Chapter published in:
Integration, Identity and Language Maintenance in Young Immigrants: Russian Germans or German RussiansEdited by Ludmila Isurin and Claudia Maria Riehl
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 44] 2017
► pp. 225–268
Lost in transmission?
Family language input and its role for the development of Russian as a heritage language in Germany
Bernhard Brehmer | University of Greifswald (Germany)
Tatjana Kurbangulova | University of Greifswald (Germany)
The paper deals with parental input and its role for heritage language maintenance by second generation speakers of Russian in Germany. Based on the data collected from one family, we investigate the realization of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in Russian by the parents and their children. Our main findings show that the children are already exposed to deviant input if compared to VOT values reported for Russian monolinguals. However, the children’s VOT values do not coincide with their parents’ patterns, but show an even stronger convergence towards German VOT measures. We conclude that individual attrition is at work for all family members, but proceeds at greater speed with the children. Parental input thus paves the way for the development of the children, but other factors come into play as well which add to the effects of parental input, for example individual processing problems of the heritage language in the case of the children.
Keywords: parental input, heritage language acquisition, young immigrants, Voice Onset Time, language contact, Russian, German
References
References
Achterberg, J.
Anstatt, T.
(2010) Kognitive Strategien Zweisprachiger: Lösungen lexikalischer Probleme im Russischen bilingualer Kinder und Jugendlicher. In T. Anstatt, & B. J. Norman (Eds.), Die slavischen Sprachen im Licht der kognitiven Linguistik: Slavjanskie jazyki v svete kognitivnoj lingvistiki (pp. 217–239). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Anstatt, T., & Dieser, E.
Anstatt, T., & Rubcov, O.
Antoniou, M., Best, C. T., Tyler, M. D., & Kroos, C.
Armon-Lotem, S., Walters, J., & Gagarina, N.
Barry, S.
Beckman, J., Jessen, M., & Ringen, C.
Besters-Dilger, J.
Bhatia, T. K., & Ritchie, W. C.
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D.
(2011) Praat: Doing phonetics by computer. http://www.praat.org (last accessed on July 30, 2014).
Braun, A.
Braunschweiler, N.
Brehmer, B.
Burnham, D. K.
Chang, C. B.
Cho, T., & Ladefoged, P.
De Houwer, A.
De Houwer, A., & Bornstein, M. H.
(2003) Balancing on the tightrope: Language use patterns in bilingual families with young children. Paper delivered at the Fourth International Symposium on Bilingualism, Tempe, Arizona, USA, April 30 – May 3 2003.
Deuchar, M., & Clark, A.
Dieser, E.
Flege, J.
Flege, J., & Eefting, W.
Flege, J., Frieda, E., Walley, A., & Randazza, L.
Flege, J., & Port, R.
Fowler, C. A., Sramko, V., Ostry, D. J., Rowland, S. A., & Hallé, P.
Gagarina, N.
Gagarina, N., Armon-Lotem, S., Altman, C., Burstein-Feldman, Z., Klassert, A., Topaj, N., Golcher, F., & Walters, J.
(2014) Age, input quantity and their effect on linguistic performance in the home and societal language among Russian-German and Russian-Hebrew preschool children. In R. Silbereisen, P. Titzmann, & Y. Shavit (Eds.), The challenges of diaspora migration: Interdisciplinary perspectives on Israel and Germany (pp. 63–82). Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
Goldbach, A.
Guelzow, I., & Gagarina, N.
Gutierrez-Clellen, V. F., & Kreiter, J.
Hakuta, K., & d’Andrea, D.
Hammer, C. S., Miccio, A. W., & Rodriguez, B. L.
Helgason, P., & Ringen, C.
Hrycyna, M., Lapinskaya, N., Kochetov, A., & Nagy, N.
Jessen, M.
Karl, K. B.
Kang, K., & Guion, S. G.
Keating, P. A.
Keating, P. A., Linker, W., & Huffman, M.
Kehoe, M. M., Lleó, C., & Rakow, M.
Khattab, G.
Klassert, A., & Gagarina, N.
Klassert, A., Gagarina, N., & Kauschke, C.
Klassert, A., Kauschke, C., & Gagarina, N.
Kulikov, V.
Labov, W.
Lanza, E.
Levkovych, N.
Laeufer, C.
Lisker, L., & Abramson, A. S.
Macken, M. A., & Barton, D.
MacLeod, A., Fabiano-Smith, L., Boegner-Pagé, L., & Fontolliet, S.
Magloire, J., & Green, K. P.
McCarthy, K., Evans, B. G., & Mahon, M.
Meng, K.
Meng, K., & Protassova, E.
Mishina, S.
Montrul, S.
Nicoladis, E., & Genesee, F.
Pabst, B.
Paradis, J.
Paradis, J., & Navarro, S.
Pauwels, A.
Pearson, B. Z.
Pearson, B. Z., Fernández, S., Lewedeg, V., & Oller, K.
Polinsky, M., & Kagan, O.
Portes, A., & Hao, L.
Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R.
Protassova, E.
Reich, H. H.
(2007) Forschungsstand und Desideratenaufweis zu Migrationslinguistik und Migrationspädagogik für die Zwecke des “Anforderungsrahmens“. In K. Ehlich (Ed.), Anforderungen an Verfahren der regelmäßigen Sprachstandsfeststellung als Grundlage für die frühe und individuelle Förderung von Kindern mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund (pp. 121–170). Bonn: BMBF.
Rethage, W.
Ringen, C., & Kulikov, V.
Sancier, M. L., & Fowler, C. A.
Schnar, N.
Schüpbach, D.
Schwartz, M.
Silva-Corvalán, C.
Simon, E.
Sirèn, U.
Snow, D.
Søndergaard, B.
Szagun, G., Steinbrink, C., Franik, M., & Stumper, B.
Taylor, D. Q.
Unsworth, S., Argyri, F., Cornips, L., Hulk, A., Sorace, A., & Tsimpli, I.
Veltman, C. J.
Yamamoto, M.
Ždanova, V.
(2012) K tipologii morfosintaksičeskich variantov v russkom jazyke ėmigracii. In J. Apresjan, I. Boguslavsky, L. Iomdin, M.-C. L’Homme, J. Milicevic, A. Polguère, & L. Wanner (Eds.), Smysly, teksty i drugie zachvatyvajuščie sjužety: sbornik statej v čest’ 80-letija Igorja Alexandroviča Mel’čuka (pp. 682–695). Moskva: Jazyki Slavjanskoj Kul’tury.