Chapter published in:
Heritage Languages: A language contact approach
Suzanne Aalberse, Ad Backus and Pieter Muysken
[Studies in Bilingualism 58] 2019
► pp. 111–139

Chapter 6
Studying variability in heritage language speaker populations and the base line

Article outline
  • 6.1Introduction
  • 6.2Establishing the baseline and the problem of monolingual bias
    • 6.2.1Standard language grammar
    • 6.2.2Exchange students and other recently arrived native speakers
    • 6.2.3Transnational research design
    • 6.2.4Vary subject populations
    • 6.2.5Cross-generational family studies
    • 6.2.6Multiple baselines
    • 6.2.7Bilingual baselines
    • 6.2.8Summary
  • 6.3Factors in individual variation in the acquisition perspective: Timing, quality and quantity of the input
    • Age of onset of bilingualism
    • Time spent in the heritage country during childhood
    • Mono- versus multilingual households
    • Parental native language
    • Parental language strategy and modes of speech
    • Parental language use/language mode patterns outside the family
    • Caretaker background
    • Sibling birth order
  • 6.4Speaker characteristics, language use and language output
    • Language use patterns
    • Domains of use
    • Language aptitude
  • 6.5Social embedding in the multilingual speech community and the larger society
    • Schooling and literacy
    • Language prestige and language ideology
    • Settlement patterns and immigrant networks
    • Superdiversity
    • Additive versus subtractive bilingualism
    • Social class, gender, age, geographic background, register
  • 6.6Identity work, style shift, variation, and change
  • 6.7Measuring proficiency and assessing linguistic profiles
    • 6.7.1Cloze test
    • 6.7.2Fluency measures
    • 6.7.3Lexical proficiency tasks
    • 6.7.4Sociolinguistic background questionnaires
  • 6.8Conclusion