Examining the flexibility of bilingual grammars through syntactic priming

Hurtado-Ruiz, Irati

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124137 Copy

Description

Title

Examining the flexibility of bilingual grammars through syntactic priming

Author(s)

Hurtado-Ruiz, Irati

Issue Date

2024-02-20

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Montrul, Silvina

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Montrul, Silvina

Committee Member(s)

• Ionin, Tania
• Jegerski, Jill
• MacDonald, Jonathan

Department of Study

Spanish & Portuguese

Discipline

Spanish

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• heritage speakers
• syntactic priming
• subject pronouns
• accusative clitic doubling

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of recent input on heritage speakers’ grammars. Prior research on heritage speakers’ competence has focused on the role of input throughout development by looking primarily at their linguistic outcomes. By looking at the role of recent input instead, one can shed light on the processes that guide heritage speakers’ linguistic interactions as well as determine whether this type of input can change heritage speakers’ grammars in a more permanent manner. Three groups of speakers were tested for the study: a group of heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S., a group of first-generation Hispanic immigrants also in the U.S., and a group of Spanish monolingually-raised speakers in a Spanish-speaking country. All groups completed three syntactic priming experiments (two of them following a within-language priming mode and one of them following a cross-linguistic priming mode) designed to prime them with variable innovative constructions in Spanish, namely overt subject pronouns (e.g., Yo voy a limpiar mi casa, ‘I am going to clean my house’) and accusative clitic doubling with postverbal full DPs (e.g., Juan la vio a la niña, ‘Juan saw her the girl’). Each syntactic priming experiment included a post-test task to measure potential long-term abstract priming effects. In addition to the three syntactic priming experiments, participants also completed two AJTs (one per construction) and some measures to control for several individual variables: language proficiency, language dominance, frequency of language use, and socio-economic status. Results showed that heritage speakers were significantly more primed in the two within- language priming experiments than the other two groups. Furthermore, syntactic priming effects were stronger in within-language mode than in cross-linguistic mode, and non-existent in any the three post-test tasks, with the exception of a few heritage speakers who did show some long-term abstract priming effects in one of the within-language priming experiments (accusative clitic doubling with postverbal full DPs). Lastly, the individual variables controlled for could not explain any of the results. Overall, most findings could be explained according to the degree of perceived innovative use of each prime structure, such that the more innovative a structure was considered to be, the weaker the priming effect was. This means that syntactic priming is primarily a linguistically-driven phenomenon and that its ability to change heritage speakers’ grammars in a more permanent manner is constrained by the perceived degree of innovation of the prime structure. In this regard, heritage speakers have a special susceptibility to syntactic priming due to their grammars being unstable and being more accepting towards linguistic innovations. Therefore, it is proposed that cross-dialectal contact (and not necessarily cross-linguistic) may be a strong source of linguistic innovations among heritage speakers living in language contact areas.

Graduation Semester

2024-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2024 Irati Hurtado-Ruiz

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