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Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!

The category “native speaker” is flawed because it fails to consider the diversity between the speaker groups falling under its scope, as highlighted in previous literature. This paper provides further evidence by focusing on the similarities and differences between heritage speakers (HSs) and monol...

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Autores principales: Tsehaye, Wintai, Pashkova, Tatiana, Tracy, Rosemarie, Allen, Shanley E. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8523891/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34675837
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717352
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author Tsehaye, Wintai
Pashkova, Tatiana
Tracy, Rosemarie
Allen, Shanley E. M.
author_facet Tsehaye, Wintai
Pashkova, Tatiana
Tracy, Rosemarie
Allen, Shanley E. M.
author_sort Tsehaye, Wintai
collection PubMed
description The category “native speaker” is flawed because it fails to consider the diversity between the speaker groups falling under its scope, as highlighted in previous literature. This paper provides further evidence by focusing on the similarities and differences between heritage speakers (HSs) and monolingually-raised speakers (MSs) of their heritage and majority languages. HSs are bilinguals who acquire a family (heritage) language and a societal (majority) language in early childhood. Naturalistic exposure from early childhood qualifies them as native speakers of their heritage language. Some HSs are simultaneous bilinguals, which makes them native speakers of their majority language as well. Others are early second language acquirers who may be indistinguishable from simultaneous bilinguals. Previous research shows that the heritage language productions of German HSs in the United States do not completely overlap with those of German MSs, who are, by default, native speakers. In overall clause type selection (independent main, coordinate main, and subordinate), the HSs differ from German MSs in German but are similar to English MSs in English. The present study examines the distribution of finite subordinate clauses and their types (relative, complement, and adverbial) across registers in 27 adolescent HSs of German in the United States, compared to 32 adolescent MSs of German and 32 MSs of English. All participants described a short video in two settings (formal/informal) and two modes (spoken/written). Results demonstrate that, even with respect to a specific phenomenon (subordinate clauses), HSs show similarities and differences to MSs of both languages. Concerning the distribution of subordinate clause types, HSs behave similarly to both English and German MSs. Concerning subordinate clauses in general, HSs use them less frequently than MSs in German. In English, the difference is more nuanced: HSs differentiate between settings in both modes, while MSs do so only in the written mode. This indicates that the category “native speaker” is not a meaningful descriptor since it covers speakers with varying production patterns. We propose that studies including native speakers should assure transparency and replicability of research by specifying and taking into account speaker characteristics such as bilingualism, proficiency, exposure and dominance.
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spelling pubmed-85238912021-10-20 Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead! Tsehaye, Wintai Pashkova, Tatiana Tracy, Rosemarie Allen, Shanley E. M. Front Psychol Psychology The category “native speaker” is flawed because it fails to consider the diversity between the speaker groups falling under its scope, as highlighted in previous literature. This paper provides further evidence by focusing on the similarities and differences between heritage speakers (HSs) and monolingually-raised speakers (MSs) of their heritage and majority languages. HSs are bilinguals who acquire a family (heritage) language and a societal (majority) language in early childhood. Naturalistic exposure from early childhood qualifies them as native speakers of their heritage language. Some HSs are simultaneous bilinguals, which makes them native speakers of their majority language as well. Others are early second language acquirers who may be indistinguishable from simultaneous bilinguals. Previous research shows that the heritage language productions of German HSs in the United States do not completely overlap with those of German MSs, who are, by default, native speakers. In overall clause type selection (independent main, coordinate main, and subordinate), the HSs differ from German MSs in German but are similar to English MSs in English. The present study examines the distribution of finite subordinate clauses and their types (relative, complement, and adverbial) across registers in 27 adolescent HSs of German in the United States, compared to 32 adolescent MSs of German and 32 MSs of English. All participants described a short video in two settings (formal/informal) and two modes (spoken/written). Results demonstrate that, even with respect to a specific phenomenon (subordinate clauses), HSs show similarities and differences to MSs of both languages. Concerning the distribution of subordinate clause types, HSs behave similarly to both English and German MSs. Concerning subordinate clauses in general, HSs use them less frequently than MSs in German. In English, the difference is more nuanced: HSs differentiate between settings in both modes, while MSs do so only in the written mode. This indicates that the category “native speaker” is not a meaningful descriptor since it covers speakers with varying production patterns. We propose that studies including native speakers should assure transparency and replicability of research by specifying and taking into account speaker characteristics such as bilingualism, proficiency, exposure and dominance. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8523891/ /pubmed/34675837 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717352 Text en Copyright © 2021 Tsehaye, Pashkova, Tracy and Allen. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Tsehaye, Wintai
Pashkova, Tatiana
Tracy, Rosemarie
Allen, Shanley E. M.
Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!
title Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!
title_full Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!
title_fullStr Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!
title_full_unstemmed Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!
title_short Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!
title_sort deconstructing the native speaker: further evidence from heritage speakers for why this horse should be dead!
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8523891/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34675837
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717352
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