The role of cross-linguistic influence, internal dynamics, and register in heritage speakers' languages
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This monograph examines sources of variation in the grammars of heritage speakers, focusing on word order in Turkish and Kurmanji Kurdish as heritage languages in the contexts of majority German and majority Turkish. It evaluates several explanatory factors, including cross-linguistic influence, language-internal dynamics in the majority language, and register. The analysis also moves beyond a simple monolingual–bilingual comparison by including bilingual speakers for whom Turkish is the societal majority, shifting the focus from bilingualism to the heritage vs. majority status of the language. The empirical investigation follows the Research Unit Emerging Grammars (RUEG) “Language Situations” methodology. Participants described a short video in communicative situations differing in formality (WhatsApp message vs. police report) and mode (spoken vs. written). The dataset includes 104 participants across four speaker groups: heritage speakers of Turkish in Germany, heritage speakers of Turkish and Kurmanji in Germany, Turkish–Kurmanji bilinguals in Turkey, and monolingually raised Turkish speakers in Turkey. The analysis focuses on the post-predicate position in Turkish and Kurmanji Kurdish. Although the three contact languages - Kurmanji, Turkish, and German - are verb-final languages, all permit constituents after the predicate, though the conditions governing this position differ: information structure and discourse-pragmatic factors in Turkish, predicate semantics in Kurmanji, and syntactic structure in German. The results reveal different patterns across the two heritage languages. For Turkish, variation is largely shaped by register and language-internal dynamics. Differences between heritage and majority varieties are primarily related to heritage speakers’ reduced register flexibility: structures that are typical of informal settings in majority Turkish are extended to formal contexts in heritage Turkish. A register-sensitive analysis further reveals differences between Turkish monolingual and Kurmanji–Turkish bilingual majority speakers, with bilingual majority speakers exhibiting a greater use of structures typical of formal registers in informal contexts. This pattern may reflect an orientation toward more standard forms even in informal settings, possibly linked to majority language anxiety in bilingual speakers. In contrast, the Kurmanji data point to changes in word order but only at the level of certain constructions, likely reflecting the cross-linguistic influence from Turkish. Overall, the findings show that evidence for cross-linguistic influence is strongest in language contact situations characterized by longer and more intensive contact. At the same time, the results highlight the crucial role of register in shaping patterns of variation, particularly in languages where distinctions between registers are well established. Future research should therefore more systematically consider register and examine whether differences between bilingual and monolingual speakers may in fact reflect reduced register flexibility among bilinguals.
Author: Iefremenko, Kateryna
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204671121