Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:05:08.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Heritage Languages, Heritage Speakers, Heritage Linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2021

By
Silvina Montrul  and
Maria Polinsky
Edited by
Silvina Montrul  and
Maria Polinsky
Silvina Montrul
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Maria Polinsky
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
Get access

Summary

Heritage languages are minority languages learned in a bilingual or multilingual environment.1 They include languages in diaspora spoken by immigrants and their children, aboriginal or indigenous languages whose role has been diminished by colonizing languages, and historical minority languages that coexist with other standard languages in diverse territories. All these examples indicate that in any given context a heritage language instantiates one of the languages in a bilingual society; thus, heritage languages fall under the rubric of bilingualism. Bilingualism is not a new phenomenon, socially, demographically, or linguistically, but attention to heritage languages has been relatively new in bilingualism research, with first mentions of heritage speakers in English research studies dating back to the 1990s (Cummins 1991).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics , pp. 1 - 10
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cummins, J. 1991. Heritage Languages. Canadian Modern Language Review 47(4), 635–641.Google Scholar
Fishman, J. 2001. 300-plus Years of Heritage Language Education in the United States. In Ranard, J. K. and McGinnis, S. (eds.), Heritage Languages in America: Preserving a National Resource. Washington, DC: Delta Systems; and McHenry, IL: Center for Applied Linguistics, 81–98.Google Scholar
Kupisch, T. and Rothman, J.. 2018. Terminology Matters! Why Difference Is Not Incompleteness and How Early Child Bilinguals Are Heritage Speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism 22(5), 564–582.Google Scholar
Lillo-Martin, D., Müller de Quadros, R., and Chen Pichler, D.. 2016. The Development of Bimodal Bilingualism: Implications for Linguistic Theory. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 6(6), 719–755.Google Scholar
Montrul, S. 2008. Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism: Reexamining the Age Factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. 2016. The Acquisition of Heritage Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Polinsky, M. 2018. Heritage Languages and Their Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Polinsky, M. and Kagan, O.. 2007. Heritage Languages: In the “Wild” and in the Classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass 1, 368–395.Google Scholar
Rodríguez-Ordóñez, I. 2016. Differential Object Marking in Basque: Grammaticalization, Attitudes and Ideological Representations. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Rothman, J. 2009. Understanding the Nature and Outcomes of Early Bilingualism: Romance Languages as Heritage Languages. International Journal of Bilingualism 13(2), 155–163.Google Scholar
Takanishi, R. and Le Menestrel, S. (eds.) 2017. Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine 2017. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×