Heritage Language Education

A New Field Emerging

Donna M. Brinton, Olga Kagan, Susan Bauckus, Donna M. Brinton, Olga Kagan, Susan Bauckus

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351563765
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Bildung
• Categoria: Bildung Allgemein

"… focuses on issues at the forefront of heritage language teaching and research. Its state-of-the-art presentation will make this volume a standard reference book for investigators, teachers, and students. It will also generate further research and discussion, thereby advancing the field."

María Carreira, California State University – Long Beach, United States

"In our multilingual and multicultural society there is an undeniable need to address issues of bilingualism, language maintenance, literacy development, and language policy. The subject of this book is timely…. It has potential to make a truly significant contribution to the field."

María Cecilia Colombi, University of California – Davis, United States

This volume presents a multidisciplinary perspective on teaching heritage language learners. Contributors from theoretical and applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychology, educational policy, and pedagogy specialists explore policy and societal issues, present linguistic case studies, and discuss curricular issues, offering both research and hands-on innovation.

- The term "heritage language speaker" refers to an individual exposed to a language spoken at home but who is educated primarily in English.

Research and curriculum design in heritage language education is just beginning. Heritage language pedagogy, including research associated with the attrition, maintenance, and growth of heritage language proficiency, is rapidly becoming a field in its own right within foreign language education. This book fills a current gap in both theory and pedagogy in this emerging field. It is a significant contribution to the goals of formulating theory, developing informed classroom practices, and creating enlightened programs for students who bring home-language knowledge into the classroom.

Heritage Language Education: A New Field Emerging is dedicated to Professor Russell Campbell (1927-2003), who was instrumental in advocating for the creation of the field of heritage language education.

1

Who Are Our Heritage Language Learners?

Identity and Biliteracy in Heritage Language
Education in the United States

Nancy H. Hornberger Shuhan C. Wang

Introduction

While the term heritage language (HL) has been in use, particularly in Canada, since the early 1970s, it has been gaining significant ground in U.S. research, policy, and practice only since the 1990s. Pedagogical approaches to HL instruction are being suggested and implemented on a large scale. Yet, there is still no general consensus on who U.S. HL speakers and learners are, which in turn has hindered the field from advancing pedagogically or theoretically (also see Wiley, 2001). This chapter represents our attempt to tackle this complex task of describing heritage language learners (HLLs).

In the first full-length edited volume about HLLs (Webb & Miller, 2000), Draper and Hicks define a HLL as:

…someone who has had exposure to a non-English language outside the formal education system. It most often refers to someone with a home background in the language, but may refer to anyone who has had in-depth exposure to another language. Other terms used to describe this population include “native speaker,” “bilingual,” and “home background.” While these terms are often used interchangeably, they can have very different interpretations. (p. 19)

While this definition applies to many HLLs, it contains two weaknesses. First, it is overly broad, including both those who have had home exposure to a HL and those who have had extensive exposure to a second language (e.g., an American expatriate’s child who grew up in Japan speaking Japanese). At the same time, the definition is overly narrow in that it seems to favor those with a high degree of proficiency in the HL (e.g., those typically found in bilingual classrooms). As we will demonstrate later in this chapter, this definition leaves out many other HLLs.

Scalera’s (2000) definition of HLLs as individuals who have learned a language other than English somewhere other than in school seems to imply that any language learner in a naturalistic setting is a HLL. This ignores the connection between a HLL and the HL (Fishman, 1991, 2001), a connection also acknowledged by other researchers. For example, Campbell and Peyton (1998) define HL speakers as individuals “who speak their first language, which is not English, in the home, or are foreign-born” (p. 38). Their definition, which highlights the individuals’ ability to speak the HL, directly links individuals to their home language and includes both native and foreign born.

One commonly accepted definition comes from Valdés (2001), who defines HL students in terms of two types: (1) individuals having historical or personal connection to a language such as an endangered indigenous language or immigrant language that is not normally taught in school; or (2) individuals who appear in a foreign language classroom, who are raised in homes where a non-English language is spoken, speak or merely understand the HL, and are to some degree bilingual in English and the HL (Valdés, 2001, pp. 37–38).

Her definition is broader than those cited above by differentiating the source and degree of students’ development in the HL. Her focus, however, is on planning instruction and developing pedagogical theories for HL speakers (Valdés, 2001).

In contrast to Valdés’ and other researchers’ linguistically-oriented definitions, Fishman (1999, 2001) categorizes HLLs based on their socio-historical relationships with the United States into three major groups:

1. Indigenous languages spoken by Native American tribes that existed before the arrival of European settlers; many of these languages are now endangered;
2. Colonial languages such as French, German, Italian, or Spanish, which earlier European settlers brought; and
3. Immigrant languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Korean that came along with more recent influxes of immigrants.

Fishman’s categories are useful in defining the majority of HLLs in terms of a group and its historical relationship with the Unitd States, thus acknowledging HLLs’ ancestral heritage and extending their ties to the HL and heritage culture (HC) beyond immediate families. On the other hand, Fishman’s definition, like those offered by Valdés (2000, 2001), Draper and Hicks (2000), and Campbell and Peyton (1998), does not pay enough attention to HLLs’ cultural and socio-psychological struggles. In this respect, it is typical for HLLs in the United States not only to find themselves frequently in sites of contestation of the dominant language (English) and their HL, but also needing to negotiate the use of the HL in its standard or dialect forms. Moreover, their HC often has to compete against the dominant culture, and their local (home and ethnic) ideologies must compete with the dominant ideologies (Heath, 1983; Ogbu, 1996; Street, 1995; Tollefson, 1991; Trueba & Zou 1994). These individuals must constantly choose, construct, and perform their social identities (Erickson & Shultz, 1982) vis-à-vis the different groups of people with whom they interact. In other words, defining HLLs requires far more than simply assessing their linguistic abilities and determining the relationship between their dominant and home languages.

Furthermore, the above definitions do not adequately assist individuals faced with a complex reality to answer the basic question “Which language is my heritage language?” For instance, there are many other “types” of HLLs who do not belong to any of Fishman’s categories, including children of interracial or multi-racial marriages and adoptions (Root, 1996, cited in Schwartz, 1998). One such example is that of Families with Children from China (FCC), the fastest-growing phenomenon in the landscape of interracial/intercountry adoption. According to figures released by this nondenominational organization of families in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, there were 23,903 such adoptions in the year 2000, mostly of girls (Families with Children from China, n.d., p. 5.).

Because many of these parents want their adopted children to continue their ties to their HL and HC, they appear at the doors of Chinese HL schools every weekend. The schools, in turn, must open new classes for these children, who are different in nature from conventional HLLs at Chinese schools (Betty Foo, personal communication, February 10, 2000; Man-Li Kuo Lin, personal communication, May 25, 2002; Chen & Chung, 2002). In the case of FCC, the adopted children may grow up to claim Chinese, English, or both as their HL(s), just as they may decide to stay within one ethnic/racial group or cross both groups (Rampton, 1995).

But children adopted by people residing in the United States come from many other countries besides China. According to Zhao (2002), Americans adopted about 19,000 children from abroad in 2001, almost three times the number adopted in 1992.¹ A host of questions arise in connection with these multiracial adoptive families. First, what is the role of intergenerational language and HC maintenance (Fishman, 1991)? Likewise, for children whose birth parents come from different ethnic, racial, cultural, and language backgrounds, which language (mother or father tongue) is considered their HL? Can we consider as HLLs monolingual, English-speaking third, fourth, or multi-generation indigenous individuals? Are immigrant offspring eager to re-establish their ties with their ancestral languages and cultures? For speakers who live and interact in two languages and cultures (e.g., Latinos in the Southwest), how do we identify which language and culture are their HL and HC? Answers to these questions can provide pertinent information concerning the so-called outsider versus insider status and the language proficiency versus ethnicity distinction—i.e., what Wiley (2001) has called the “politics of identity” (p. 30).

These questions are at the heart of HLL education. Regardless of how we categorize them, HLLs do not learn or use one, two, or more languages in isolation. Consequently, there is no single profile of HLLs. Taken from this perspective, these individuals, their interactions with the people around them, and their dynamic interface with the social, educational, cultural, economic, and political institutions constitute an ecological system. In such a system, individuals are the center of inquiry, but they are also always a part of the larger system in which they shape and are shaped by various factors in the system.

In this chapter, we adopt an ecological view of HLL identity. Specifically, we view HLLs as individuals with familial or ancestral ties to a language other than English who exert their agency in determining if they are HLLs of that language. We take into consideration their wider group’s social, economic, and political positioning in the United States. We also distinguish between HL speakers and HL learners, framing our discussion in terms of HLLs who may or may not be HL speakers. Furthermore, we do not differentiate HLLs in terms of bilingual, foreign, heritage, or indigenous language programs. Instead, our attention is focused on the identity and biliteracy development of HLLs in the ecological systems they inhabit. Specifically, we examine the multiple identities of HLLs and the multiple paths of biliteracy development and use they adopt. By so doing, we provide a basis for understanding individual biliterate educational experiences.

Our goal coincides with Valdés’ (2001) call for “a coherent body of pedagogical theories about what can be accomplished in a classroom setting relative to out-of-school acquisition, functions, and rewards.” (p. 50). The development of these theories requires us to understand who HLLs are in various contexts and how they see, perceive, interpret, present, and represent themselves in those contexts. We must also differentiate among different language groups with which HLLs are affiliated, and the relationship of those groups with the society at large. Only with this knowledge can we come up with effective practices or theories for classroom settings.

In this chapter, we apply the continua of biliteracy model (Hornberger, 1989a; Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2000; Hornberger, 2003) as an analytical framework for understanding the ecology of HL learning. The chapter is divided into three main sections. In the first, we explain our views on identity and biliteracy and briefly describe the continua of biliteracy. Next, we analyze how HLLs position themselves and are positioned in the continua of context, content, media, and development. Finally, we offer suggestions for dealing with these learners in our classrooms.

Conceptual Framework

Identity

Taking an ecological perspective, we use the terms self-concept or self-system interchangeably with identity, a hierarchical and multidimensional construct involving the perceptions, descriptions, and evaluations of one’s self in relation to significant others, the social environment, and specific contexts.² Because of the complex web of relationships surrounding individuals and their environments, identity is crucial in a child’s development and learning (Erikson, 1968; Yawkey, 1980). As such, identity contributes to children’s sense (or lack thereof) of belonging, worth, competence, and achievements. The notion that there are multiple selves/identities, which are situated and contextually defined, regulated by self and others, and constantly negotiated, contested, shaped and reshaped, becomes central in the learning of a HL and HC.

Biliteracy³

Biliteracy, the conjunction between bilingualism and literacy, can be defined as “any and all instances in which communication occurs in two (or more) languages in or around writing” (Hornberger, 1990, p. 213). This definition follows from Heath’...