Organisers:

Petros Karatsareas (University of the West of England & Open University of Cyprus, Petros.Karatsareas@uwe.ac.uk)Jeanette Sakel (University of the West of England, Jeanette.Sakel@uwe.ac.uk)

Invited speaker:
Professor Jason Rothman (University of Reading & UiT, The Arctic University of Norway)

We are delighted to announce a one-day workshop on Morphosyntactic interference in heritage languages to be held at the Bristol Centre for Linguistics, University of the West of England, Bristol on Thursday 11 June 2015 (10:00 – 18:00).

Heritage speakers are typically the children of immigrants who are born in their parents’ host country. They normally grow up acquiring the language of their parents’ country of origin at home until they start attending school, at which time they start acquiring the majority language of the host country. Gradually, they become more fluent in the latter, limiting the use of the former to the interaction with family and friends from the same socioethnic background.

Research has shown that this acquisitional trajectory distinguishes heritage speakers from both L1 acquirers and L2 learners (see in particular Benmamoun et al. 2013, Montrul 2008, Polinsky & Kagan 2007 and references therein). On the one hand, heritage speakers are exposed to the heritage language for most of their childhood, thus acquiring a significant part of its grammar on a par with native speakers. On the other hand, the stark reduction of domains in which the heritage language is used and the consequent interruption of their acquisition results in a type of linguistic competence reminiscent of L2 learners. The interrupted acquisition of the heritage language, possible subsequent attrition, and interference from the majority language gradually leads to the formation of heritage grammars characterised by innovations on all levels, from phonology and morphology to syntax and semantics.

Against this backdrop, the aim of this workshop is to bring together established scholars and early career researchers working on heritage linguistics to specifically explore phenomena of morphosyntactic interference in heritage languages.

Programme:

10:00 – 10:15	Petros Karatsareas (UWE) & Jeanette Sakel (UWE) Welcome session
10:15 – 10:45	Artemis Alexiadou (University of Stuttgart), Terje Lohndal (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) & Marit Westergaard (UiT The Arctic University of Norway) The category of gender in heritage grammars
10:45 – 11:15	Irina Krüger (University of Stuttgart) & Artemis Alexiadou (University of Stuttgart) Aspect in Heritage Russian: a comparative approach
11:15 – 11: 45	Elif Bamyacı (University of Cologne) “Non-native-like” yet “UG-compatible” patterns in the grammar of heritage bilingual speakers
11:45 – 12:00	Coffee break
12:00 – 12:30	Gyanam Mahajan (UCLA) Dative and ergative subjects in Hindi-Urdu heritage learners
12:30 – 13:00	Izolda Wolski-Moskoff (The Ohio State University) Knowledge of the vocative case in Polish heritage speakers
13:00 – 14:30	Lunch break
14:30 – 15:00	Sandra Birzer (Hamburg University) The usage of the cardinals odin ‘one’ and dva ‘two’ by speakers of Heritage Russian in Germany
15:00 – 15:30	Julia Hofweber (University of Reading) Are heritage speakers more “switched on”? Comparing code-switching and related morphosyntactic interference patterns amongst German-English L2 users and 6th generation heritage speakers of Springbok German
15:30 – 16:00	Lameen Souag (LACITO, CNRS – Paris-3 – Inalco) & Marijn van Putten (University of Leiden) Verbal inflection interference among heritage speakers of Awjili Berber
16:00 – 16:15	Coffee break
16:15 – 17:45	Jason Rothman (University of Reading & UiT, The Arctic University of Norway) Terminology matters: Why difference does not mean deficiency or incompleteness in heritage language acquisition
17:45 – 18:00	Petros Karatsareas (UWE) & Jeanette Sakel (UWE) Closing session
19:00	Dinner (venue TBC)

If you are interested in attending our workshop, please email us to express your interest. There is no registration fee but we would need to know the overall number of participants.

For any other information and/or clarifications, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to Bristol!

With best wishes,
Petros Karatsareas – Jeanette Sakel