Introduction
Since at the turn of the twenty-first century heritage language (HL) research and education was a new field emerging, this research timeline traces the complete history of the field in the US through 2016.Footnote 2 It highlights how theories and perspectives have changed, been challenged, and widely accepted.Footnote 3 The field's roots are in Spanish since, as the language of the most numerous immigration group, it has long been a commonly taught language in the US.
In the early 1990s, as numerous immigrant cultures became increasingly committed to preserving their home language, enrollment in language classes at all educational levels began to include significant numbers of ‘native’ speakers. However, it soon became clear that these 1.5 or second-generation speakers were not in fact native but were not typical language learners either. Linguists from the three domains – theoretical, applied, and pedagogical – have been exploring heritage learners’ language in an attempt to understand the peculiar nature of their linguistic competence. While pedagogical researchers were examining the traits of HL comprehension and production vis-à-vis traditional ‘foreign’ language students, theoretical linguists explored linguistic differences between a typical heritage speaker and the ‘native’ speaker. In educational settings assessment of HL competencies has become an important field of investigation that is still in its infancy because of the difficulty of assessing language competencies that have been acquired outside of the classroom.
A comparison of the immigration figures over three decades reveals how the HL field emerged and expanded. Only one country sent more than one million émigrés to the US in 1990. In 2000 there were four, and by 2010 there were eight. Each new immigration phase poses new challenges for instruction and becomes the subject of new research. This research timeline reveals the expansion of HLs being taught and researched, some of them among the least commonly taught. The timeline also addresses the underlying question of language policy and societal attitudes that were explored by sociolinguists as early as in the 1960s.
Theoretical linguists have identified two primary forces at work that produce the features in HL that differ from the language produced by native speakers: incomplete or interrupted acquisition and attrition. Seminal studies investigate the differential nature of HL bilingualism and examine it in the context of age-effect in language acquisition and critical period theories. Researchers also compare HL learners not only with native speakers but also with second language (L2) learners. This timeline highlights how perspectives have evolved and shifted over the past decade and a half.
Analysis of the distinctions between heritage learners and L2 learners is motivated by the need for teaching both groups in institutional settings. The practice of teaching heritage and foreign language learners simultaneously, though common at many educational institutions, has proven problematic. Unlike foreign language learners, even heritage learners without literacy typically come to the classroom with considerable oral and aural competencies. Because their prior experience is not classroom and textbook based, HL learners require a curriculum that differs from a typical curriculum for L2 learners.
As the timeline indicates, there are high-frequency traits in the HL that mark it clearly as non-native. One of these features is code-switching, which provokes interesting debate among researchers. Much attention is given to this phenomenon as evidence of incomplete acquisition. On the other hand, a number of researchers find code-switching to be an advantageous heritage speaker strategy that is not only justifiable but efficacious. There is also evidence that code-switching can be considered a resource rather than a deficiency and a manifestation of social identity. Pursuing a more positive assessment of HL, many researchers began to replace the term ‘incomplete acquisition’ with ‘competence divergence.’
Attrition is a challenging aspect of language loss as it is hard to document at what point it develops. Researchers look specifically at the aspects of language that are the most vulnerable to attrition. They also examine the degree of attrition reversal in HL students as they proceed through the educational system.
Two features that define heritage learners as individuals and collectively have inspired widespread research across languages are motivation and identity. Although heritage and L2 learners share some motivations for their pursuit of language proficiency, such as job opportunities, one of the strongest motivators for heritage learners is a desire to be able to speak to family in the US and family abroad and find out about their linguistic and cultural roots. Closely linked to motivation is the issue of identity. Heritage speakers typically identify with both their home culture and the dominant culture. The relationship between cultural identity and language proficiency is complex and works in two opposite directions. On the one hand, some identity studies establish a direct correlation between ethnic identity and high-level competence in the HL. Other scholars find conflicting evidence that notes the role of society's negative stereotyping of a heritage student's identity.
The works referenced in this timeline trace the progression of the field and form the groundwork for future linguistic study as well as for pedagogical development. But, due to space limitations, this timeline cannot include valuable input from many other sources, including dissertations. Mileposts on the map of HL research history are clearly and chronologically traced in a number of publications. The online Heritage Language Journal (http://hlj.ucla.edu) is a free, comprehensive archive of articles across all areas of interest in the field. The main findings of linguistic research up to 2013 were summed up in the White Paper: Prolegomena to Heritage Linguistics (2010/2013). The papers presented at the Heritage Research Institutes (2007 to present) are posted online at http://www.nhlrc.ucla.edu/nhlrc. In their chapter for the Encyclopedia of language and education Kagan & Dillon (2016) track the major foci of HL research. Comprehensive bibliographies of HL research are provided by Polinsky (Reference Polinsky2011) and Son (Reference Son2015).
The key column in the timeline reference chart identifies major themes addressed in the works cited, as follows:
As – Assessment
At – Attrition
C – Code-switching
CD – Competence divergence
D – Demographics
I – Identity
IA – Incomplete acquisition
M – Motivation
P – Policy
T – Teaching
Olga Kagan was a professor in the UCLA Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures and in charge of the Language Programs. She was director of the UCLA Center for World Languages and the NHLRC (a Title VI Center). Her main research interest was the teaching of HLs and she published textbooks of Russian both as a foreign language and as an HL. In 2015 she received the MLA Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession.
Kathleen Dillon is an independent scholar. From 2000 to 2010 she served as Associate Director of the University of California Consortium for Language Learning & Teaching and from 2006 to 2010 as Associate Director of the NHLRC. She received her doctoral degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California. She has taught Russian at the secondary and college levels and was the 2000 recipient of the excellence in teaching award from the American Association of Teachers of Russian and Eastern European Languages. With Olga Kagan, she was the founding editor of the Heritage Language Journal and has published on teaching Russian as a heritage language.
* Authors' names are shown in small capitals when the study referred to appears in this timeline.
