Events
Seminar on Heritage Languages: Mihaela Pîrvulescu, Alexandru Mardale & Elena Soare
Speakers: Mihaela Pîrvulescu, Alexandru Mardale & Elena Soare (University of Paris 8 & CNRS Structures Formelles du Langage)
Title: The acquisition of generic plural nouns in Heritage Romanian in a trilingual setting
Date/time: February 23, 4-6 PM
Abstract
This presentation investigates the use of plural nouns in the generic context among two groups of heritage speakers of Romanian: one group of children who were born and raised in an anglophone environment in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, and are learning French as a third language (L3) in various immersion programs; another group of children born and raised in a francophone environment in Paris and surroundings, who are learning English as a third language. Previous research has demonstrated that bilingual language acquisition is influenced by crosslinguistic factors, particularly regarding the interpretation and use of plural nouns in subject position within the generic context (e.g., Serratrice et al. 2009; Hervé and Serratrice 2018; Morales-Reyes & Arechabaleta-Regulez 2017). However, this issue has not yet been explored with children for whom one of the languages is a heritage language. Investigating this population is crucial, as heritage language acquisition involves factors known to affect the acquisition of genericity, such as language dominance and typology. Romanian presents an interesting case, overlapping with both English and French.