speakroots: An interesting (but understandable) distinction made in the book I’m currently gat
speakroots: An interesting (but understandable) distinction made in the book I’m currently gathering information from. So someone (by the definition) could be a heritage speaker AND a heritage language learner, but a heritage language learner isn’t always a heritage speaker. Keep in mind that these are terms used in the academic sphere, and things are defined in order to keep a uniform sense of understanding within the community and the research being done. One of the takeaways I got from this was that certain people who DO grow up bilingual perhaps have cognitive differences (linguistically) from those who learn the language as a second language or someone who is “culturally” (but not linguistically) connected to the language. Thoughts, discussions? I know many of you here are on both sides of this. I created this blog because I am (or will be) basing my academic career around the heritage language population. And while I will have to adhere to those definitions in my research, I also like to consider just…real world perspectives and identities. I’d also like to note that for the rest of this book, the writer focuses on heritage speakers (in or outside of the classroom) as opposed to those who feel a cultural connection to the language but didn’t grow up speaking it. -- source link