This study investigated three key issues in heritage language (HL) research. Previous research shows HL speakers have an advantage on oral production tasks compared to L2 speakers who instead perform better on written tasks. Furthermore, both L2 and HL speakers are claimed to have a "yes-bias" towards retaining ungrammaticality in GJTs.…

Measuring language dominance, broadly defined as the relative strength of each of a bilingual's two languages, remains a crucial methodological issue in bilingualism research. While various methods have been proposed, the Bilingual Language Profile (BLP) has been one of the most widely used tools for measuring language dominance. While previous…

While formal L3 morphosyntactic acquisition research has focused on the roles of the L1 versus L2 during the L3 initial stages, we examine their roles during development. Specifically, we explore whether the L3 (here, Portuguese) revision process after non-facilitative transfer differs whether the initial L3 representation reflects the L1 or L2.…

Home Language Surveys (HLS) are widely used by states as an initial screening tool to determine whether students should receive English as a Second Language (ESL) services. Parents/guardians are asked to complete the surveys when enrolling a student into a school. We collected surveys from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. We completed…

Purpose: The current study examined language control and code-switching in bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD) compared to bilingual peers with typical language development (TLD). In addition, proficiency in each language and cognitive control skills were examined as predictors of children's tendency to engage in…

The Matthew effects suggest that children who struggle when learning to read are less likely to read for pleasure later in life compared to children who ease into reading quickly. One aspect of early literacy instruction that might hamper reading progress is learning to read simultaneously in two languages. Despite the long-lasting and widespread…

Heritage language (HL) speakers seem to diverge from monolingual speakers in the acquisition of syntax-discourse interface phenomena. However, most of the studies reporting this finding do not make any distinction between different types of syntax-discourse interface structures. Therefore, it is an open question whether these structures are…

This research project sought to explore the influence of English L2 on Spanish L1 in an environment where the L1 (Spanish) is the dominant language. Participants were recruited through voluntary response sampling at the University of Puerto Rico Secondary School (UHS). They completed a language survey on Google Forms that collected general…

This study aimed to clarify the relations between morphological awareness and literacy skills in Spanish and English in young simultaneous bilingual learners. Guided by theoretical perspectives on the associations between morphological awareness and word- versus sentence-level literacy skills, and their transfer between bilinguals' two languages,…

This study examined Spanish-Welsh (in Patagonia) and Welsh-English (in North Wales) bilingual children's and adults' processing of sentences in which two noun phrases acted as arguments of a verb. The goal was to determine the relative importance of distinct cues to the identification of the subject in the bilinguals' processing of their two…

Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo--European languages. This study extends the literature by using data (n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic…

This study attempts to tease apart the effect of dominant languages of communication on the acquisition of syntactic properties of L3 French in order to test the current L3 generative theories. Three groups of bilinguals took part in this study: L1 Persian/L2 English, with French as the dominant language of communication, L1 Persian/L2 English,…

The present study examines two factors in relation to English L3 proficiency development and school performance in a third language: (a) parental education and (b) second language exposure within the living community. Participants (n?=?50) are Italian L1 students with German L2 and English L3. All students (eighth grade, 14 years of age) were…

The present study examines and compares the extent to which advanced L2 learners of Spanish and Spanish heritage speakers acquire the syntactic and semantic properties that regulate the grammatical representation of double complementizer questions in Spanish, a CP-related structure not present in English. Results from an aural sentence completion…

This article discusses issues related to oral assessment of school knowledge of L2-educated students. In particular, it examines benefits and disadvantages of students being tested in their L1 (their dominant language) and in their L2 (their language of instruction). The study draws on the data from 37 high school students studying in a content…