Investigating Proxies for Understanding Trajectories: Heritage Language Maintenance and Child Second Language Acquisition in Refugee Contexts

Project Information

INPUT

Grant agreement ID: 882311

DOI

10.3030/882311

Project closed

EC signature date 25 February 2020

Start date 1 March 2021

End date 28 August 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 214 158,72

EU contribution

€ 214 158,72

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I TROMSOE - NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INPUT (Investigating Proxies for Understanding Trajectories: Heritage Language Maintenance and Child Second Language Acquisition in Refugee Contexts)

Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2023-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project INPUT (Investigating Proxies for Understanding Trajectories: Heritage Language Maintenance and Child Second Language Acquisition in Refugee Contexts) examines heritage language (HL) and child second language (cL2) development in the European refugee context. INPUT adds significantly to a sub-field of bilingualism studies, Heritage Language Bilingualism, by studying refugee heritage speakers in Europe, an understudied subset of Heritage Language Bilingualism. This empirical study investigates linguistic and extra-linguistic variables affecting the development of both the societal majority language and the heritage language with the goal of impacting education policy development. Heritage language Syrian Arabic in Germany and second language German are investigated with a focus on 6- to 12-year-old children to examine developmental trajectories. The overall research objective is to understand the extent to which increased or reduced heritage language exposure affects heritage language and child second language trajectories and outcomes. For Europe, supporting refugee youth can have a significant impact on the publicly stated goal of integrating this population into their newly adopted countries. One major impediment to this integration is their successful acquisition of the societal majority language while maintaining and developing the first language. Our hypothesis is that support for continued development in the heritage language will improve second language development with knock-on effects on the academic achievement of refugees. At present, heritage language support and training varies tremendously all over Europe. Project findings are relevant, especially for policymakers, teachers, school principals, and heritage language bilingual communities in European countries that have seen a notable increase in Syrian Arabic heritage speakers. To date, most heritage language studies have focused exclusively on the minority language, INPUT helps to fill an important gap by focusing on both languages.

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 primary research objective of INPUT is to understand the extent to which increased or reduced heritage language exposure leads to HL development/maintenance and its impact on the path of child second language (cL2) development.
INPUT investigates the following research questions:

RQ1. To what extent do experiential variables and HL support affect HL trajectories and outcomes?
RQ2. To what extent does HL support affect cL2 development?

The following hypotheses are tested: (i) there is an inverse relationship between cL2 growth and continued growth in the HL (ii) the general trend in (i) can be attenuated by increased exposure, use and support for the HL, and (iii) heritage speakers who receive formal training in their HL will have a sharper growth trajectory.

The following four experiments are used in order to measure HL and cL2 development: (i) Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) for density of vocabulary, (ii) an elicitation task on grammatical gender in Syrian-Arabic and German to investigate gender behavior (production/comprehension), (iii) an eye-tracking experiment on grammatical gender to test comprehension and subsequent use of gender for predictive processing, and (iv) the Quantifying Bilingual Experience Questionnaire (Q-BEx) to collect information on experiential variables pertaining to Syrian- Arabic and German exposure and use which are used as regressors in the modelling of the results from experiments (i-iii).

The participants are 6-to 12-year-old Syrian Arabic-German heritage bilinguals (n=85). The findings of the eye-tracking experiment suggest that on the group level the heritage speaker children do not use gender cues predictively in Syrian Arabic and German. However, on the individual-level we find a variation showing that individual children use gender cues predictively in Syrian Arabic, German, none or both of the languages depending on various variables including HL support, exposure to and use of Syrian Arabic and German. We are currently analyzing the individual results to identify experiential variables predicting trajectories, e.g. HL support, exposure, use. Furthermore, we are currently analyzing the elicited task and vocabulary task data.

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)

INPUT investigates the role of linguistic and extra-linguistic experiential variables in heritage language acquisition/maintenance and child second language development in the European refugee context. Since 2011, more than 900,000 Syrian refugees have arrived in Europe. For Europe, supporting refugee children/adolescents can have significant impact for integrating this population into their newly adopted countries. One major impediment to integration is successful acquisition of the societal majority language while maintaining and developing the native, first language. This project investigates variables affecting cL2 acquisition and HL maintenance/development with the goal of impacting education policy development, with a specific focus on the recent influx of Syrian refugees to Europe. Despite compelling reasons to the contrary, the continued development/maintenance of the HL in first generation child refugees is understudied, especially in combination with the development of the same children’s second language. Refugee children are a specific subset of heritage speaker (HS) bilinguals. Like other sets of heritage speakers, refugees find themselves in a context where another language, the societal majority language of the host country, differs from their HL/L1 yet is the language in which they are educated and become increasingly dominant over time. I investigate HL Syrian Arabic (SA) in Germany and focus on younger children, i.e. 6 to 12 year olds, as I am interested in developmental trajectories of both languages separately and how they potentially interact. Whereas most HL studies have focused exclusively on the minority language, this study helps to fill an important gap by focusing on both languages.

INPUT Workshop