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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Heritage Speakers Can Actively Shape Not Only Their Grammar But Also Their Processing, Irina A. Sekerina, Anna K. Laurinavichyute
Heritage Speakers Can Actively Shape Not Only Their Grammar But Also Their Processing, Irina A. Sekerina, Anna K. Laurinavichyute
Publications and Research
In this commentary, we provide psycholinguistic evidence that supports Polinsky and Scontras’ idea of how important it is for psycholinguistics and the linguistic theory of heritage languages to feed each other. We show that (a) heritage speakers’ processing can diverge from the baseline in online but not offline measures, (b) transfer from the dominant language does not always happen, and (c) heritage speakers can actively shape their processing that can contribute to heritage language restructuring in a chain reaction fashion.
The Processing Of Input With Differential Objectmarking By Heritage Spanish Speakers, Jill Jegerski, Irina A. Sekerina
The Processing Of Input With Differential Objectmarking By Heritage Spanish Speakers, Jill Jegerski, Irina A. Sekerina
Publications and Research
Heritage Spanish speakers and adult immigrant bilinguals listened to wh-questions with the differential object marker a (quién/a quién ‘who/whoACC’) while their eye movements across four referent pictures were tracked. The heritage speakers were less accurate than the adult immigrants in their verbal responses to the questions, leaving objects unmarked for case at a rate of 18%, but eye movement data suggested that the two groups were similar in their comprehension, with both starting to look at the target picture at the same point in the question and identifying the target sooner with a quién ‘whoACC’ than with quién ‘who’ questions.