Naslov
Variation in late bilinguals’ linguistic development: evidence from personal narratives

Autori
Štokovac, Tarita ; Poropat Jeletić, Nada

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BILINGUALISM - MALTA 2015, Book of Abstracts / - Valletta : University of Malta, 2015, 119-120

Skup
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BILINGUALISM - MALTA 2015

Mjesto i datum
Valletta, Malta, 23.03.2015. - 25.03.2015

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
linguistic development; personal narratives; SLA

Sažetak
It has been widely acknowledged that second language learners’ autobiographical narratives offer a valuable insight into the idiosyncrasies of learners’ experiences, the dynamics of identity construction and the processes and factors affecting L2 acquisition. Drawing on the insights from (auto)biographical and person-in -context approaches to SLA, this paper seeks to explore variation in second language proficiency among speakers who acquired a minority language in adulthood and relate it to individual histories of language acquisition. The authors will present the findings of an ongoing research study of five adult Croatian women who moved in their twenties to the Croatian Istria County, a geographically unique peninsula that has been historically populated by the Italian national community. Along with the standard, official varieties of Croatian and Italian, a number of regional idioms and dialects are spoken in the region, among which Istro-Venetian, a dialect of the Italian language. The participants in the study married bilingual speakers of Croatian and Istro- Venetian and have been exposed to the Istro- Venetian dialect both in the family and the larger social context for over 20 years. All of them picked up the Istro-Venetian dialect achieving different levels of L2 proficiency, ranging from minimal to near-native. Independent ratings of L2 oral proficiency were based on the participants' performance in a recorded ten-minute speech in the Istro- Venetian dialect. Personal narratives were collected through semi-structured interviews during which participants were invited to reflect on their pre- and post- migratory language learning experiences and on the processes and factors affecting their L2 acquisition. The content analysis showed that the variation in proficiency levels achieved by the participants was strongly affected by four major factors: motivation, agency, identity, and in-group and out-group attitudes. However, despite similar initial conditions, individual developmental trajectories reveal a complex interplay of the four factors attributing to the proficiency of each participant. Implications of the abovementioned findings will be discussed.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

POVEZANOST RADA