Heritage speakers' online processing of the Spanish subjunctive: A comprehensive usage-based study
Open Access
- Author:
- Lopez-Beltran Forcada, Priscila
- Graduate Program:
- Spanish
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 11, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Michael Putnam, Outside Unit & Field Member
Paola Migliaccio-Dussias, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Damian Vergara Wilson, Special Member
Karen Miller, Major Field Member
Matthew Carlson, Major Field Member
Paola Migliaccio-Dussias, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- heritage speakers
subjunctive
psycholinguistics
pupillometry
processing - Abstract:
- Studies assessing the grammatical knowledge of speakers of Spanish as a heritage language have largely focused on the Spanish subjunctive mood and have concluded, almost unanimously, that heritage speakers’ knowledge of the Spanish subjunctive is non-native-like and subject to incomplete acquisition. However, there is also evidence that while different, heritage speakers’ linguistic knowledge is by no means deficient. The goal of the present dissertation is to achieve a holistic understanding of the nature of grammars of heritage speakers and to contribute to a theory of processing in heritage language contexts that has greater explanatory adequacy. To this end, this dissertation examines knowledge of the Spanish subjunctive in heritage speakers who live in a long- standing bilingual community in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in comparison to a group of Spanish-dominant bilinguals born in Mexico. The dissertation sets out to provide (1) an evidence-based characterization of heritage speakers by using a sociolinguistic questionnaire which, along with PCA, examined the language-experience related factors that best explain the variability in the processing of the subjunctive mood in this population; and (2) an examination of heritage speakers’ and Spanish-dominant bilinguals’ processing of the Spanish subjunctive during online comprehension and production by means of psycholinguistic experiments that integrated corpus data into their design. Results indicated that, both in comprehension and production, the current group of heritage speakers was sensitive to the lexical and structural conditioning of mood selection, and that the performance of heritage speakers and Spanish-dominant bilinguals converged on the same results and trends. All participants showed nuanced knowledge of the morphosyntactic factors that modulate the conditioning of mood selection, as suggested by the fact that linguistic factors such as frequency and proficiency also modulated their sensitivity. In addition, based on the PCA conducted, the role of three sociolinguistic variables was examined: use of the heritage language, language entropy, and identification with the heritage language. As predicted, results indicated that sensitivity to the lexical and structural conditioning of mood selection was greater for heritage speakers who: (1) used the heritage language more often on average, (2) used the heritage language in more diverse contexts, and (3) felt more identified with the heritage language. The findings highlight that factors such as the community examined and the ecological validity of the materials used are crucial. In addition, they underscore the importance of triangulating both comprehension and production experimental data, and employing multiple explanatory variables for a more comprehensive approach to complex and highly variable systems such as heritage grammars.