Marta Fairclough

Spanish and Heritage Language Education in the United States

Struggling with hypotheticals

Lengua y Sociedad en el Mundo Hispánico
Language and Society in the Hispanic World

Editado por / Edited by
Julio Calvo Pérez (Universitat de València)
Luis Fernando Lara (El Colegio de México)
Matthias Perl (Universität Mainz)
Armin Schwegler (University of California, Irvine)
Klaus Zimmermann (Universität Brement)

Vol. 12

Marta Fairclough

Spanish and Heritage Language
Education in the United States

Struggling with hypotheticals

Vervuert · Iberoamericana · 2005

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek
Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at <http://dnb.ddb.de>.

This research was partially funded by a New Faculty Research Grant from the Office of Grants and Contracts of the University of Houston

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of figures

List of tables

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

1.1. Introduction to the study

1.2. The language situation

1.3. Objectives of this investigation

1.4. Theoretical framework

1.5. Outline of the study

2. Review of the Literature

2.1. Conditionality

2.1.1. Conditionality, hypotheticality and conditional sentences

2.1.2. If-sentences: definition and parts

2.1.3. Verb forms: tense and mood

2.1.4. Typology

2.1.5. Alternatives to the expression of conditionality

2.1.6. Variation

2.1.6.1. Diachronic variation

2.1.6.2. Synchronic variation

2.1.7. Acquisition studies

2.1.8. Conclusions

3. Social Context

3.1. Introduction

3.2. U.S. Hispanic diversity

3.3. Hispanics in Texas and in Houston

3.4. Spanish for heritage learners

3.4.1. Definitions

3.4.2. Historical foundations of SHLprograms

3.4.3. Diversity

3.4.4. Pedagogical issues

3.4.5. The prestige variety

3.4.6. Bidialectalism

4. Methodology

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Research design

4.2.1. Preliminary studies

4.2.2. The study of conditionality

4.3. Participants

4.4. Instrumentation

4.4.1. Short paragraphs

4.4.2. Cloze-type test

4.4.3. Acceptability judgment task

4.4.4. Peer interviews

4.4.5. Background questionnaires

4.5. Procedure

4.5.1. Written data collection

4.5.2. Oral data collection

4.5.3. Data coding and analysis

4.6. Summary of the methodology

5. Findings

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Study 1: Grammatical accuracy

5.3. Study 2: Different tasks

5.4. Study 3: Oral data

5.4.1. Contexts

5.4.2. [-PAST] contexts

5.4.3. [+PAST] contexts

5.5. Acceptability judgment

5.6. Longitudinal study

6. Discussion and conclusions

6.1. Introduction

6.2. Summary of the findings and discussion

6.3. Pedagogical implications of the findings to the teaching of Spanish to students of Hispanic heritage

6.3.1. What to teach?

6.3.2. How to teach?

6.3.3. When to teach and for how long?

6.4. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future research

6.5. Final comments

Appendices

Appendix 1a: Short Paragraphs

Appendix 1b: Cloze-type Test

Appendix 1c: Acceptability Judgment

Appendix 2: Guide for Interviews

Appendix 3: Student Information Sheet

Appendix 4: Spanish Courses

References

Index

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to those who have assisted me in the preparation of this book. I am especially grateful to Dr. Manuel J. Gutiérrez (University of Houston), who encouraged and supported me from the very beginning of this project.

The research for this study would not have been possible without the contribution of the students. I wish to express my sincere appreciation for their participation.

I am also grateful to the two referees of my book. Both offered insightful comments and helpful suggestions in the early stages of the manuscript.

A special word of thanks is due to Kerstin Schwartz and the team at Iberoamericana / Vervuert for their careful work and their constant support.

I would also like to acknowledge the support of my family: my husband Alan, and our daughters, Nevena, Sabrina & Tabatha. Their love and understanding made it possible for me to pursue my professional life.

Above all, I would like to thank the editor of this volume, Prof. Armin Schwegler (University of California, Irvine), for his valuable observations and his meticulous editorial suggestions. His patience and his guidance at every step of the way are truly appreciated. Needless to say, any remaining shortcomings are mine alone.

ABBREVIATIONS

1. Introduction

1.1. Introduction to the study

This study analyzes the effects of formal instruction on the acquisition of standard Spanish¹ by examining the expression of conditionality (i.e., hypothetical discourse) produced by heritage speakers of Spanish in the United States. More specifically, this investigation focuses on Hispanic students from the Houston area who are learning Spanish at the university level.

Language, far from being a static and homogeneous entity, is constantly changing. This linguistic change can be observed in language contact phenomena such as pidginization and creolization, but is also visible during the acquisition of a first (L1) or a second language (L2). Numerous publications have studied how these changes occur, and what causes them. In the field of language acquisition, the number of investigations has increased exponentially, mainly in the areas of first- and second-language acquisition (henceforth SLA). These studies have attempted to solve the “logical” as well as “developmental” problems (Larsen-Freeman & Long 1991, Ritchie & Bhatia 1996, among others). The “logical problem” addresses the issue of how something as complex as linguistic competence can be acquired from such limited input. The “developmental problem” addresses the process of acquisition itself.

Yet, recent publications (Escure 1997, Merino & Samaniego 1993, Politzer 1993, Valdés 1997, 2001, Siegel 2003) point to a lack of theoretical as well as empirical studies on the acquisition of a second dialect (SDA); that is, we do not really understand yet how speakers of a non-prestige variety acquire the standard modality of the language. SDA is of course a common phenomenon. Escure rightly notes that dialect variation is universal, but that “not all individuals find themselves in social situations which require the acquisition of a second language”, and that “there is no single human being whose repertoire is limited to only one language variety, style or dialect” (1997: 3).

The acquisition of a second dialect often occurs in contact situations. Although the term SDA typically refers to situations involving the acquisition of the standard of the majority language, it can also be applied to situations involving a minority language, as in the case of Spanish in the U.S.A. Children typically attend school for years in order to acquire normative or “standard” ways of speaking, reading and writing. Indigenous speakers of non-standard varieties are usually instructed in the standard dialect. In Australia, for instance, Aboriginal English speakers learn Standard Australian English (Kaldor 1991). A comparable situation takes place in the Philippines, where native speakers of Philippine English learn Standard American English (González 1991).

Similar phenomena also occur in Europe. According to Cheshire, Eduards, Münstermann & Weltens (1989: 2) due to the geographic proximity of the many languages spoken, not only is there multilingualism but also a large number of dialects of neighboring standard languages. In Flandes, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, for instance, the linguistic variants can be described as a linguistic continuum with four major dialects: a highly prestigious Standard Dutch, Belgian Dutch, Umgangssprache (an intermediate variant between regional dialect and Belgium Dutch) and a regional dialect. (Van de Craen & Humblet 1989: 14). A somewhat similar case can be found in Denmark where the variation includes classical dialects, regional dialects and the national standard Danish (Jorgensen & Pederson 1989). A typical case of social dialects occurs in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where the grammatical, lexical, phonetic and phonological differences from standard English become larger as one moves down the social scale (Cheshire & Trudgill 1989).

Cheshire, Eduards, Münstermann & Weltens (1989: 2-4) note that the differences between the standard variety and the dialects can be minor (in which case there is usually no awareness of “dialect” as a distinct entity), or there can be differences present at all linguistic levels. In the latter case, the speakers themselves are aware of two different codes: the non-standard dialect, which is most often used in informal speech usually with family and friends, and the standard, which is reserved for formal settings. Different frameworks have been applied by linguists and other researchers to the analysis of this type of linguistic variation. The most widely encountered are (a) Labov’s variationist framework, a quantitative approach which analyzes the relative frequencies with which speakers use standard or non-standard variants; (b) traditional dialectology, which identifies discrete varieties of standard and non-standard languages as distinct systems; and (c) other frameworks that see variation as a continuum along which different codes are identified.

The acquisition of standard Spanish by Hispanic heritage learners in the United States is a case of acquisition of the prestige variety of a minority language. Yet, the speakers of the U.S. Spanish varieties suffer some of the same prejudices that most of the above-mentioned dialectal speakers experience when their language varieties are being stigmatized (Siegel 1999).

In the United States, an increasing number of children of Hispanic background acquire the local – often stigmatized – variety (ies) of Spanish as their L1. During pre- and elementary school, these children then become immersed in English, the dominant language, often at the cost of their heritage language. As Roca & Gutiérrez (2000: 25) state, heritage speakers of Spanish in the United States normally use English for formal exchanges, while Spanish is generally limited to informal situations within the home or the speech community. As a result, heritage speakers are rarely if ever exposed to a formal register; consequently, they tend not to acquire registers and / or styles that would include the standard variety.

The largest groups of Hispanics in the United States are of Caribbean and Mexican origins. As expected, features of these varieties are characterized by Cuban, Puerto Rican or Mexican Spanish as well as by diastratic and stylistic variation.² Contact with English and other factors have contributed to the emergence of a local variety of Spanish, one that we shall here term “the Spanish of the United States”. It has thus become a variety that presents its own characteristics which distance it from standard Spanish.

1.2. The language situation

Despite the increase in the Hispanic population in the United States, proficiency in this heritage language continues to diminish with successive generations of speakers, who tend to produce more creolized varieties typical of contact language situations (Hernández-Chávez 1993, Lipski 1993, Silva-Corvalán 1994, among others). An increasing number of colleges and universities are aware of the importance of heritage language maintenance, and the acquisition of the standard variety of Spanish for personal as well as professional goals. Consequently, these institutions promote the teaching of heritage languages through courses and programs especially designed for heritage speakers. However, as Valdés points out, “few theories exist on how standard dialects are acquired by speakers of non-prestige varieties” (1997: 23-24). She further explains (p. 54) that although for decades many studies have looked at the controversial relationship between non-standard dialects and education in Europe (Ammon 1989, Bailey 1987, Cheshire / Eduards / Münstermann & Weltens 1989, Fishman & Lueders-Salmon 1972, Gagné 1983, Rutt 1963), our theoretical understanding of SDA is still very limited. Most of the current classroom practice and pedagogy for the courses of Spanish for heritage learners (SHL) draw from a variety of SLA theories. There are notable similarities between the processes inherent to SLA and SDA, but there are also many differences. The following include some of the characteristics shared by SLA and SDA:

1. (a)  Learners’ motivation and attitude are undoubtedly among the most important factors influencing outcome (Politzer 1993: 55).
2. (b)  Acquisition studies inevitably involve the critical period, acquisitional order, and parameters of variability (Chambers 1992: 703).
3. (c)  Both processes are additive and not substitutive (Escure 1997: 19-20).
4. (d)  Both are diachronic processes since they involve the sequential addition of one system to another (Escure 1997: 283).
5. (e)  The creation of linguistic competence must be accompanied by communicative competence. Grammaticality is not the only goal of teaching (Politzer 1993: 55).
6. (f)  The learners already possess a native linguistic system which interacts with the target system, causing errors, transfers, interference, markedness patterns, and so on (Escure 1997: 6).
7. (g)  A large amount of input and interaction is necessary to reach the target system. Both processes are gradual, and they undergo certain stages of systematic variation known as “interlanguage” in the case of SLA, and “inter-dialect” in the case of SDA (Fairclough 1999, 2003b).

On the other hand, SDA differs from SLA as follows:

1. (a)  The use of a non-standard dialect on the part of the speaker is related to the choice of specific register and style, and should not be interpreted – as it generally is in SLA– as lack of grammatical knowledge on the part of the speaker (Politzer 1993: 55).
2. (b)  Comprehensible input as prerequisite for acquisition of the standard dialect by speakers of a non-standard dialect is probably difficult to define, and in some situations not even a meaningful and useful concept (Politzer 1993: 56). The opposite obtains in SLA, where input that is made comprehensible to learners is essential for the acquisition of the target language.
3. (c)  SLA learners are always aware whether they are speaking or listening to their own language or the target language (Valdés 1997: 23). This is often not the case with second-dialect speakers.
4. (d) Speakers of a non-standard variety usually understand, although to different degrees, the target dialect since it is frequently part of their stored linguistic knowledge. However, they are often unaware of this knowledge. For this reason, one of the pedagogical objectives is to contribute to the conscious differentiation of the two codes (dual linguistic competence) (Danesi 1986).
5. (e)  The acquisition of a second dialect would appear to be easier than the acquisition of a new, entirely different language. There are, however, no empirical studies that prove or disprove this intuitive assumption (Escure 1997: 7).

In summary: there are several similarities between SLA and SDA, but there are also significant differences between the two processes. It is reasonable to assume therefore that SLA theory cannot readily be applied as a framework for SDA.³ This creates a circular problem: on the one hand, there is no appropriate theory to be used as framework for SDA studies, and on the other, there are not enough studies that could be used to formulate principles and theories. Valdés (1997: 23-25) advocates undertaking empirical research on the acquisition of the standard variety, which could then lead to the development of theories. This, in turn, could guide and support pedagogy as well as “inform many other bilingual groups in the United States that are also facing the slow erosion of their languages” (Valdés 1997: 32).

1.3. Objectives of this investigation

The focus of this study is to examine how Hispanic heritage learners acquire standard Spanish in a language contact situation. More specifically, this investigation analyzes the acquisition of the standard variety of Spanish by bilingual (English / Spanish) university students from Houston. The objective is to describe the interdialectal system of a specific morphosyntactic structure (the expression of conditionality) produced by learners enrolled in SHL courses. The results are then compared to those obtained from monolingual (English) university students attending traditional courses of Spanish as a foreign language.

The rationale for this study is to provide empirical research that examines linguistic differences between heritage and non-heritage learners (Draper & Hicks 2000, Kondo-Brown 2003). As Kondo-Brown points out, the academic world recognizes the many differences between heritage and traditional learners, but these differences remain mostly hypothetical and “need to be validated by empirical evidence collected both from heritage learners and non-heritage learners in future research” (2003: 6). Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, this research attempts to answer the following pertinent questions:

1. (1)  How do Hispanic heritage learners and traditional foreign language students of Spanish differ from each other in their acquisition of the standard / academic variety of Spanish? More specifically,
   1. (a)  is the grouping of students into heritage learners and traditional learners justifiable?
   2. (b)  after formal instruction, do heritage learners produce a higher number of expected (standard) forms than traditional learners?
   3. (c)  do extralinguistic factors influence the outcomes, and if so, what are these factors?
2. (2)  Given different elicitation tasks such as cloze-tests, paragraph writing, and oral production, do heritage learners produce a higher number of standard forms in tasks where more attention is paid to form?
3. (3)  After instruction, what are the main differences between the H^er-Group and the T^rad-Group in the oral production of hypotheticals?
4. (4)  Is the Spanish dialect of a heritage speaker displaced when Standard Spanish is acquired in a college or university setting? Or is it an additive process whereby new forms are incorporated into the existing system?
5. (5)  If the (Spanish) linguistic system is incomplete due to lack of acquisition, do heritage learners fill the gaps with newly learned standard forms?
6. (6)  Is formal explicit grammatical instruction an effective tool for SDA?

1.4. Theoretical framework

Before proceeding to outline the subsequent chapters, it is necessary to provide a basic theoretical framework for this investigation. To conduct this type of study on language acquisition using Chomsky’s Universal Grammar-based approach would be inappropriate. According to Flynn, UG-based approaches assume that acquiring a “grammar” implies “acquiring a particular system of linguistic laws” or principles that rule the linguistic competence of an individual, and not “learning a language” (1996: 126). If the purpose of a study is to describe the acquisition process by looking at the production of the learners and taking into account certain social variables, a sociolinguistic framework that explains the covariation among linguistic (internal) and external factors by means of a quantitative analysis is more appropriate. Ellis (1994a: 119-120) for example, indicates that variability is “a pervasive feature of learner language”, and that it can be best described by socio-linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches. He offers a typology of variability in learner language with a basic distinction between synchronic (horizontal) and diachronic (vertical) variation. He distinguishes several subdivisions, including (a) inter-learner variation (which accounts for individual learner factors such as motivation, personality, etc.) and (b) intra-learner variation (see Figure 1).

Intra-learner variation can show free variation or systematic variation. The systematic variation depends on factors such as the linguistic context, the situational context (which includes elements such as setting, participants, topic, etc., usually responsible for style variation), and the psycholinguistic context (time for planning, monitoring, etc.). Task-related variation is usually associated with one of those contexts. Studies by Tarone (1979, 1982, 1983) indicate that interlanguage varies systematically with elicitation task: the more careful the style, the higher the number of target-like or prestige native-language forms. Larsen-Freeman & Long explain that Tarone views a learner’s interlanguage as a continuum of styles:

Using a sociolinguistic perspective and following the above-mentioned models of variation, this investigation studies the variability found in the expression of conditionality at both individual and group levels in the manner outlined in the following section.

1.5. Outline of the study

Chapter 2 offers a detailed account of conditionality. It discusses the rationale behind the choice of this variable, and includes definitions, typologies, alternatives, and a review of diachronic and synchronic variation studies. Also included in this section are references to the few studies that have been conducted on the acquisition of conditionality.

Chapter 3