Bilingual acquisition during school years: predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage language
There are vast individual differences in heritage bilinguals' linguistic skills. It is not clear, however, to what extent this variation can be attributed to experience, cognitive ability or motivation. This study investigates factors influencing the acquisition of both Polish (HL = Heritage La...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Language Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2024.1419563/full |
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| author | Magdalena Grose-Hodge Ewa Dabrowska Ewa Dabrowska Dagmar Divjak |
| author_facet | Magdalena Grose-Hodge Ewa Dabrowska Ewa Dabrowska Dagmar Divjak |
| author_sort | Magdalena Grose-Hodge |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | There are vast individual differences in heritage bilinguals' linguistic skills. It is not clear, however, to what extent this variation can be attributed to experience, cognitive ability or motivation. This study investigates factors influencing the acquisition of both Polish (HL = Heritage Language) and English (SocL = Societal Language) of school-age children, examining the role of motivation, linguistic experience, and language aptitude. We collected and analyzed speech samples from 7- to 12-year-old participants (n = 78) residing in the UK to derive linguistic measures of fluency, syntactic complexity and lexical diversity in both languages. Additionally, a receptive grammar test was administered. Independent variables were obtained via parental questionnaires, a motivation survey and a language aptitude test. To identify predictors of heritage bilingual acquisition, we conducted least squares linear regression analyses for each language area and applied backward stepwise selection to reduce the models. Results show that predictors differ between languages and linguistic areas. Our findings highlight the role of language aptitude in bilingual development, challenge assumptions that motivation to use HL might detract from SocL development, and suggest that HL acquisition can support, rather than hinder, societal language development, as bilingual children draw on their metalinguistic awareness and cognitive skills across both languages. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-3507e398a4604cfebcf28d5bd6563055 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2813-4605 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Language Sciences |
| spelling | doaj-art-3507e398a4604cfebcf28d5bd65630552025-08-20T02:54:25ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Language Sciences2813-46052025-01-01310.3389/flang.2024.14195631419563Bilingual acquisition during school years: predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage languageMagdalena Grose-Hodge0Ewa Dabrowska1Ewa Dabrowska2Dagmar Divjak3Department of Linguistics and Communication, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United KingdomEnglish Language and Linguistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United KingdomDepartment of English and American Studies, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, GermanyDepartment of Modern Languages, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United KingdomThere are vast individual differences in heritage bilinguals' linguistic skills. It is not clear, however, to what extent this variation can be attributed to experience, cognitive ability or motivation. This study investigates factors influencing the acquisition of both Polish (HL = Heritage Language) and English (SocL = Societal Language) of school-age children, examining the role of motivation, linguistic experience, and language aptitude. We collected and analyzed speech samples from 7- to 12-year-old participants (n = 78) residing in the UK to derive linguistic measures of fluency, syntactic complexity and lexical diversity in both languages. Additionally, a receptive grammar test was administered. Independent variables were obtained via parental questionnaires, a motivation survey and a language aptitude test. To identify predictors of heritage bilingual acquisition, we conducted least squares linear regression analyses for each language area and applied backward stepwise selection to reduce the models. Results show that predictors differ between languages and linguistic areas. Our findings highlight the role of language aptitude in bilingual development, challenge assumptions that motivation to use HL might detract from SocL development, and suggest that HL acquisition can support, rather than hinder, societal language development, as bilingual children draw on their metalinguistic awareness and cognitive skills across both languages.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2024.1419563/fullbilingualismheritage language acquisitionpredictors of linguistic outcomeaptitudemotivationinput |
| spellingShingle | Magdalena Grose-Hodge Ewa Dabrowska Ewa Dabrowska Dagmar Divjak Bilingual acquisition during school years: predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage language Frontiers in Language Sciences bilingualism heritage language acquisition predictors of linguistic outcome aptitude motivation input |
| title | Bilingual acquisition during school years: predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage language |
| title_full | Bilingual acquisition during school years: predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage language |
| title_fullStr | Bilingual acquisition during school years: predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage language |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bilingual acquisition during school years: predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage language |
| title_short | Bilingual acquisition during school years: predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage language |
| title_sort | bilingual acquisition during school years predictors of achievement in the societal and heritage language |
| topic | bilingualism heritage language acquisition predictors of linguistic outcome aptitude motivation input |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2024.1419563/full |
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