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Lost in Transmission: The role of attrition and input in heritage language development
Edited by Bernhard Brehmer and Jeanine Treffers-Daller
[Studies in Bilingualism 59] 2020
► pp. 33–70

Effects of first language attrition on heritage language input and ultimate attainment

Two generations of Turkish immigrants in the UK

| Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University
This study investigates the spoken performance of UK based adult heritage speakers (HSs) and first generation immigrants (LBs) of Turkish descent regarding the distribution of evidentiality encoded in the past tense system of Turkish. Additionally, we trace the effect of input quality and quantity on the development of the heritage language (HL). The analyses suggest that the ability to differentiate between different evidential structures is unstable in HL grammars. There are no signs of qualitatively modified input available to the HSs through the LBs. This performance is instead linked to the amount of input, which has been found to be insufficient to compensate for the detrimental effects of early bilingualism on the HL. Findings are discussed within the premises of available approaches to heritage language bilingualism.
Keywords: heritage language bilingualism, input quality and quantity, Turkish immigrants in the UK
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Measuring input quantity and quality
  • 3.Effects of defective input on HL development
  • 4.Evidentiality in Turkish
  • 5.Evidentials in monolingual and bilingual contexts
  • 6.Research questions and hypotheses
  • 7.Participants
  • 8.Instruments
    • 8.1Sociolinguistic questionnaire
    • 8.2Semi-structured interview (INT)
    • 8.3Picture description task (PD)
  • 9.Transcription and coding
  • 10.Predictive variables
    • 10.1Current L1 contact
    • 10.2Input quantity
    • 10.3L1 and L2 richness (input quality)
  • 11.Results
    • 11.1Evidential accuracy
    • 11.2Sources for HL variability
    • 11.3Individual analysis
  • 12.Discussion
  • 13.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 29 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.59.02kar
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