Heritage Language Maintenance

Gladys González, Health Care AdministrationMentor Sandra Liliana Pucci, Ph.D

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

Populations immigrate;- heritage language can be lost to a new culture, social customs or simply to advance in the primary language that has to be spoken

But this is not always the case

This study focuses on the heritage (Spanish) language maintenance and loss of young adults of ages 18 to 25

Introduction

How do individual situations and circumstances influence heritage language maintenance and development?

Study will examine how individuals’ background experiences, specifically that of having attended a bilingual high school influence their linguistic realities.

Introduction (continued)

Cultural or natural heritage are of outstanding interest

Languages need to be preserved as part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole

There are important economic and social implications

World View

Heritage languages

Biliterate students

Unique stories

Process of schooling

Education

Social & economic aspects

Principles

Current research in the heritage language area consists of the following:

Current Issues in Heritage Language Acquisition (Montrul, 2010)

Maintaining Spanish in the United States: Steps Toward the Effective Practice of Heritage Language Re-acquisition/development (Valdes & Fishman, 2008)

Contact and Contracting Spanish (Zapata, Sanchez, Toribio, 2005)

Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and SLA research: Opportunities lost or seized? (Valdes, 2005)

Literature Review

Young adults in the ages between 18-25

20-25 participants

Graduates of “Cesar Chavez High School”, having attended all four years of high school.

Heritage Speakers of Spanish

Recruitment through social networks, personal knowledge or the “snowball method” (Cornelius,1982)

Identities of individuals will remain confidential

Recruitment/Participants

Mixed methodological approach Three part phenomenological interviews:1. The life histories of young adult Spanish

heritage language speakers

2. Details of the phenomenon under study as experienced by the participants

3. Reflections on the meanings of such experiences

Methodology

All interviews will be audiotaped for transcription and analysis

Each interview will take 45-60 minutes

A domain analysis will be used to sort the data into multiple categories

Part two of the project will consist of an oral production task, and a written grammatical acceptability judgment task

Triangulation of data enables us to obtain a more complete “picture”

Methodology(continued)

Interviewed 12 out of 25 participants

Participant 1

Participant 2

Participant 3

Results

Back and forth between Mexico and U.S.

Not any schooling in Spanish

Received a 5 in Advanced Placement Spanish Exam

Participant 1

Bilingual education

Struggled in Spanish language

After college went to pursue Associates in Spanish Translator in Health Care settings

Participant 2

Monolingual education

Barely read in Spanish

Spoke English to siblings

Received a 5 in the Advanced Placement Spanish Exam

Participant 3

Participants speak Spanish at home with family members; who they socialized with influenced their use of Spanish outside the family

Also professional and educational choices played a role

Understood the importance and value of maintaining their heritage language.

These themes are considered “emerging” (12/25)

Findings

Continuing working in the summer and possibly fall on this project

Future Plans

Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (4th ed.). Clevedon:Multilingual Matters LTD. Montrul, S. (2010). Current issues in heritage language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied

Linguistics, 30, 3-23. He, A. (2010). The heart of heritage: Sociocultural dimension of heritage language learning.

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30, 66-82. LeCompte, M. and Preissle, J. (1993).Ethnography and qualitative design in educational research. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Villa, D. J., & Villa, J. R. (2005). LANGUAGE INSTRUMENTALITY IN SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO:

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE LOSS OF SPANISH IN THE SOUTHWEST. Southwest Journal Of Linguistics, 24(1/2), 169-184.

Gibbons, J., & Ramirez, E. (2004). Maintaining a minority language: A case study of Hispanicteenagers. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. VALDES, G. (2005). Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and sla research: Opportunities

lost or seized?. The Modern Language Journal. Zapata, G., Sanchez, L., & Toribio, A. (2005). Contact and contracting Spanish. International

Journal of Bilingualism, 9(3 & 4), 377-395. Retrieved from http://ijb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/3-4/377

Valdes, G., Fishman, J., Chavez, R., & Perez, W. (2008). Maintaining spanish in the united states: Steps toward the effective practice of heritage language re-acquisition/development. American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, 91(1), 004-024. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063620

References

Dr. Pucci

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

NCUR

University of Kentucky

Family and friends

Acknowledgements