A characterization of language development in heritage speakers

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the assessment of working memory and linguistic skills in 21 Italian–Russian speaking bilingual children who were born in Italy and inherited Russian from their parents. Their performance was compared to that of 21 monolingual Russian-speaking and 21 monolingual Italian-speaking peers. For the assessment of the two languages (Russian and Italian) in bilinguals and the respective languages (Russian OR Italian) in monolinguals, the equivalent forms of the same battery of tests were used. Overall, the bilinguals showed enhanced verbal working memory with respect to Italian monolinguals but not Russian ones. The lexical skills of the participants in the bilingual group, as measured via semantic fluency, naming and lexical comprehension, appeared to be rather limited in Russian when compared to those of the monolingual group. Their vocabulary was mainly made of words with medium-to-high frequency. Passive, reversible and negative sentences appeared to be the most difficult for the participants who inherited Russian from their parents. The findings are discussed in the light of current theories of heritage languages acquisition.

KEYWORDS:

• bilingualism
• verbal working memory
• heritage speakers
• Russian
• Italian

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Performed according to the Russian Government Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University, this study was supported by the 5xMille program by the Scientific Institute “E. Medea” to A.M. and by the Erasmus Mundus Action 2 Program (“International Academic Mobility Network with Russia - IAMONET-RU” project) to N.R under the supervision of A.M.

Notes on contributors

Nadja Ruhl

Nadja Ruhl received her Ph.D degree in language studies from the University of Udine and University of Trieste (Itlay). She is currently a member of the laboratory of Clinical Linguistics at the Department of Applied and Experimental Linguistics, Kazan Federal University (Russia). Her research interests include language acquisition, language and speech assessment, bi- / multilingualism, speech disorders in children.

Darya Polkina

Darya Polkina has a degree in Linguistic and cultural mediation from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy (2016). Currently a teacher of Russian Language for bilingual children in New Russian school Znanie in Rome. Her interests include language acquisition in children and adults, bilingualism, linguistics and intercultural mediation.

Elena Gorobets

Elena Gorobets, date of birth: 27.04.1980. Higher education: Linguistics (2003), Psychology (2018). Academic degree: Philology (2008). Place of work: Kazan Federal University, Russia (2003 - current). Associate Professor since 2016. Head of the Department of Applied and Experimental Linguistics, Head of the Scientific Laboratory “Clinical linguistics”.

Martina Ozbič

Martina Ozbič, speech and language therapist, special and rehabilitation pedagogist, has her own bilingual private clinical practice in Slovenia. She is an assistant professor (1997-2017: Faculty of Education University of Ljubljana; 2018: Faculty for applied social sciences - Nova Gorica, Slovenia; 2017: University of Trieste, Italy) and a researcher (2018-2019 Associazione La Nostra Famiglia, Italy). Her current area of research and professional expertise are Slovenian developmental phonology and protracted phonological development (collaboration with UBC Vancouver Canada) and language impairment especially in bilingual children. She has authored and coauthored several papers on phonological development, prevention of specific learning impairment and adaptations of assessment instruments for Slovenian language.

Andrea Marini

Andrea Marini is Associate Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Udine, Italy where he leads the Language Lab (section of the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab). He is also responsible for research projects at Research Institutes “Eugenio Medea” and “Claudiana Landesfachhochschule für Gesundheitsberufe” (Italy). His research interests span from the study of the neural correlates of narrative language to the neuropsychology of language in both adults and children, the development of new procedures of discourse analysis and the study of the phylogenetic evolution of language. He is author of more than 100 publications including scientific articles, books and book chapters.