Spanish as a Heritage Language

“Este Artículo Describía Mi Vida”

2023-04-19T12:01:11-04:00

The field of Spanish for heritage speakers has evolved considerably over the past decades, moving from educational practices in which students were punished for speaking Spanish in the classroom to modern approaches that seek to raise critical awareness of students’ own varieties (e.g., Avendaño, 1979; Beaudrie, 2015; Beaudrie et al., 2021; Correa, 2011; Holguín Mendoza, 2018; Leeman, 2005, 2018; Martínez, 2003, Valdés, 1981; Villa, 2004). However, despite current research that supports critical language awareness and community engagement, heritage speakers continue to suffer from insecurity caused in part by discrimination and criticism from their families, schools, and society (e.g., Burns, 2018; George & Peace, 2019; Higby et al., 2023; Leeman, 2012, 2018; Lowther Pereira, 2015; MacGregor-Mendoza & Moreno, 2016; Martínez & Schwartz, 2012; Pascual y Cabo et al., 2017; Rangel et al., 2015; Sánchez-Muñoz, 2016; Showstack, 2012, 2017). Work in critical language awareness must expand beyond the classroom into the wider community. This paper presents the results of an academic intervention in which undergraduate-level linguistics courses at a Hispanic-Serving Institution published Spanish-language articles and podcasts on topics in critical language awareness and heritage/minority languages. An analysis of the comments posted to these publications by community members reveals that, although these topics are relatively unknown outside of the classroom, they are quite relevant. The positive responses to these publicly available articles and podcasts, plus the presence of some purist ideologies even in the most supportive comments, underscore the necessity of including more public-facing work in the heritage language classroom.

Bilingual and Spanish Language Media in the U.S. as a Language Maintenance Tool Among Latinx Communities

2023-05-02T22:26:18-04:00

In this paper, we discuss the status and vitality of Spanish in the U.S., including the presence and characteristics of Spanish-language communicative spaces, including the media and other digital venues. Given the discrimination that many Latinx Spanish speakers suffer in the U.S., for example, through English-only initiatives or restrictive language policies, we draw attention to the important role that communicative spaces such as media have in this country for promoting and aiding the maintenance of heritage and minority languages. We also critique the monolingual assumptions that there are only certain types of “correct” language, in this case, standard Spanish or “Walter Cronkite Spanish,” which implies a variety as it is used in a country where the official language is Spanish (e.g., Mexico or Colombia). We are interested in looking at how Spanish is used and promoted and the role of U.S. media in contexts where audiences are mostly bilingual. We argue that U.S. Spanish, as it is spoken by Chicanx/Latinx speakers, has been historically undervalued or underrepresented in the media, thus perpetuating monolingual ideologies that do not serve bilingual and multilingual audiences and indeed affect the perception of local varieties of Spanish and their speakers. With the advent of new technologies and the sociodemographic transformation of Latinx audiences, new media production in U.S. Spanish, Spanglish, and other local varieties have the potential of serving as an important tool to combat language loss due to linguistic discrimination and harmful hegemonic monolingual ideologies.

Spanish Heritage Language Learners' Reading Accuracy and Spelling Difficulties

2023-04-19T12:10:23-04:00

Spelling has been recognized as a challenging aspect of literacy for Spanish Heritage Language Learners (SHLLs). This study examines the relationship between reading and spelling accuracy, with a specific focus on the vowel e, in
monophthongs and diphthongs. A total of forty-five participants completed the Bilingual Language Profile and a reading task involving the contrast between monophthongs and diphthongs in real words and pseudowords. The results of the study indicate that participants encountered greater difficulties in accurately reading the vowel e when it appeared in a diphthong (ie) than when it appeared in a monophthong. Moreover, participants’ reading abilities were subject to a lexicality effect and hindered by limited phonological awareness and decoding skills. The paper further explores the connections between individual language dominance factors and literacy measures.

The Implementation of Critical Pedagogies in the Spanish Heritage Language Classroom

2023-05-23T12:05:29-04:00

In an attempt to battle systemic oppression towards Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) speakers in the United States, theoretical advances in the field of SHL education have pointed to a critical turn (Leeman & Serafini, 2016;
Martínez, 2003; among others). At the core of critical pedagogies is the goal of legitimizing and empowering SHL speakers. Developing students’ critical consciousness about how languages/dialects are valued differently based on
power dynamics enables them to question taken-for-granted and essentialist language assumptions and, consequently, better engage in the quest for social change. Nevertheless, there is still a gap between theory and practice due to the lack of critical pedagogical materials. This paper shares and reflects on SHL students’ feedback on the implementation of such materials in the classroom. It discusses the challenges and lessons learned in attempting to bridge theory and practice. The ultimate goal of this study is to inform and encourage other educators to collaborate in a transformative agenda aimed at the integration of critical pedagogies into the field of SHL education.

Inalienable possession in Spanish-English code-switching

2023-05-10T19:25:41-04:00

Intrasentential code-switching is a common bilingual phenomenon that occurs when multiple languages are used in the same utterance. Research has shown that such switching is not arbitrary, but rather systematic and rule-governed. By looking at the syntactic interactions that happen when bilinguals co-activate their languages, we can shed light on our understanding of a variety of structural factors as well as bilingual grammars more generally. The current talk focuses on data from Spanish-English inalienable possession, which is manifested differently in the two languages (e.g., he washed his face vs. él se lavó la cara ‘(lit.) he to himself washed the face’). The results of an acceptability judgment task completed by US heritage speakers of Spanish suggest that regardless of the direction of the switch, an English-like structure is preferred with a possessive determiner (e.g., he washed su cara), and in the case of a Spanish verb switched with an English object, the preverbal clitic is required as well (e.g., él se lavó his face).

Selected Papers from the 9th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language

2023-11-13T15:38:54-05:00

The National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language (NSSHL) is a platform driving progress in the field of Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL). We are excited to contribute to this advancement by presenting a special issue featuring selected papers from the 9th annual NSSHL meeting, hosted by Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, from February 24 to 26, 2022. This marks the third collection of papers published from NSSHL, with the first special issue drawing from the 3rd annual meeting (see Holguín Mendoza, Wilson & Rajan, 2017) and the second special issue from the 7th NSSHL (Wilson & Hudgens Henderson, 2021).

Los retornados en México

2023-05-29T13:28:17-04:00

Esta disertación investiga a los hablantes de herencia en una etapa como “retornados” en un contexto educativo fronterizo. Los retornados se definen como “individuos que han pasado un determinado tiempo en un país y regresan al país de origen (o no) por distintas razones” (Rivas Rivas, 2013), éstas pueden ser sociopolíticas o económicas. Este trabajo se enfoca en los hijos de los retornados los cuales: (1) en Estados Unidos, han crecido con el español en casa como “lengua de herencia” (Valdés, 2001), han recibido instrucción en inglés (Ambrossini & Peri, 2012; Mar Molinero, 2018) y muestran un quebrantamiento afectivo de su lengua de herencia (Escobar & Potowski, 2015; Pascual y Cabo, 2016); y (2) en México, se incorporan a contextos educativos monolingües de español (Christiansen et al., 2017) y se tienen que enfrentar con diversas actitudes e ideologías lingüísticas sobre el uso del español (Valenzuela Arce, 2004).

Fostering Latinx/e Students’ Familial Capital in the Spanish Heritage Language Program at the University of Washington

2023-06-25T19:13:49-04:00

In this En Acción paper, I show how we (director, coordinator, and instructors)
have fostered Latinx/e students’ familial capital in the Spanish Heritage Language
Program at the University of Washington. Familial capital recognizes the
nurtured relationship students have with their immediate and extended family
members and communities. This capital also includes the lessons students
learned on caring, coping, emotional, moral, and educational consciousness
from their family members. Additionally, this capital pulls from the research
of Vélez-Ibáñez and Greenber (1992) on Funds of Knowledge that points out that
Mexican Americans learn valuable lessons from their family and community
that have been passed down across generations. In the SHL classroom context,
familial capital focuses on creating relationships of care among students and
educators. This includes building a sense of community in and outside the
classroom and developing a mentorship relationship between the students
and educator. This is possible by explicitly implementing Latinx/e community
cultural wealth in the SHL curricula