Friday, June 13, 2025

Poster Session 3

1. Structural Maintenance and Within Language Innovations in Spanish as a Heritage Language: Accusative Clitic Doubling

• Lorena Alarcón, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Irati Hurtado, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Silvina Montrul, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Karen Pasetto Ovelar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Accusative clitic doubling (ACD) is the co-existence of an accusative clitic and the object it refers to (La llamé a Alejandra). It is typical of Argentine Spanish but largely unacceptable in the Mexico and Peninsular varieties (Hurtado, 2024). In both Romanian and Argentine Spanish, Differential Object Marking (DOM) and ACD are syntactically related (Di Tullio et al., 2019; Hill & Mardale, 2020) because animate objects that are clitic doubled must have DOM. Montrul (2023) found that heritage speakers of Romanian omitted obligatory DOM significantly less than heritage speakers of Mexican Spanish and suggested that the availability of ACD in Romanian may partly explain the difference.

We tested the hypothesis that heritage speakers of Argentine Spanish in the United States will omit DOM with animate objects significantly less than Mexican heritage speakers, if they retain ACD in their grammars. Data collection is ongoing. To date we have tested 30 adult first generation immigrants from Argentina, 15 Argentine heritage speakers, 10 first generation immigrants from Mexico and 10 Mexican heritage speakers. All participants completed a language questionnaire, the bilingual language profile (Birdsong et al., 2012), a written proficiency test, a written acceptability task, and an oral picture description task with and without priming of accusative clitic doubling with animate and inanimate objects. The acceptability task included grammatical and ungrammatical sentences with animate and inanimate objects, with/out DOM and with/out ACD. In a language background questionnaire, we asked participants if they interacted with speakers from other Spanish varieties in the United States and to indicate which countries.

Results so far show that Argentine heritage speakers accept ACD significantly more than the Mexican heritage speakers in the AJT; in the production task, they produce ACD and omit DOM with animate specific objects significantly less than the Mexican heritage speakers, confirming the proposed syntactic relationship between DOM and ACD, as per our hypothesis. They also produced and accepted more ACD than first generation Argentine immigrants, suggesting that they may use ACD as an identity marker of their heritage variety. Despite reported low contact between Mexican and Argentine HSs, compared to first-generation immigrants from Mexico, some Mexican heritage speakers also accepted and produced ACD, suggesting that their grammars generate structures available and acceptable in other Spanish varieties. This study illustrates the flexibility of heritage grammars compared to first generation grammars on the one hand, and elucidates how innovations in heritage grammars are hardly random and not always ungrammatical; in fact, they fall within the range of what is linguistically possible in Spanish and other languages.

Selected References

2. Voices from Home: Intergenerational Learning in Heritage Language Education

• Brianna Butera, University of Memphis

Family plays a crucial role in shaping heritage language learners’ linguistic and cultural identity, yet many academic spaces overlook its potential as a site of language maintenance and identity formation. As heritage speakers navigate linguistic and cultural tensions between home and school, integrating family participation into heritage language education can help bridge this divide, fostering a sense of belonging and reinforcing the value of students’ bilingual and bicultural experiences. This poster session explores how structured family-engaged projects in Spanish heritage language education can enhance students’ cultural pride, strengthen intergenerational relationships, and validate community-based knowledge within academic settings.

Drawing on a semester-long project implemented in a university-level Spanish for Heritage Speakers course, this study examines the effects of student-led cultural investigations, in which students research and present family traditions, customs, or practices to their relatives at a university-hosted showcase. The project’s design encourages students to conduct interviews, engage in intergenerational dialogue, and document personal and family narratives, promoting reflection on the significance of cultural heritage in their identity formation. The showcase serves as a public affirmation of the students' work, creating a space where families witness their adult child’s academic growth and linguistic skills, while also strengthening cultural ties within the university community.

This project investigates how integrating home-based cultural inquiry into heritage language education influences students' linguistic confidence, cultural identity, and sense of belonging in academic spaces. Through reflections and survey data, the study will explore how engaging with home traditions and intergenerational storytelling impacts students’ perceptions of their bilingual abilities and their connection to their linguistic heritage. Findings will provide insight into the role of home knowledge in mitigating linguistic insecurity and fostering a more inclusive, affirming approach to heritage language education.

This presentation situates these findings within the broader context of culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris & Alim, 2017), which emphasize the need for educational practices that sustain, rather than erase, students' linguistic and cultural identities. It also draws on research on intergenerational learning and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) to underscore how family narratives, traditions, and oral histories serve as valuable linguistic and cultural assets in the HL classroom.

Attendees will gain insights into the transformative potential of family involvement in heritage language classrooms and walk away with practical strategies to implement intergenerational learning in their own programs. These include guiding students through family interviews, designing culturally relevant assignments, and organizing community-oriented events that position families as active participants in their children’s language education. By reframing heritage language education as a collaborative effort that includes families as key stakeholders, this research underscores the need for inclusive, student-centered approaches that validate and sustain linguistic and cultural diversity.

Through this presentation, participants will be encouraged to rethink traditional classroom structures and explore innovative pedagogical approaches that foster stronger connections between students’ academic and cultural lives, ultimately enhancing student retention, motivation, and long-term engagement in heritage language learning.

References

3. Predicting facilitative processing of gender in Heritage Spanish using measures of lexical proficiency

• Zuzanna Fuchs, University of Southern California
• Emma Kealey, University of Southern California
• Esra Eldem, University of Southern California
• Leo Mermelstein, University of Southern California
• Linh Pham, University of Southern California
• Anna Runova, University of Southern California
• Seoyoon Hong, University of Southern California
• Mete Oguz, University of Southern California
• Yue Chen, University of Southern California
• Catherine Pan, University of Southern California
• JK Subramony, University of Southern California

Background: Previous research has shown that heritage speakers (HSs) can use grammatical cues to facilitate lexical processing during real-time language comprehension. For example, in Spanish, HSs can use the masculine article el that precedes the target noun to fixate more on a masculine object in a visual display when all other images are feminine. While HSs in aggregate show similar anticipatory behavior to late-bilingual comparison groups, within-group variation in this effect remains under-explored.

Aims: Building on previous work on HSs’ facilitative processing of gender and individual differences in language processing, the current study investigates the predictive power of three commonly used measures of lexical proficiency (picture naming, verbal fluency, LexTALE) with respect to individual differences in the facilitative processing of gender in Heritage Spanish.

Methods: HSs of Spanish (n = 52) residing in Los Angeles participated in an eye-tracking study combining the Visual World Paradigm with the Covered Box Paradigm. Displays showed three images, one of which was initially covered by a square and revealed after the onset of the target lexical item in the auditory prompt. Each participant saw 200 displays and was instructed to click on the target by an auditory prompt that contained an article agreeing with the target noun in gender and number. For analyses presented here, all targets were singular and the image covered by the box was a plural distractor. In the ‘same’ condition, the target and competitor were of the same gender; in the ‘different’ condition, they were of different genders. Two other experimental conditions pertaining to other research questions are not included in the present analysis.

Lexical proficiency: Participants completed three tasks measuring Spanish lexical proficiency: (1) oral picture-naming task, which measures recall of meaning (untimed, conducted before the eye-tracking task), (2) verbal fluency task, which measures recall of form and meaning (60s per category; viz. vegetables, clothing, musical instruments), and (3) LexTALE – a tool measuring the form recognition aspect of lexical proficiency (pen-and-paper task).

Results: For each participant and each trial, the average proportion of looks to the target from the onset of the article was calculated. Scores on each of the proficiency measures were converted to z-scores. Three linear models (one for each proficiency measure) were fitted predicting proportion of looks to the target by condition (same, different), proficiency measure, and their interaction, with random intercepts grouped by participant. The model testing the LexTALE proficiency measure found a significant effect of condition (β=0.028, SE=0.013, t=2.15, p=0.032) and LexTALE (β=0.039, SE=0.017, t=2.26, p=0.027); the interaction effect was not significant. Models testing the picture-naming and verbal-fluency measures each found significant effects of condition but not of the respective proficiency measure.

Implications: The main effect of condition replicates previous findings that HSs of Spanish demonstrate facilitative processing of gender. Results suggest that the LexTALE – a measure of receptive vocabulary – is a significant predictor of HSs’ within-group variation in this effect.

4. Restoring the use of minority names in language classrooms: The design and efficacy of a teaching plan

• Mei-Hui Tsai, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Calling students by their names is the starting point of teacher-student interaction. However, in contemporary Taiwanese language classrooms, which are dedicated to revitalizing the language, students’ names are rarely uttered in Taiwanese. Similar to most Chinese language communities, written Taiwanese relies mainly on non-phonetic Chinese characters, making the pronunciation of names in Taiwanese dependent on supplementary phonetic systems. Additionally, several factors further complicate the pronunciation of names in Taiwanese, including the language’s complex phonological rules, the preference for rare Chinese characters in Taiwanese names, and the phenomenon of “frozen address terms” (Tsai, in press). Given that restoring the use names in heritage languages is a crucial marker of linguistic identity and a key language revitalization strategy, the teaching and usage of names in Taiwanese language class is an urgent priority.

This study introduces a pedagogical design to address this issue. The design includes ""name tent"" and ""discourse space for name-calling"". A pre- and post-teaching questionnaire was used to assess the effectiveness of this approach. The "" name tent"" includes the student’s name in Chinese characters, phonetic transcription, a self-introduction sentence incorporating commonly used homophones, and a record of extra credits. The discourse space for name-calling "" consists of structured classroom activities, including self-introduction exercises, pair discussions, small-group discussions, the participation of Taiwanese-speaking community members, and biweekly group reassignments.

Based on pre- and post-teaching questionnaire results from three general education classes over two semesters, involving a total of 190 university students, the findings indicate that this pedagogical design significantly enhances students’ familiarity with and recognition of their Taiwanese names. On a six-point scale, students showed significant improvements in three areas: (1) understanding the Taiwanese pronunciation of their names (4.16 vs. 5.26; p < .01); (2) confidence in introducing themselves using Taiwanese (3.53 vs. 4.58; p < .05); and (3) acceptance with using Taiwanese names in the classroom (57.83% vs. 74.28%; p < .01). Compared to previous studies, this research offers a concrete, feasible, and effective pedagogical design that addresses the restoration of name usage in heritage language classrooms.