Heritage Language Processing: Pinning down the sources of individual variability

Project Information

HeLP

Grant agreement ID: 101104834

DOI

10.3030/101104834

Project terminated on 31 December 2025

EC signature date 14 July 2023

Start date 1 June 2024

End date 31 May 2026

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 210 911,04

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I TROMSOE - NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HeLP (Heritage Language Processing: Pinning down the sources of individual variability)

Reporting period: 2024-06-01 to 2026-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Across Europe and globally, increasing numbers of children and adolescents grow up using more than one language. Many of these individuals are heritage language speakers: they are exposed to a minority or family language at home while receiving most of their education and social input in the majority language. Although heritage speakers are often highly functional bilinguals, their language abilities show substantial individual variation, and the reasons for this variability remain poorly understood.

Most previous research on heritage languages has focused either on adults or on outcomes measured through tests completed after language use has taken place (for example, written judgments or questionnaires). As a result, much less is known about how heritage languages are processed in real time, especially during adolescence — a developmental stage that is both socially and cognitively crucial. This gap limits our understanding of how language experience, cognitive factors, and development interact, and it risks oversimplified views of bilingual language competence.

The project addressed this gap by examining how adolescent heritage speakers process language moment by moment, focusing on Mandarin as a heritage language. Its core objective was to identify when, how, and under what conditions individual differences matter during language processing. Rather than treating heritage speakers as a uniform group, the project aimed to understand variability as a meaningful and systematic feature of bilingual language use.

To achieve this, the project combined approaches from the social sciences and humanities, particularly linguistics, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. It used time-sensitive experimental methods that track language processing as it unfolds, allowing the study of comprehension dynamics rather than only final answers. By integrating detailed measures of language experience with real-time processing data, the project adopted a pathway to impact that links fundamental theory with socially relevant questions about multilingual development.

The project’s expected impacts include advancing scientific understanding of bilingualism, challenging deficit-based views of heritage language competence, and providing a stronger evidence base for discussions about linguistic diversity in multilingual societies. In the longer term, insights from this work can support more informed educational, societal, and policy-related conversations about bilingual development, language maintenance, and inclusion in Europe’s linguistically diverse communities.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project investigated how adolescents who grow up with more than one language process their heritage language in real time. The work focused on Mandarin as a heritage language and examined how differences in language experience and cognitive abilities shape moment-to-moment language understanding.

To achieve this, the project designed and carried out a series of experimental studies using time-sensitive methods that capture how language is processed as it unfolds. These methods allowed the project to move beyond traditional test scores and examine the dynamics of comprehension directly. Data were collected from adolescent heritage speakers using carefully controlled experimental tasks that measured both behavioural responses and underlying neural activity during language processing.

A major achievement of the project was the successful implementation of advanced experimental techniques to study an under-researched population. The project generated a high-quality dataset that combines detailed background information on language experience with fine-grained measures of real-time language processing. This made it possible to examine individual variability systematically rather than treating it as noise or error.

The results show that differences among heritage speakers are not random, but are closely linked to factors such as language exposure and cognitive resources. Importantly, the findings demonstrate that heritage language processing can be highly efficient, even when speakers differ in surface-level proficiency. This challenges simplified or deficit-based views of heritage bilingualism and highlights the adaptability of the human language system.

Overall, the project’s main scientific achievement lies in providing new evidence that heritage language competence should be understood as dynamic and experience-dependent, particularly during adolescence. By combining insights from linguistics, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, the project advances current knowledge of bilingual language processing and lays the groundwork for future research on multilingual development.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Prior research on heritage languages has often relied on final outcomes, such as test scores or written judgments, and has typically focused on adults. As a result, differences among heritage speakers were frequently interpreted as incomplete learning or language loss. This project moves beyond that state of the art by showing that heritage language competence is best understood through real-time processing and individual experience, particularly during adolescence.

One of the project’s key results is the demonstration that individual variation in heritage language processing is systematic rather than random. By examining language processing as it unfolds moment by moment, the project shows that differences between heritage speakers are closely linked to factors such as language exposure and cognitive resources. This provides a more nuanced understanding of bilingual language use than approaches that rely solely on static or outcome-based measures.

Another important advance lies in the project’s methodological contribution. The use of time-sensitive experimental techniques to study adolescent heritage speakers represents a significant step forward for the field. These methods make it possible to capture subtle aspects of language processing that are invisible to traditional approaches, thereby opening new avenues for research on bilingualism and multilingual development.

Beyond advancing scientific knowledge, the project’s results have broader potential implications. By challenging deficit-based interpretations of heritage language competence, the findings support more inclusive and evidence-based perspectives on bilingual development. This has relevance for educators, researchers, and others working in multilingual contexts, where heritage speakers are often evaluated using inappropriate monolingual standards.

To ensure further uptake and success, additional research is needed to extend these findings to other languages, age groups, and social contexts. Scaling up data collection and fostering international collaboration would help assess the generalisability of the results. Continued integration of linguistic, psychological, and neuroscientific approaches will also be essential for translating these insights into wider societal and educational discussions.

Overall, the project provides a conceptual and methodological foundation for future work on heritage language processing. By reframing variability as an informative feature of bilingual language use, rather than a problem to be corrected, it advances the field beyond existing theoretical and empirical boundaries.