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Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 10:5 (2020) ► pp.690–727

Correlations between linguistic change and linguistic performance among heritage speakers of Danish in Argentina

| University of Copenhagen
| University of Copenhagen
| University of Copenhagen
The article addresses the issue of an assumed correlation between heritage language speakers’ linguistic system and their fluency. Previous research has shown that heritage language speakers who have grammatical patterns that are divergent from the language spoken in the homeland also have lexical retrieval problems and speak with a slower speech rate. We approach the issue by examining two linguistic features and 11 different fluency features (‘structural’ and ‘performance features’) of 10 speakers of Argentine Heritage Danish. A factor analysis shows that the 11 performance features can be reduced to 2 factors that characterize the speakers ‘lexical retrieval’ and ‘fluency’. A correlation analysis with the two structural features, weakening of a phonological contrast between /oː/ and /ɔː/ and simplification of the gender system, shows that there are no correlations at all between these two measures of the speakers’ language production, in contrast to what previous research has found.
Keywords: heritage language, factor analysis, fluency
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Language attrition, incomplete acquisition, and linguistic change
    • 1.2Performance features in the speech of heritage speakers
    • 1.3Purpose
    • 1.4Structure of the article
  • 2.Argentine Danish and its speakers
    • 2.1Argentine Danish as a heritage language
    • 2.2The speaker sample
  • 3.The linguistic variables
    • 3.1The mid back vowels /oː/ and /ɔː/
    • 3.2Gender in Standard Danish
  • 4.Extraction of Argentine Danish data
    • 4.1Extraction and measurement of the phonetic variables
    • 4.2Extraction of gender-marking determiners
    • 4.3Extraction of performance proficiency variables
    • 4.4Two notes of caution
  • 5.Extraction of Denmark Danish data
  • 6.Analysis
    • 6.1Towards a merger of /oː/ and /ɔː/ in Argentine Danish?
    • 6.2Simplification in the gender system
    • 6.3Proficiency variables
    • 6.4Why factor analysis?
    • 6.5Performance factors
    • 6.6No correlations between factors for structural change and factors for performance features
  • 7.Discussion
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.17068.pet
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