Acknowledgements
This research project is a collective work by a motivated, enthusiastic, and ever-evolving team of students, research assistants, and colleagues at the University of Toronto and other institutions, in Canada and abroad, particularly in Italy. Although I am the sole author of this book, I cannot help but use the plural pronoun for virtually every sentence describing the process of developing and conducting the Heritage Language Variation and Change in Toronto Project (http://ngn.artsci.utoronto.ca/HLVC). I am filled with gratitude and awe at the contributions that have made this project possible and productive. I thank my students for challenging assumptions, asking questions, and being interested in the project. Their questions and comments led to important developments. I acknowledge the contributions of these many co-authors as well as student authors who conducted pilot analyses of much of the work reported here and the research assistants who collected, curated, coded, and discussed the data, as well as developing new methods for every step of the project, often on the fly:
Cameron Abma
Sophia Alcasabas
Anissa Baird
Natalia Bakaeva
Vanessa Bertone
Ulyana Bila
Marisa Brook
Rosanna Calla
Nicole Casalla
Minji Cha
Abigail Chan
Ariel Chan
Karen Chan
Karina Cheung
Kate Cheung
Joanna Chociej
Mira Chow
Vivien Chow
Sheila Chung
Tiffany Chung
Courtney Clinton
Laura Colacci
Kyla Cortez
Marco Covi
Radu Craioveanu
Kelly Crawford
Angela Cristiano
Naomi Cui
Joana da Silva
Derek Denis
Brian Diep
Tonia Djogovic
Tatiana Fimognari
Joyce Fok
Paolo Frascà
Tim Gadanidis
Jann Gamboa
Matt Gardner
Catarina Gomes
Julia Grasso
Laura Griffin
Rick Grimm
Guilherme Gusukuma Teruya
Dongkeun Han
Natalia Harhaj
Taisa Hewka
Kei-Fung Ho
Meghan Hollett
Jae Won Hwang
Melania Hrycyna
Michael Iannozzi
Elgiz Kazan
Rachel Keir
Diana Kim
Janyce Kim
Rachel Kim
Sol Yi Kim
Tanea Kim
Yoomi Kim
Roman Korol
Mariana Kouzela
Iryna Kulyk
Teresa Kwok
Ann Kwon
Alex La Gamba
Carmela La Rosa
Natalia Lapinskaya
Cookie Lau
Vina Law
Ewen Lee
Jin Hyung Lee
Kris Lee
Nikki Lee
Patrick Lee
Wilma Lee
Amanda Leiva
Justin Leung
Olga Levitski
Justine Lewicki
Simon LiVolsi
Samuel Lo
Arash Lotfi
Tiffany Luk
Paulina Łyskawa
Ruth Maddeaux
Jack Mahlmann
Olha Mamitko
Walter Mancini
Lisa Marando
Rosa Mastri
Timea Molnár
Emily Moran
Valeriya Mordvinova
Yannie Mork
Francesco Muoio
Jonathan Ng
Rikki Ocumen
Jamie Oh
Rosie Owen
Rita Pang
Valerie Pang
Olenka Pankiw
Maria Parascandolo
Hyoeun Park
Anya Pechkina
Andrew Peters
Josephine Petrolo
Julia Petrosov
Alessia Plastina
Wendy Portnoy
Douglas Quan
Ian Quan
Clara Ramos
Andreia Real
Tiina Rebane
Hoyeon Rim
Matt Riopelle
Annika Rossmanith
Oliver Roth
Will Sawkiw
Ha Jun Ryu
Anna Shalaginova
Bonita Sham
Konstantin Shapoval
Maks Shkvorets
Vera Richetti Smith
Janice Shum
Yi Qing Sim
Mario So Gao
Bella Soblirova
Aileen Song
Christine Strelchuk
Haili Su
Katharine Sung
Matteo Talotta
Angel Tam
Ziwen Tan
Awet Tekeste
Letizia Tesi
Ethan Tokko
Josephine Tong
Enrique Trinidad
Sarah Truong
Holman Tse
Pocholo Umbal
Dylan Uscher
Cindy Vieira
Ashley Villagracia
Júlia Walber
Elaine Wang
Victoria Wang
Fiona Wilson
Darragh Winkelman
Ana Alves Wong
Ka-man Wong
Joyce Woo
Junrui Wu
Olivia Yu
Chris Zhu
Minyi Zhu
An updated list recognizing their contributions to the HLVC project is maintained at http://ngn.artsci.utoronto.ca/HLVC/3_2_active_ra.php and http://ngn.artsci.utoronto.ca/HLVC/3_3_former_ra.php. Their contributions are listed at http://ngn.artsci.utoronto.ca/HLVC/1_5_publications.php.
Justin Leung, Jack Mahlmann, Jill Nagy, George Nagy, and Julia Petrosov have been invaluable editors in the homestretch.
I extend heartful thanks to the many colleagues who, formally and informally, taught me so much about heritage languages, languages in contact, and best practices in linguistic analysis, starting in my grad school days. I thank three academic generations of amazing scholars: Gillian Sankoff, for paving the way for variationists to investigate lesser-known languages; Miriam Meyerhoff, for constantly and omnipresently encouraging careful and systematic examination of variation in lesser-studied languages; and Isabelle Buchstaller, for the first serious discussions about how a book like this could fit into and benefit the field.
I thank my dissertation committee, for supporting me in what turned out to be the first steps toward the HLVC project: Greg Guy, Mark Liberman, Don Ringe, and Gillian Sankoff, the chair. Along with Bill Labov, they taught me how to chase down facts and fit them into frameworks as I collected and interpreted data from over eighty speakers in Faeto.
I thank colleagues whose valuable contributions are too numerous to elaborate here: Karen Beaman, Chiara Celata, Laura Colantoni, Silva Dal Negro, Michol Hoffman, Jonathan Kasstan, Yoonjung Kang, Alexei Kochetov, Donna Jo Napoli, Rosalba Nodari, Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux, Maria Polinsky, Keren Rice, Jessamyn Schertz, Katrin Schmitz, Greg Scontras, James Stanford, Jeff Steele, Leanne Trimble, Holman Tse, Barbara Turchetta, and James Walker.
I thank Charlotte Bacon, a novelist I greatly admire, for encouraging me to tell this story.
I thank friends and family (one set too numerous to mention, one set too small to need enumeration) who have listened, encouraged, and put up with the intrusions of my half-baked research ideas into every other activity for many years. I appreciate their helping me decide how to organize, from commas to life priorities. And I value Craig’s flexibility to do or not do whatever needed to be done to finish this book.
I thank my hosts who invited me to talk about my research in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, United States, and Val d’Aosta. It was the interest and questions of these audiences that inspired this book.
Funding for the HLVC project is gratefully acknowledged: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grants 410-2009-2330 and 435-2016-1430 and a grant from l’Association canadienne de linguistique / Canadian Linguistic Association. I thank the University of Toronto, including the Linguistics Department, the Dean’s Research Excellence Award, Victoria College, Keren Rice’s Canada Research Chair funding, the Faculty of Arts and Science, and the provost for funding, but more importantly, for providing an environment that encourages research of this nature. The confidence and support of Helen Barton, Isabel Collins, Becky Taylor, and Andrew Winnard at Cambridge University Press is also appreciated.
Most of all, the HLVC project is grateful to the speakers for sharing their language and their free time with us. I particularly acknowledge the support of people in and from Faeto and Celle San Vito – “my” heritage community.
