What is it about?
This study examined request production by heritage language (HL) speakers of Russian dominant in different societal languages (SLs), such as SL-Hebrew and SL-German. By comparing request strategies in Russian, Hebrew, and German, the study investigated the effect of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from the SL on the HL, as well as the effect of diminished HL input.
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Why is it important?
Unlike previous studies that compare two L1s, this study focused on HLs, suggesting a new area of research due to their indeterminate status as neither L1 nor L2. The study provides additional evidence on how cross-linguistic factors impact pragmatic development in HL-speakers, contributing to understanding bilingual communication and language acquisition processes. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to date that compared requests in HL-speakers of typologically different SLs.
Perspectives
Our study contributes to the field of pragmatics by evaluating the effect of typologically different SLs (here, Hebrew and German) on HL acquisition. In particular, the study attempted to tease apart the effects of CLI and diminished input by comparing requests produced by HL-Russian speakers who are dominant in SL-Hebrew and SL-German, with their monolingual counterparts and with each other.
Vladislava Warditz
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Heritage Russian in contact with Hebrew and German: A cross-linguistic study of requests, International Journal of Bilingualism, November 2024, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/13670069241298767.
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