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.
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.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 July 2024
This chapter defines heritage languages and motivates their study to understand linguistic diversity, language acquisition and variationist sociolinguistics. It outlines the goals of Heritage Language Variation and Change in Toronto (HLVC), the first project investigating variation in many heritage languages, unifying methods to describe the languages and push variationist sociolinguistic research beyond its monolingually oriented core and majority-language focus. It shows how this promotes heritage language vitality through research, training, and dissemination. It lays out overarching research questions that motivate the project:
Do variation and change operate the same way in heritage and majority languages?
How do we distinguish contact-induced variation, identity-related variation, and internal change?
Do heritage varieties continue to evolve? Do they evolve in parallel with their homeland variety?
When does a heritage variety acquire its own name?
What features and structures are malleable?
How consistent are patterns across languages?
Are some speakers more innovative?
Can attitudes affect ethnolinguistic vitality?
How can we compare language usage rates among communities and among speakers?
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.
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.
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.
