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Lecture on Russian Heritage Speakers by Prof. Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan

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April 5, 2012
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Ohio Union Digital Lab (3rd Floor)

“The First Language of Early Bilinguals: A Psycholinguistic Study of Russian Heritage Speakers”

Lecture by Dr. Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan (University of New Mexico)

Abstract: The rapidly growing research on heritage speakers and the sociolinguistic dimensions of their identities reflects the social and cultural dynamics in immigrant communities in the US in the past few decades. Researchers from various fields of linguistics and social sciences have increasingly emphasized the unique behavior of these early bilinguals in the classroom and beyond. Characteristics of maintenance or attrition are found in the production and comprehension of their first language often accompanied by diverse perceptions of presence/lack of acculturation and distinctive immigrant identity. The present study contributes to the theoretical and empirical research of heritage languages by probing into the syntactic-pragmatic competence of heritage speakers of Russian and their perception of discourse coherence. Despite the fact that this particular topic has attracted a fair amount of attention in second language acquisition research, it is still fairly underrepresented in experimental work with heritage speakers (Montrul 2008; Belletti, Bennati and Sorace 2007; Sorace 2011).
 
This event is sponsored by the Slavic Linguistics Forum and the Slavic Center.
 
For further infomation, please contact Jeff Parker (parker.642@osu.edu) or Kate White (white.1648@osu.edu).