquisition , 1995 .

[13]  Gabriela C. Zapata,et al.  Contact and contracting Spanish , 2005 .

[14]  Jason Rothman,et al.  Heritage speaker competence differences, language change, and input type: Inflected infinitives in Heritage Brazilian Portuguese , 2007 .

[15]  S. Montrul.  2. Interpreting mood distinctions in Spanish as a heritage language , 2007 .

[16]  M. Polinsky.  Incomplete Acquisition American Russian , 2006 .

[17]  Antonella Sorace,et al.  Differentiating interfaces: L2 performance in syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse phenomena , 2006 .

[18]  Sarah J. Shin,et al.  Korean Heritage Language Education in the United States: The Current State, Opportunities, and Possibilities. , 2008 .

[19]  Michael Iverson.  Knowledge of Noun-Drop across VariousLexical and Functional Categories in Heritage Spanish Bilinguals , 2009 .

[20]  Carmen Silva-Corvalán.  Language Contact and Change: Spanish in Los Angeles , 1996 .