This ethnography analysis presents the translingual academic moments -- moments in an academic interaction where both Spanish and English are used -- of a group of six Spanish Heritage Language students who work as academic peer tutors in a Spanish for Heritage Speakers Program at a large public university. The analysis of peer-tutor interviews…

In line with the increased interest in studying implicit language attitudes, this study aims to explore implicit attitudes towards Catalan and Spanish in the multicultural and multilingual context of Catalonia (Spain) using the Implicit Association Test (IAT). A sample of 113 adolescents completed the IAT and a set of explicit measures of…

Adult second language learners often show considerable individual variability in the ease with which lexical tones are learned. It is known that factors pertaining to a learner's first language (L1; such as L1 tonal status or L1 tone type) as well as extralinguistic factors (such as musical experience and working memory) modulate tone learning…

Languages differ regarding the depth, structure, and syntactic domains of recursive structures. Even within a single language, some structures allow infinite self-embedding while others are more restricted. For example, when expressing ownership relation, English allows infinite embedding of the prenominal genitive "-s," whereas the…

Heritage Language Instruction (HLI) is a resource used in many immigration-receiving countries that allows students with an immigrant background to continue to be in contact with their Heritage Language (HL). However, many of the psycholinguistic effects of this instruction are still unknown. This study aims to provide an in-depth view of the…

Paradis' (2023) keynote article is a timely documentation of the ongoing shift in focus within childhood bilingualism research from investigating the factors that modulate majority or second language (ML/L2) attainment (Chondrogianni & Marinis, 2011) to understanding the sources of variation that lead to minority heritage language (HL)…

This paper explores two prominent strands of inquiry within new materialism -- Deleuze and Guattari's assemblage thinking and Karen Barad's agential realism -- and situates them in relation to language studies. While a singular definition of new materialist scholarship is not feasible, we argue that the selected approaches have potential to come…

Family language policy (FLP) is increasingly recognised as a distinct domain of language policy concerned with the family as an arena of language policy formulation and implementation. While FLP is a relatively new research area, its conceptualisation of family and language practice requires re-examination due to social changes and technological…

This study employed qualitative research methodology to investigate pre-service teachers' perceptions of L1 use in language classrooms and their reflections on mentor teachers' L1 use during practicum. In this way, the purpose of this study is to obtain a new perspective on the mentoring process of pre-service teachers during practicum,…

Background: According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS, 2006 with 87%, 2011 with 82%, 2016 with 78%, 2021 with 81%), an international reading comprehension assessment conducted at the Grade 4 level, South African learners perform very poorly in reading comprehension, even when reading in their African home languages.…

A vast amount of Latina/o/x students enroll in US public schools with the potential to become bilingual in English and Spanish. However, this potential is often dismissed, ignored, and their Spanish is perceived as a problem to be overcome. Despite this, some Latina/o/x bilingual students decide to become Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL)…

We present a curricular intervention in elementary Spanish heritage language in a Hispanic serving institution located in the US Northeast (Bronx, NYC), that aims to contextualize Latinx students' experiences and perceptions of Blackness within broader histories of oppression and enslavement. Our practice brings together critical Latinx pedagogy…

Heritage Spanish speakers (HSSs) in the U.S. who seek certification as bilingual teachers must show Spanish language proficiency. The state of Texas requires candidates to pass the Bilingual Target Language Proficiency Test (BTLPT) a test seen as a gatekeeping mechanism (Clark & Flores, 2002) in a field that presents chronic shortage of…

Most bilingual children often display greater proficiency and preference for one of their two languages. Researchers refer to this asymmetry as language dominance. However, despite being possible to determine the overall language dominance in bilinguals, there may be substantial flexibility in their language use. In particular, the relative ease…

Linguistic meaning is generated by the mind and can be expressed in multiple languages. One may assume that equivalent texts/utterances in two languages by means of translation generate equivalent meanings in their readers/hearers. This follows if we assume that meaning calculated from the linguistic input is solely objective in nature. However,…