This study investigates the motivations of both heritage and non-heritage students of Portuguese at two universities in Rhode Island where Portuguese-speaking migrant communities have settled and their language has strong visibility. Attention is drawn to motivation since it is known to be a significant factor in the development of linguistic…

The present dissertation brings together research on heritage language acquisition and bilingual education and makes inroads into the limited research on heritage language development in school-aged bilingual children. This study explores how bilingual education, patterns of exposure, and lexical frequency shape adolescent Spanish heritage…

This article reports on an experimental study on the acquisition of prepositional relative clauses in second language European Portuguese by Chinese native speakers. It focuses on the role of resumption, mandatory in prepositional relative clauses in Chinese (the native language of the learners) and non-conventional in European Portuguese (the…

Multilingualism is often associated with advantages for acquiring additional languages. Theoretical approaches explain these advantages by assuming a Common Underlying Proficiency or a Metalinguistic Awareness. At the State Europe School in Berlin, students from different language backgrounds receive instruction in German and a partner language…

In this study, 118 native speakers of Japanese watched 48 separate video clips in which a teacher provided recasts on phonological or lexical errors to students in Portuguese, a language with which the participants were unfamiliar. In the video clips, six recast characteristics were manipulated: length, segmentation (segmented/whole), prosodic…

In the context of German linguistic policies, Heritage Language (HL) education ranges from formal and informal to non-formal offers. Families with migratory backgrounds seeking acquisition and maintenance of the HL frequently resort to educational or maintenance opportunities that are not institutionalized. In the region of Bavaria (Germany), the…

This exploratory study focuses on changes in the accomplishment of requests by an adult English as an additional language speaker/ learner interacting on WhatsApp for nine months. The analysis follows a microanalytic approach to digital interaction informed by recent developments within longitudinal conversation analysis. It unpacks the array of…

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.…

Using a case study design, we compared two prior-service cadets learning Portuguese at a United States (U.S.) military academy on how they dealt with aspects of foreign language learning (FLL). In particular, we explored how three specific components contributed to the formation of the cadets' second language (L2) motivational selves. These were…

The use of linking or glottalization contributes to the characteristic sound pattern of a language, and the use of one in place of the other may affect a speaker's comprehensibility and fluency in certain contexts. In this study, native speakers of Czech, a language that is associated with a frequent use of glottalization in vowel-initial word…

This study investigated multiple learning motivation aspects of Chinese university students in Macau majoring in Spanish and Portuguese. A mixed methods research was employed by using questionnaires and interviews. 181 learners (96 Portuguese and 85 Spanish majors) were surveyed about ten language-learning motivation dimensions by using a…

This article reports on an investigation into the bilingual development of literacy skills in Portuguese heritage language speakers in Switzerland in which we sought to put Cummins' linguistic interdependence hypothesis to the test. Three predictions were derived from this hypothesis: (1) Literacy skill levels in one of the bilinguals' languages…

Over the last several years, we have been witness to a growing body of work that examines the acquisition of Portuguese as a third language (L3). Here in the United States, Spanish speakers account for 45% of students enrolled in Portuguese classes (Milleret 2012), divided among first language (L1) Spanish speakers, second language (L2) Spanish…

As the popularity of two-way immersion (TWI) programs increases across the U.S., recent scholarship has drawn attention to inequities in who benefits from these programs and how they are implemented. These findings have drawn the field's attention to the instrumental part played by particular stakeholders in TWI program implementation. While this…

There is a call for multilingual pedagogies including the use of literacy in several languages in early childhood education. However, many practitioners find it difficult to challenge the dominant language ideologies and are unsure of how to develop literacy practices in multiple languages. This paper is based in Luxembourg where a multilingual…