Discourse and Information Structure in Heritage Languages

doi:10.1017/9781108766340.031

27 - Discourse and Information Structure in Heritage Languages

from Part III - Grammatical Aspects of Heritage Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2021

Oksana Laleko

Edited by

Silvina Montrul and

Maria Polinsky

Show author details

Silvina Montrul: Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Maria Polinsky: Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter presents an overview of the state of the art in the study of the linguistic realization of information structure and discourse structure in heritage languages (HLs). It surveys the key issues pertaining to the encoding and interpretation of topic and focus, categories related to the distinction between given and new information in discourse, and their role in the development of mechanisms for the construal and maintenance of pronominal anaphoric dependencies in HL systems. Given the broad cross-linguistic variation in the expression of information structure and a vast range of phenomena that fall under its scope, the chapter provides overviews of the particular morphological, syntactic, prosodic, and lexical means employed for the encoding of information-structural relations in typologically different HLs, followed by discussion that identifies some common principles emerging from the surveyed studies and relates them to current issues in heritage language acquisition research. Finally, some directions for future work in this area are offered.

Keywords

information structure topic focus contrast particles word order prosody anaphora pro-drop

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics , pp. 691 - 727

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108766340.031 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aalberse, S., Backus, A., and Muysken, P.. 2019. Heritage Languages: A Language Contact Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar

Albirini, A., Benmamoun, E., and Saadah, E.. 2011. Grammatical Features of Egyptian and Palestinian Arabic Heritage Speakers’ Oral Production. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33(2), 273–303.Google Scholar

Azar, Z., Asli, Ö., and Backus, A.. 2019. Turkish-Dutch Bilinguals Maintain Language-Specific Reference Tracking Strategies in Elicited Narratives. International Journal of Bilingualism, 1–34.Google Scholar

Beaver, D. and Velleman, D.. 2011. The Communicative Significance of Primary and Secondary Accents. Lingua 121(11), 1671–1692.CrossRef Google Scholar

Brehmer, B. and Usanova, I.. 2015. Let’s Fix It? Cross-Linguistic Influence in Word Order Patterns of Russian Heritage Speakers in Germany. In Peukert, H. (ed.), Transfer Effects in Multilingual Language Development 161–188. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar

Bullock, B. E. 2009. Prosody in Contact in French: A Case Study from a Heritage Variety in the USA. International Journal of Bilingualism 13(2), 165–194.CrossRef Google Scholar

Büring, D. 2016. (Contrastive) Topic. In Féry, C. and Ishihara, S. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 65–85.Google Scholar

Casielles-Suárez, E. 2004. The Syntax-Information Structure Interface: Evidence from Spanish and English. New York: Routledge.CrossRef Google Scholar

Chafe, W. 1976. Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects, Topics and Point of View. In Li, C. N. (ed.), Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press, 27–55.Google Scholar

Chung, E. S. 2018. Second and Heritage Language Acquisition of Korean Case Drop. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21(1), 63–79.Google Scholar

Cowles, H. W. 2012. The Psychology of Information Structure. In Krifka, M. and Musan, R. (eds.), The Expression of Information Structure. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 287–318.Google Scholar

Daskalaki, E., Chondrogianni, V., Blom, E., Argyri, F., and Paradis, J.. 2019. Input Effects across Domains: The Case of Greek Subjects in Child Heritage Language. Second Language Research 35(3), 421–445.CrossRef Google Scholar

Doğruöz, S. and Backus, A.. 2009. Innovative Constructions in Dutch Turkish: An Assessment of Ongoing Contact-Induced Change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12(1), 41–63.Google Scholar

Dubinina, I. and Polinsky, M.. 2013. Russian in the USA. In Moser, M. and Polinsky, M. (eds.), Slavic Languages in Migration, 131–60. Wien: University of Vienna.Google Scholar

Fenyvesi, A. 2006. Contact Effects in Toledo, Ohio, Hungarian: Quantitative Findings. In Watson, G. and Hirvonen, P. (eds.), Finno-Ugric Language Contacts. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 157–177.Google Scholar

Gibson, E. 1998. Linguistic Complexity: Locality of Syntactic Dependencies. Cognition 68(1), 1–76.Google Scholar

Gómez Soler, I. and Pascual y Cabo, D.. 2018. On Focus and Weight in Spanish as a Heritage Language. Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics 31(2), 437–466.Google Scholar

Gundel, J. 2003. Information Structure and Referential Givenness/Newness: How Much Belongs in the Grammar? Journal of Cognitive Science 4, 177–199.Google Scholar

Gundel, J. 2012. Pragmatics and Information Structure. In Allan, K. and Jaszczolt, K. (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 585–598.CrossRef Google Scholar

Gundel, J. and Fretheim, T.. 2004. Topic and Focus. In Horn, L. and Ward, G. (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 175–196.Google Scholar

Hoot, B. 2017. Narrow Presentational Focus in Heritage Spanish and the Syntax-Discourse Interface. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 7(1), 63–95.Google Scholar

Hoot, B. 2019. Focus in Heritage Hungarian. Language Acquisition 26(1), 46–72.Google Scholar

Isurin, L. and Ivanova-Sullivan, T.. 2008. Lost in between: The Case of Russian Heritage Speakers. Heritage Language Journal 6(1), 72–104.CrossRef Google Scholar

Ivanova-Sullivan, T. 2014. Theoretical and Experimental Aspects of Syntax-Discourse Interface in Heritage Grammars. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar

Jia, R. and Paradis, J.. 2015. The Use of Referring Expressions in Narratives by Mandarin Heritage Language Children and the Role of Language Environment Factors in Predicting Individual Differences. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 18(4), 737–752.Google Scholar

Kaltsa, M., Tsimpli, I., and Rothman, J.. 2015. Exploring the Source of Differences and Similarities in L1 Attrition and Heritage Speaker Competence: Evidence from Pronominal Resolution. Lingua 164(B), 266–288.Google Scholar

Keating, G., VanPatten, B., and Jegerski, J.. 2011. Who Was Walking on the Beach: Anaphora Resolution in Spanish Heritage Speakers and Adult Second Language Learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33(2), 193–221.Google Scholar

Keating, G. D., Jegerski, J., and VanPatten, B.. 2016. Online Processing of Subject Pronouns in Monolingual and Heritage Bilingual Speakers of Mexican Spanish. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 19(1), 36–49.Google Scholar

É. Kiss, K. 1998. Identificational Focus versus Information Focus. Language 74(2), 245–273.CrossRef Google Scholar

Kim, J.-Y. 2019a. Heritage Speakers’ Use of Prosodic Strategies in Focus Marking in Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism 23(5), 986–1004.Google Scholar

Kim, J.-Y. 2019b. Discrepancy between Heritage Speakers’ use of Suprasegmental Cues in the Perception and Production of Spanish Lexical Stress. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.CrossRef Google Scholar

Koban, D. 2011. Continuity Reference and Subject Personal Pronoun Variation in the Turkish Spoken in Turkey and New York City. Australian Journal of Linguistics 31(3), 351–369.Google Scholar

Krifka, M. 2008. Basic Notions of Information Structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55, 243–276.CrossRef Google Scholar

Laleko, O. 2010. The Syntax-Pragmatics Interface in Language Loss: Covert Restructuring of Aspect in Heritage Russian. Doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.Google Scholar

Laleko, O. 2017. Information Status and Word Order in Heritage and L2 Russian. Paper presented at the Tenth National Heritage Language Research Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. May 22–25.Google Scholar

Laleko, O. 2019. Resolving Indeterminacy in Gender Agreement: Comparing Heritage Speakers and L2 Learners of Russian. Heritage Language Journal 16(2), 151–182.Google Scholar

Laleko, O. and Dubinina, I.. 2018. Word Order Production in Heritage Russian: Perspectives from Linguistics and Pedagogy. In Bauckus, S., and Kresin, S. (eds.), Connecting across languages and Cultures: A Heritage Language Festschrift in Honor of Olga Kagan. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 191–215.Google Scholar

Laleko, O. and Polinsky, M.. 2013. Marking Topic or Marking Case? A Comparative Investigation of Heritage Japanese and Heritage Korean. Heritage Language Journal 10(2), 40–64.CrossRef Google Scholar

Laleko, O. and Polinsky, M.. 2016. Between Syntax and Discourse: Topic and Case Marking in Heritage Speakers and L2 Learners of Japanese and Korean. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 6(4), 396–439.Google Scholar

Laleko, O. and Polinsky, M.. 2017. Silence Is Difficult. On Missing Elements in Bilingual Grammars. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 36, 135–163.Google Scholar

Lambrecht, K. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representation of Discourse Referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Leal, T., Destruel, E., and Hoot, B.. 2018. The Realization of Information Focus in Monolingual and Bilingual Native Spanish. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 8(2), 217–251.Google Scholar

Leal, T., Rothman, J., and Slabakova, R.. 2014. A Rare Structure at the Syntax-Discourse Interface: Heritage and Spanish-Dominant Native Speakers Weigh In. Language Acquisition 21(4), 411–429.Google Scholar

Leal Méndez, T., Rothman, J., and Slabakova, R.. 2015. Discourse-Sensitive Clitic-Doubled Dislocations in Heritage Spanish. Lingua 155, 85–97.Google Scholar

Montrul, S. 2004. Subject and Object Expression in Spanish Heritage Speakers: A Case of Morpho-syntactic Convergence. Bilingualism, Language and Cognition 7(2), 125–142.Google Scholar

Montrul, S. 2005. Second Language Acquisition and First Language Loss in Adult Early Bilinguals: Exploring Some Differences and Similarities. Second Language Research 22(2), 145–187.Google Scholar

Montrul, S. 2008 Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism: Reexamining the Age Factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar

Montrul, S. 2010a. Dominant Language Transfer in Adult Second Language Learners and Heritage Speakers. Second Language Research 26(3), 293–327.Google Scholar

Montrul, S. 2010b. How Similar Are Adult Second Language Learners and Spanish Heritage Speakers? Spanish Clitics and Word Order. Applied Psycholinguistics 31(1), 167–207.Google Scholar

Montrul, S. 2016. The Acquisition of Heritage Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Montrul, S. 2018. Heritage Language Development: Connecting the Dots. International Journal of Bilingualism 22(5), 530–546.Google Scholar

Montrul, S. and Polinsky, M. 2011. Why Not Heritage Speakers? Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1(1), 58–62.Google Scholar

Nagy, N. 2015. A Sociolinguistic View of Null Subjects and VOT in Toronto Heritage Languages. Lingua 164(B), 309–327.Google Scholar

Neeleman, A. and van de Koot, H.. 2016. Word Order and Information Structure. In Féry, C. and Ishihara, S. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 383–401.Google Scholar

O’Grady, W., Kwak, H. Y., Lee, O.-S., and Lee, M.. 2011. An Emergentist Perspective on Heritage Language Acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33(2), 223–246.Google Scholar

Otheguy, R., Zentella, A. C., and Livert, D.. 2007. Language and Dialect Contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the Formation of a Speech Community. Language 83(4), 770–803.Google Scholar

Pires, A. and Rothman, J.. 2009. Disentangling Sources of Incomplete Acquisition: An Explanation for Competence Divergence across Heritage Grammars. International Journal of Bilingualism 13(2), 211–238.Google Scholar

Polinsky, M. 1997. American Russian: Language Loss Meets Language Acquisition. Proceedings of the Annual Workshop of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 370–406.Google Scholar

Polinsky, M. 2006. Incomplete Acquisition: American Russian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 14, 192–265.Google Scholar

Polinsky, M. 2008. Heritage Language Narratives. In Brinton, D., Kagan, O., and Bauckus, S. (eds.), Heritage Language Education. A New Field Emerging. New York: Routledge, 149–164.Google Scholar

Polinsky, M. 2011. Reanalysis in Adult Heritage Language: A Case for Attrition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33(2), 305–328.CrossRef Google Scholar

Polinsky, M. 2018. Heritage Languages and Their Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Polinsky, M. and Kagan, O.. 2007. Heritage Languages: In the “Wild” and in the Classroom. Language and Linguistic Compass 1(5), 368–395.Google Scholar

Polinsky, M. and Scontras, G.. 2020. Understanding Heritage Languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23(1), 4–20.CrossRef Google Scholar

Prada Pérez, A. de. 2019. Theoretical Implications of Research on Bilingual Subject Production: The Vulnerability Hypothesis. International Journal of Bilingualism 23(2), 670–694.Google Scholar

Prada Pérez, A. de and Pascual y Cabo, D.. 2012. Interface Heritage Speech across proficiencies: Unaccusativity, Focus, and Subject Position in Spanish. In Geeslin, K. and Díaz-Campos, M. (eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla, 308–318.Google Scholar

Putnam, M. and Sánchez, L.. 2013. What’s So Incomplete about Incomplete Acquisition? A Prolegomenon to Modeling Heritage Language Grammars. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 3(4), 478–508.Google Scholar

Reinhart, T. 2006. Interface Strategies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar

Rinke, E. and Flores, C.. 2018. Another Look at the Interpretation of Overt and Null Pronominal Subjects in Bilingual Language Acquisition: Heritage Portuguese in Contact with German and Spanish. Glossa 3(1), 68.CrossRef Google Scholar

Rizzi, L. 1997. The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In Haegeman, L. (ed.), Elements of Grammar: Handbook in Generative Syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 281–337.CrossRef Google Scholar

Rooth, M. 2016. Alternative Semantics. In Féry, C. and Ishihara, S. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19–40.Google Scholar

Sagarra, N., Sánchez, L., and Bel, A.. 2019. Processing DOM in Relative Clauses: Salience and Optionality in Early and Late Bilinguals. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 9(1), 120–160.Google Scholar

Sekerina, I. and Trueswell, J. C.. 2011. Processing of Contrastiveness by Heritage Russian Bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14(3), 280–300.Google Scholar

Selkirk, E. 1995. Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing. In Goldsmith, J. (ed.), The Handbook of Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell, 550–569.Google Scholar

Serratrice, L., Sorace, A., and Paoli, S.. 2004. Crosslinguistic Influence at the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface: Subjects and Objects in English-Italian Bilingual and Monolingual Acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 7(3), 183–205.Google Scholar

Shimojo, M. 2006. Properties of Particle “Omission” Revisited. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 26, 123–140.Google Scholar

Silva-Corvalán, C. 1994. Language Contact and Change: Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar

Silva-Corvalán, C. 2018. Simultaneous Bilingualism: Early Developments, Incomplete Later Outcomes? International Journal of Bilingualism 22(5), 497–512.Google Scholar

Sorace, A. 2011. Pinning down the Concept of “Interface” in Bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1(1), 1–33.Google Scholar

Sorace, A. and Filiaci, F.. 2006. Anaphora Resolution in Near-Native Speakers of Italian. Second Language Research 22(3), 339–368.Google Scholar

Sorace, A., Serratrice, L., Filiaci, F., and Baldo, M.. 2009. Discourse Conditions on Subject Pronoun Realization: Testing the Linguistic Conditions of Older Bilingual Children. Lingua 119(3), 460–477.Google Scholar

Tomioka, S. 2010. Contrastive Topics Operate on Speech Acts. In Zimmermann, M. and Féry, C. (eds.), Information Structure: Theoretical, Typological, and Experimental Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 115–138.Google Scholar

Van Osch, B. and Sleeman, P.. 2018. Subject Position in Spanish as a Heritage Language in the Netherlands: External and Internal Interface Factors. In Gavarró, A. (ed.), On the Acquisition of the Syntax of Romance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 187–214.Google Scholar

Van Rijswijk, R., Muntendam, A., and Dijkstra, T.. 2017a. Focus in Dutch Reading: An Eye-Tracking Experiment with Heritage Speakers of Turkish. Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience 32(8), 984–1000.Google Scholar

Van Rijswijk, R., Muntendam, A., and Dijkstra, T.. 2017b. Focus Marking in Dutch by Heritage Speakers of Turkish and Dutch L1 Speakers. Journal of Phonetics 61, 48–70.Google Scholar

Zapata, G., Sánchez, L., and Toribio, A. J.. 2005. Contact and Contracting Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism 9(3–4), 377–395.Google Scholar

Zimmermann, M. and Onéa, E.. 2011. Focus Marking and Focus Interpretation. Lingua 121(11), 1651–1670.CrossRef Google Scholar

Zubizarreta, M. 1998. Focus, Prosody, and Word Order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.