Virtual: Thirteenth Heritage Language Virtual Research Institute

Join the University of North Carolina and Duke University from June 7-June 10 for online sessions on language similarity and language distance in bilingual/heritage situations. 

Researchers working on heritage languages and bilingualism more generally occasionally notice that the degree of heritage language maintenance varies depending on the dominant language of the bilingual dyad. For example, Spanish as a heritage language spoken in Germany seems to be weaker than Spanish as a heritage language with French as the dominant language. While some such differences in heritage language maintenance are undoubtedly attributable to societal factors, it is also important to consider the linguistic distance between the two languages and the role structural and genetic relations between languages in the bilingual dyad in the maintenance of the heritage member of that dyad.

The 13th Heritage Language Research Institute is designed to address these and related issues of linguistic distance and language or dialect similarity in the heritage context, both in relation to linguistic research and research-based language pedagogy. The Institute will give equal time/coverage to pedagogical and theoretical-linguistic approaches to heritage languages and will actively seek new ways to build synergies between these two approaches.

Abstracts are welcomed for presentations. Please check the Call for Abstracts webpage for more information.

If you have any questions, please contact us at cwl@international.ucla.edu. RSVP using this link.