How native are heritage speakers

One of the chief characteristics of heritage speakers is that they range in proficiency from “overhearers” to “native” speakers. To date, the vast majority of linguistic and psycholinguistic studies have characterized the non-target-like linguistic abilities of heritage speakers as a product of incomplete acquisition and/or attrition due to reduced exposure and opportunities to use the language during childhood. This article focuses on the other side of the problem, emphasizing instead the high incidence of native-like abilities in adult heritage speakers. I illustrate this issue with recent experimental evidence from gender agreement in Spanish, a grammatical feature that is mastered at almost 100% accuracy in production by native speakers; yet it is one of the most difficult areas to master for non-native speakers, including near-natives. I discuss how age of acquisition and language-learning experience explain these effects. Introduction A central issue in contemporary studies of heritage language acquisition is a proper characterization of the linguistic profiles of heritage speakers and the type of linguistic ability they possess in their heritage language. For more than a decade now, we have been describing heritage speakers as bilingual individuals with a stronger command of the majority language than of the heritage language learned at home in childhood. In fact, one of the most distinctive features of heritage speakers is the wide range of overall proficiency and specific proficiencies they exhibit in their heritage language, ranging from minimal to superior, depending on the language and on their lifelong experience with it. Language proficiency—which includes grammatical accuracy and fluency, knowledge of vocabulary, and discourse competence—has been estimated from patterns of language use or self-rating scales or actual proficiency measures like vocabulary tasks, close tests, oral proficiency interviews (OPIs), 1 depending on the study (Martin, this volume; Montrul, in press; Valdés, 1995). To date, the vast majority of linguistic and psycholinguistic studies have investigated the lower end of the proficiency spectrum, characterizing the non-target-like linguistic abilities of heritage speakers as the products of incomplete acquisition and/or attrition (Au, Knightly, Jun, & Oh, 2002; Montrul, 2010; Polinsky, 2011; Sekerina & Trueswell 2011; Sherkina-Lieber, Pérez-Leroux, & Johns, 2011). The fact that heritage speakers undergo language shift with the onset of schooling in the majority language, if not earlier, contributes significantly to reduction in input and opportunities to use the heritage language at a critical time during language development. Amount and quality of input and frequent and consistent use of the language are, of course, fundamental to successful linguistic outcomes, as is exposure to the language from birth and in early childhood (age of acquisition or timing of input). In fact, some specific aspects of language, like phonology for example, develop very early in life, and even when input and exposure to the language is reduced later on, it is possible to retain native-like ability in some specific areas, like acoustic perception. 16 Heritage Language Journal, 10(2) Fall, 2013 Not all areas are so resilient in the face of a shift to a majority language, but despite this some heritage speakers are able to develop very high levels of proficiency in the heritage language overall, and/or in specific domains of their linguistic competence, including morphosyntax. Documenting and characterizing the high end of the proficiency spectrum, and to what extent heritage speakers can reach the highest levels of linguistic achievement in their heritage language, has not, unfortunately, been the focus of much research in this field, but it is certainly an area that deserves attention if we are to understand the possibilities of heritage language speakers. To fill this important gap, this article highlights the superior and “native” linguistic abilities of heritage speakers in gender agreement in noun phrases, a grammatical area that is extremely difficult to acquire at ceiling, i.e., at the highest level of linguistic attainment, if language learning takes place later in life, as in typical second language (L2) learners. I begin by providing some background on native abilities and on possible degrees of linguistic attainment in bilinguals. 1. Native Speakers and “Native” Language Ability When we see or hear a native speaker we intuitively recognize them as such. Yet, when asked to define a native speaker, a precise definition remains elusive (Davies, 2003). 2 Native speakers are exposed to the language from birth and grow up speaking the language. We can agree that prototypical (educated) native speakers have “native” pronunciation and a sizable and comprehensive vocabulary. They speak in grammatical sentences (except for the occasional slip of the tongue), do not omit or misplace morphemes, recognize ambiguity and/or multiple interpretations and pragmatic implications of words and sentences, and are attuned to their sociolinguistic environment (social class, social context, gender, register, etc.). All native speakers have abstract and relatively stable knowledge of their language that allows them to generate and produce grammatical and novel sentences in their language (i.e., a vocabulary that feeds into an internalized generative system of rules and exceptions). When judging speakers, we all have an intuitive idea of a norm. At the same time, we know there is predictable variation among native speakers. Not only can we recognize immediately whether somebody is, or sounds like, a native speaker, but we can also tell a great deal by the way a native speaker speaks, how he or she pronounces certain sounds, and the words and syntactic structures he or she uses (i.e., education, nationality, social class, etc.). Thus, on the one hand, we have a sense that linguistic competence is stable, categorical, and deterministic, fitting some idealized norm, as readily expressed in the Chomskyan linguistic tradition; while on the other hand, we also know there is predictable variation among native speakers in their use of language, as studied in the Labovian sociolinguistic tradition, for example. This notion of categorical linguistic knowledge, together with some degree of predictable variability, is precisely what characterizes the complete and successful outcome of the acquisition of a first (or native) language in a (predominantly) monolingual environment. All these capacities are assumed to be present in adults, but we also know that adults are not born with them, and that knowledge of language develops from birth, if not earlier, as illustrated in Figure 1. 17 Heritage Language Journal, 10(2) Fall, 2013 Figure 1. Development of Linguistic Knowledge from Birth into Adulthood Birth 4 yrs 12 yrs 18 yrs 40s complete, stable? FULLY FLUENT NATIVE SPEAKER DEVELOPING NATIVE SPEAKER Children are born with some phonetic and phonological abilities, and later develop a phonological system and are ready to start building a vocabulary by the first year of life. Depending on which theoretical stance one adopts, they are born with or develop a set of grammatical principles and language-specific rules. They also develop morphological expressions of forms, meanings, and sentence structure. As the structural basis of language develops, so does the developing native speaker’s communicative and sociolinguistic competence. We assume for the sake of argument that by the time normally-developing children are adults (18 years old or earlier), they have reached their linguistic and cognitive maturity and can be considered competent native speakers of their language with “stable” abstract linguistic competence. Native speakers are hard to define, and in many ways they are a myth if one embraces uncritically the Chomskyan conception of a native speaker (Paikeday, 2003). But for some reason the concept of native speaker, as well as the notion of any linguistic norm, often evokes equivalence with the concept of monolingualism, and we must bear in mind that a monolingual is just one type of native speaker. In fact, it is also possible to be a “bilingual native speaker,” a person who is a native speaker of or has native linguistic ability in a particular language but also happens to know at least one other language, even if such knowledge is not equivalent to that of the native language. All speakers vary in socioeconomic status (SES) and level of education, literacy development (literate, semiliterate, illiterate), and in whether they have normal language skills or suffer some kind of health-related impairment (aphasia, specific language impairment, 18 Heritage Language Journal, 10(2) Fall, 2013 autism spectrum disorder). We know that the presence or absence of language pathologies affects linguistic knowledge, representation, storage and use (Leonard, 1998; Paradis, 2004; Rice, 2009; Tager-Flusber, 2009). How SES and level of education affect linguistic competence, not just language use or register, in monolingual native speakers is a matter of recent debate, with researchers like Dąbrowska (1997, 2012) claiming that there are competence differences related to level of education in monolingual native speakers. Bilingual native speakers also vary in all these dimensions, but they vary as well with regard to age of acquisition of the two languages (simultaneous versus sequential bilinguals; early versus late bilinguals) and on the degree of use of the two languages (more versus less dominant, fluent versus non-fluent, productive versus receptive command, etc.). These variables are important because they have a significant impact on the ultimate attainment of one or both languages of bilingual native speakers. Ultimate attainment is understood as the final state and stable grammar of people who have completed the language acquisition