This chapter deals with the conception and definition of bilingualism and the concept of a heritage speaker, what we will argue to be a special type of a bilingual speaker. Especially during the past 2 or 3 decades, research focusing on bilingualism has gained a lot of attention in fields such as linguistics, cognitive science, and related areas (Bayram et al. 2018).
Let us first have a look at bilingualism. Butler and Hakuta discuss and quote linguists that pose different notions or nuances of bilingualism ranging from a very broad definition to an extremely narrow definition. The former, quite general definition would be “individuals or groups of people who obtain the knowledge and use of more than one language” (Butler &
Hakuta 2006: 114-115). A considerably narrower definition of bilingualism would only apply to individuals that have “native-like control of two languages” (Bloomfield 1984: 56; see also Butler & Hakuta 2006: 114).
Several problems arise from the broad definition: how exactly can we limit this notion and what is meant by “knowledge” of languages? In addition, with regard to the second definition, how can we define or measure “native-like control”? To reflect upon this is the main task of this section. We are presented with an unclear definition of bilingualism on the one hand, and a concept of a heritage speaker that seems to be a special case of a bilingual speaker, on the other hand.
One criterion of defining bilingualism is certainly the level of proficiency in the respective languages. As Butler and Hakuta (2006) clearly argue, if we take the approach of native-like fluency in both languages, then the number of individuals that belong to the group
54 of bilinguals is rather limited. Another approach would be to speak of someone as a bilingual if that person was equally fluent in two languages (Duarte 2011: 25). At first, both definitions seem to pinpoint the same, yet, the second is perhaps easier accessible than the abstract notion of native-like fluency. Being fluent in a language does not necessarily mean native-like, but it implies a high level of proficiency. Such a person, i.e. one that has equally high proficiency in two languages, would be called a balanced bilingual (Duarte 2011: 25). Yet, as Duarte discusses, this is also controversial because it is unlikely or even impossible to be identically proficient in two languages in every context or situation; competence of one or the other language might also vary over time, as is or could be the case with the competence of the native language, too (2011: 25-26).
Apart from this definition of a balanced bilingual, there are further types of bilingual speakers. There is also the notion of unbalanced or dominant bilinguals who have a higher proficiency in one language than in the other (Butler & Hakuta 2006: 115; see Chapter 3.2).
The concept of language dominance is difficult to define, and scholars differ in whether it is best described with language proficiency, or language use, or with other measures (Grosjean &
Byers-Heinlein 2018: 9). In addition, language dominance can change over time; one’s dominant language in childhood may switch roles with another language in adulthood (Grosjean
& Byers-Heinlein 2018: 10). Especially, and this is taken up later in this chapter, the first language or mother tongue of a person may not always be the dominant language (Grosjean &
Byers-Heinlein 2018: 10).
In line with this, meaning that a bilingual speaker does not need to be perfect in two languages to count as a bilingual, is the definition that Macnamara introduced: according to his idea, a person counts as bilingual if he or she has at least little knowledge, even simply passive knowledge, of another language (1967: 59-60). Following this classification, it seems as if a large number of humans could be considered a bilingual speaker, because even little knowledge of a language other than the native language (such as understanding a few words) would automatically make that person a bilingual. Indeed, Romaine states “that practically everyone in the United States, Britain or Canada, and no doubt most other countries, would have to be classified as incipient bilinguals because probably everyone knows a few words in another language” (1995: 11). This classification seems to be (i) not generally accepted among linguists and (ii) it would not make sense to form a group to which almost everyone belongs; the reason for forming a group should be to set apart a particular group of people from the rest.
A more neutral way seems to be to define a bilingual speaker as someone who has a profound active and passive proficiency in two languages. Baker categorizes the ability of
55 bilinguals into productive skills, meaning to have active writing and speaking skills in the two languages, and into receptive skills, i.e. to have passive language skills such as reading and understanding (2011: 3). Hence, he includes among the group of bilinguals those speakers that have already acquired both languages to a high degree and also speakers that are yet in the process of acquiring a second language (Baker 2011: 3). The latter are referred to as emerging bilinguals (Baker 2011: 3).
Bilingualism can, in this sense, be seen to be a continuum; speakers vary as to where they appear on this continuum on an individual level. This definition is still somewhat vague and may not be ideal either, but it includes both balanced and unbalanced bilinguals, though at the same time also excludes people that have only minimal knowledge of one of the two languages, as was defined by Macnamara (1967).
Another criterion relevant for defining bilingualism is the age of acquisition. We can differentiate between early and late bilingualism (Butler & Hakuta 2006: 116-117). Early bilingualism can be separated into simultaneous early bilingualism and sequential bilingualism (Duarte 2011: 30-32). Simultaneous early bilingualism describes the situation “when a child comes into contact with two parallel languages from birth” (Duarte 2011: 30). This condition can be created, for instance, when the parents speak with their child in two different languages.
We can talk about sequential bilingualism “when a child’s second language is introduced after the first language is learned” (Duarte 2011: 31). Such a situation, for example, occurs for a child whose parents immigrated to a different country; the language typically spoken at home remains the language of the country of origin, but the child will start acquiring the language of the environment as well (at the latest when entering school). This is a typical heritage speaker situation, as was introduced in Chapter 3.2. These speakers use a heritage language and a majority language.
Franceschini (2016) offers a slightly more specific classification of different types of bilinguals, based on age differences and the social context in which the languages were acquired:
i. Simultaneous bilinguals. These grew up in a bilingual environment; since birth they had contact with persons in their close environment who regularly interacted with the child in two languages.
ii. Covert simultaneous bilinguals. These were born into a monolingual family whose language differed from the one spoken in the surrounding context. While having only little and irregular direct interactive contact with this second extra-familial language, they were nonetheless exposed to it since birth, leading to a ‘passive’ competence that was later on activated by an increase in input and direct interaction.
iii. Sequential bilinguals (age of L2 acquisition, 1-5 years): these subjects were born into a monolingual family speaking the language of their surrounding environment. Because
56 of the emigration of their family to a country in which a different language was spoken, they acquired their L2 between the ages of one and five years.
iv. Late multilinguals. These subjects were born in a monolingual family speaking the language of their surrounding environment. These subjects learned their first foreign language at school, i.e. at the age of nine years or older.
(Franceschini 2016: 103) This is a very interesting typology, because it shows a very fine-grained subdivision between different types of bilinguals who acquire two languages very early in their lives (except for type (iv)). In addition, type (ii) and type (iii) both match the definition of a heritage speaker (more will be discussed later in this chapter).
Linguists disagree as to whether there is an age limit for a child to still be able to acquire native-like competence and if so when this point occurs. Duarte reports that it is mostly accepted that puberty is the age limit: if a child starts to acquire the second language in a natural setting before puberty (as opposed to being schooled in a foreign language other than the language of the environment), then the child will be able to use this language as proficiently as the first language (2011: 31). Others believe that only children up to the age of three or four will reach native-like fluency in both languages and that with older age, they will not be able to master, for instance, the phonemic distinctions in that particular language (Watson 1991: 37). Others argue for different cut-off points, depending on the grammatical area. Meisel (2011), for instance, sees age four as the decisive threshold between early and late bilinguals concerning morphology. In addition, Bloomfield argues that occasionally even adults could reach native-like proficiency in a second language; he calls this type of bilingualism an “extreme case of foreign-language learning” (Bloomfield 1984: 55). Yet, he agrees with the other scholars in that it is much more common in childhood, particularly in early childhood, and that it is especially frequent for children of immigrants (Bloomfield 1984: 55-56).
McCarthy et al. argue that exactly the last type, the early sequential bilinguals speaker, is becoming more and more the norm in our multilingual society: “children who grow up in such communities are often initially exposed primarily to the family language, and it is not until they enter nursery at around 3 years of age that they gradually become immersed in the host country’s language” (2014: 1965).
Yet, bilingualism does not necessarily have to happen during childhood. If an individual acquires a second language during adulthood, or even as early as after age 12, we consider this person a late bilingual (Duarte 2011: 33). As the aforementioned discussion should have shown, the older a person when acquiring a second language, the higher the chances that native-like proficiency will not be achieved (Duarte 2011: 33). It is of course possible to arrive at the same proficiency level in both languages; yet, more often, we find a linguistic imbalance in late
57 bilinguals (Duarte 2011: 33). In contrast to early bilingualism, which is mostly characterized by the acquisition of the second language in a natural environment (for instance due to immigration), late bilingualism could be either “of the natural or the artificial kind” (Hoffmann 2014: 34). This means that either acquiring a second language naturally or acquiring a second language institutionally, for instance in school, makes someone a bilingual person.
An interesting distinction is made by Cenoz (2013) that has not been explicitly stated in the aforementioned discussion. She differentiates between active bilinguals and foreign language users (Cenoz 2013: 79). Active bilinguals are those that use both languages regularly and actively every day (Cenoz 2013: 78) and foreign language users have acquired a second language and may not even use this language regularly outside this study context (Cenoz 2013:
79). This seems to add another dimension to the formerly used balanced and unbalanced speakers.
One description of a bilingual speaker that has come up various times, yet that has not been sufficiently described is that of a heritage speaker. Cabo and Rothman (2012) define a heritage speaker (HS) as a “bilingual who has acquired a family language (the heritage language, HL) and a majority societal language naturalistically in early childhood” (2012: 450).
They continue that for those that do not have the HL as a true first language, because of later immigration, first significant contact with the language of the environment in the new country typically overlaps with entering school (Cabo & Rothman 2012: 450). Hence, a heritage speaker is, according to their definition, a bilingual speaker. Even so-called later bilinguals, when the HL is strictly speaking not the first language because it was acquired not ‘naturalistically’ but through formal education in school, are part of this definition of a heritage speaker.
One of the most recent and extremely comprehensive works that discusses heritage speakers is by Montrul (2016). She explains that heritage speakers grow up bilingually, mostly as simultaneous or as early bilinguals (Montrul 2016: 16-17). The two languages are, on the one hand, the minority language, i.e. the language that does not have an official status in the current place of residence, and on the other hand, the majority language, i.e. the official language of the country (Montrul 2016: 2). The order of acquisition of the two languages, as was indicated before, may differ from heritage speaker to heritage speaker. Lorenz and Siemund (forthc.) outline that some may be exposed to both languages from birth onwards, because they may have one parent that speaks the majority language and one that speaks the minority language at home. Others, who immigrate to a country other than the one they were born in during their first years of their lives, may at first be in contact with only one language and acquire the majority language later, for instance when they enter pre-school or school in the
58 new country (Lorenz & Siemund forthc.). This is of course a simplification, but these two cases should demonstrate how diverse and heterogeneous the group of heritage speakers could be.
This explains, to a certain extent, why it is usually difficult to clearly distinguish between L1 and L2 in heritage speakers (remember the discussion in Chapter 3.2). The status of the two languages, that are shaped by frequency of use, proficiency, and also how comfortable they feel when using these languages, may change over the course of their lives.
Montrul (2016: 16-17) claims that usually, heritage speakers are dominant speakers of the majority language and that they have very often only limited skills in their heritage language.
This confirms what Hopp (2019: 579) observed when he discussed the heritage speaker participants of his study; he specifically states that the majority language takes over the role of the L1. Even if it was chronologically the second language that was acquired, it may still be the dominant language later on. Hence, bilingual heritage speakers are usually not balanced bilinguals but unbalanced bilinguals with a dominant language and a minority language (Montrul 2016: 42). The majority language is usually used and activated more frequently and in a wider variety of contexts than the heritage language.
This unbalanced status becomes apparent when we consider their language skills in the respective languages. Macnamara (1967: 59) proposes a matrix for language skills (Table 1).
He claims that “[t]he educated person can typically speak and write his language as well as understand it when spoken and written” (Macnamara 1967: 58-59). This would include all four skills (speaking, writing, listening, and reading) and all four aspects (semantics, syntax, lexicon, and phonemes/graphemes). Yet, bilingual heritage speakers may be highly proficient in the majority language but have only limited skills in their heritage language. Montrul claims that the majority language is usually the strongest (2016: 42) and that the proficiency in the heritage language may range from barely any skills to high skills, i.e. almost native like proficiency (2016: 44).
Encoding Decoding
Speaking Writing Listening Reading
Semantics Semantics Semantics Semantics
Syntax Syntax Syntax Syntax
Lexicon Lexicon Lexicon Lexicon
Phonemes Graphemes Phonemes Graphemes
Table 1: Matrix of language skills (taken from Macnamara 1967: 59)
Once again, now also based on their proficiency levels and not only on their acquisition biography, this clearly demonstrates the heterogeneity that we find among heritage speakers:
59 they could be balanced bilinguals, but they could also be, and this is the more frequent type, highly unbalanced bilinguals.
On a number of occasions, we have already stated that these bilingual speakers, i.e.
immigrants and their children and grandchildren, are very frequent in current societies, due to global developments in our modern, western societies (see Chapters 1 and 2). Therefore, bilingual heritage speakers that grow up in monolingual countries are increasingly taking foreign language classes together with monolingual foreign language learners (Montrul 2016:
3). As the discussion in Chapter 3.1.2 demonstrated, it seems to make a difference whether a language learner has previous knowledge of one or of two languages. This has already been shown to be the case in many studies that compared L2 and L3 learners. However, this typology of heritage speakers should have also established that these bilingual learners show qualitative differences from balanced bilinguals and also from monolingual speakers that have acquired a foreign language in a classroom situation.
To sum up, the previous discussion confirms that a heritage speaker can indeed be seen as one type of a bilingual speaker. In addition, it seems as if it is actually a rather frequent phenomenon for children to grow up as bilingual heritage speakers, hence with a heritage language and with a majority language, i.e. the language of the environment. Surprisingly little research has so far investigated multilingual development in child bilingual speakers with a heritage language living in an area where another language is the majority language. Therefore, we will focus on exactly this group of language learners. The so-called control groups will be monolingual speakers (i.e. monolingual German, Russian, Turkish, and Vietnamese speakers) that start learning English as a foreign language in school. Hence, English is neither their heritage language nor the language of the environment; they grow up with one language, the language of the country they are living in, and study a foreign language in school.
Before we can continue to analyze these groups of learners of English, some further concepts need to be introduced and clarified. The subsequent chapter addresses a topic that is said to be a property of bilingual or multilingual speakers; hence, of the types of learners that are in focus of the current study.