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Article published In:
Register Studies
Vol. 5:1 (2023) ► pp.52–81

The concept of register in heritage language retention

| University of Münster

This paper argues for a greater consideration of the role of register in the retention of heritage languages by analyzing data on adolescent heritage-language speakers in Germany. The study addresses the following question: Which language external factors have the greatest impact on heritage-language retention in the intimate vs formal registers? A questionnaire was filled out by 202 students (age 15–17) in an urban area in Germany, who are all heritage-language speakers of 42 different languages. The major finding of this study is that heritage-language retention is determined by different language-external factors in each register. The fact that different models of heritage-language retention can be postulated for different language registers emphasizes the need to describe the language competences of heritage-language speakers according to registers.

Keywords: heritage language, minority language, language maintenance, language retention, external factors, register
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Heritage languages and their speakers
  • 3.The concept of register in heritage language research
  • 4.The study
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Instruments
    • 4.3Results
    • 4.4Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 24 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.20017.olf
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