Cover not available

Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 11:6 (2021) ► pp.753–782

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

A usage-based approach to productive use of inflectional patterns and level of lemma sophistication in adult heritage speakers’ performance

Convergence on the immigrant variety

 | Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University
Published online: 22 June 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.18019.kar
Abstract
Adopting a usage-based perspective, the present study assesses the mental lexicon of Turkish heritage speakers in the UK (HSs, n = 31) regarding the productive use of formulaic inflectional suffix templates and the level of sophistication of the lemmas produced in free speech. We additionally explore input-related predictors of this performance by comparing HS performance to that of a group of previous generation immigrant bilinguals (IBs, n = 61), who are representative input providers, and of a group of monolinguals (n = 44). The results show that overall, both the HSs and IBs diverge from the monolinguals in that they use nominal suffix sequences less productively and rely on less sophisticated nominal lemmas. Their verbal productivity performance, however, remains intact. We argue that altered input results in a performance which diverges from that of the monolinguals but converges on the immigrant variety. The individual variability is partly explained by the amount of L1 passive exposure, indicating that the HSs are not sensitive only to the changes in the input available to them but also to the amount of it. These findings provide new insights into the line of research that describes HSs as incomplete due to their L1-divergent skills in comparison to a monolingual baseline.
Article outline
  • 1.Background to the study
  • 2.Usage-based approaches and their relevance for the current study
  • 3.Inflectional word formation in Turkish and previous studies
  • 4.The current study
  • 5.Methodology
    • 5.1Participants
    • 5.2The corpus, transcription and lemmatisation of the data
    • 5.3Establishing the suffix formulas and the formulaic productivity measure
    • 5.4Level of lemma sophistication
    • 5.5Predictors
      • 5.5.1Overall suffix template type frequency
      • 5.5.2Lemma frequency
      • 5.5.3Amount of L1 contact
      • 5.5.4Other non-linguistic factors
    • 5.6Analysis of the data
  • 6.Results
  • 7.Discussion
  • 8.Conclusion and future directions
  • Notes
  • References
References (64)
References
Aksu-Koç, A., & Ketrez, F. N. (2003). Early verbal morphology in Turkish: Emergence of inflection. In D. Bittner, W. U. Dressler, & M. Kilani-Schoch (Eds.), Development of verb inflection in first language acquisition: A cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 27–52). Berlin: New York: Mouton de Griyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aksu-Koç, A., & Slobin, D. I. (1985). Acquisition of Turkish. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition (Vol. 11, pp. 839–878). NJ:Erdbaum: Hillsdale.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baayen, H. (2009). Corpus linguistics in morphology: Morphological productivity. In A. Lüdeling & M. Kytö (Eds.), Corpus linguistics, an international handbook (Vol. 21, pp. 899–919). Berlin : New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baayen, H., Davidson, D. J., & Bates, D. M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59(4), 390–412. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C., & Tily, H. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68(3), 255–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beckner, C., Blythe, R., Bybee, J., Christiansen, M. H., Croft, W., Ellis, N. C., … Schoenemann, T. (2009). Language is a complex adaptive system: Position paper. Language Learning, 591, 1–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Behrens, H. (2009). Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition. Linguistics, 47(2), 383–411. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benmamoun, E., Montrul, S., & Polinsky, M. (2013). Heritage languages and their speakers: Opportunities and challenges for linguistics. Theoretical Linguistics, 39(3–4), 129–181. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bilgin, O. (2016). Frequency effects in the processing of morphologically complex Turkish words (Master Thesis, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul). Retrieved from [URL]
Blumenthal-Dramé, A. (2012). Entrenchment in usage-based theories, what corpus data do and do not reveal about the mind. Berlin, Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L. (1988). Morphology as lexical organization. In M. Hammond & M. Noonan (Eds.), Theoretical morphology: Approaches in modern linguistics (pp. 119–141). San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1998). The emergent lexicon. In M. C. Gruber, D. Higgins, K. S. Olson, & T. Wysocki (Eds.), Papers from the panels: The status of constraints; the acquisition of spoken language; acquisition and the lexicon (pp. 421–435). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Retrieved from [URL]
(2001). Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chamorro, G., Sorace, A., & Sturt, P. (2016). What is the source of L1 attrition? The effect of recent L1 re-exposure on Spanish speakers under L1 attrition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19(3), 520–532. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dressler, W. U., Kilani-Schoch, M., & Klampfer, S. (2003). How does a child detect morphology? Evidence from production. In Harald Baayen & R. Schreuder (Eds.), Morphological structure in language processing (pp. 391–425). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Durrant, P. (2013). Formulaicity in an agglutinating language: The case of Turkish. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 9(1), 1–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellis, N. C. (2002). Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24(2), 143–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gal, S. (1989). Lexical innovation and loss: The use and value of restricted Hungarian. In N. C. Dorian (Ed.), Investigating obsolescence: Studies in language contraction and death (pp. 313–335). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M. (2007). Miami and North Wales, so far and yet so near: A constructivist account of morphosyntactic development in bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10(3), 224–247. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gharibi, K. (2016). Incomplete acquisition, attrition and maintenance of heritage speakers’ family language: Iranians in New Zealand (PhD dissertation, Victoria University of Wellington). Retrieved from [URL]
Göksel, A., & Kerslake, C. (2005). Turkish a comprehensive grammar. London ; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gries, S. T. (2015). The most under-used statistical method in corpus linguistics: Multi-level (and mixed-effects) models. Corpora, 10(1), 95–125. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gries, S. T., & Ellis, N. C. (2015). Statistical measures for usage-based linguistics. Language Learning, 65(S1), 228–255. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gürel, A. (1999). Decomposition: To what extent? The case of Turkish. Brain and Language, 68(1–2), 218–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hankamer, J. (1989). Morphological parsing and the lexicon. In W. Marslen-Wilson (Eds.), Lexical representation and process (pp. 392–408). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hulsen, M. E. H. (2000). Language loss and language processing: Three generations of Dutch migrants in New Zealand (Doctoral dissertation, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacob, G., Şafak, D. F., Demir, O., & Kırkıcı, B. (2019). Preserved morphological processing in heritage speakers: A masked priming study on Turkish. Second Language Research, 35(2), 173–194. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jarvis, S. (2013). Capturing the diversity in lexical diversity. Language Learning, 63(s1), 87–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Karayayla, T. (2020). Effects of first language attrition on heritage language input and ultimate attainment: Two generations of Turkish immigrants in the UK. In B. Brehmer & J. Treffers-Daller (Eds.), Lost in Transmission: The role of attrition and input in heritage language development (pp. 33–69). Amsterdam: Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keijzer, M. (2007). Last in first out?: An investigation of the regression hypothesis in Dutch emigrants in Anglophone Canada (Doctoral Dissertation). Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ketrez, F. N., & Aksu-Koç, A. (2009). Early nominal morphology in Turkish: Emergence of case and number. In U. Stephany & M. D. Voeikova (Eds.), Development of nominal inflection in first language acquisition: A cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 15–48). Berlin : New York: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, M. S. (2013). The mental lexicon of low-proficiency Korean heritage learners. Heritage Language Journal, 10(1), 17–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Küntay, A. C., & Slobin, D. I. (2001). Discourse behavior of lexical categories in Turkish child directed speech: Nouns vs. verbs. In M. Almgren, A. Barrena, Maria-J. Ezeizaberrana, I. Idiazabar, & B. McWhinney (Eds.), Research on child language acquisitionp proceedings of the 8th conference of the international association for the study of child language (Vol. 21, pp. 928–946). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). Grammaticalization and cognitive grammar. In H. Narrog & B. Heine (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization (pp. 79–91). Madison Avenue, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Luke, S. G. (2017). Evaluating significance in linear mixed-effects models in R. Behavior Research Methods, 49(4), 1494–1502. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk (3rd ed.). Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). The acquisition of heritage languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, S., & Foote, R. (2014). Age of acquisition interactions in bilingual lexical access: A study of the weaker language of L2 learners and heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 18(3), 274–303. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oflazer, K., Say, B., Hakkani-Tür, D. Z., & Tür, G. (2003). Building a Turkish treebank. In A. Abeille (Ed.), Treebanks:Building and using syntactically annotated corpora (pp. 261–277). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Grady, W. (2008). The emergentist program. Lingua, 118(4), 447–464. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Grady, W., Lee, O.-S., & Lee, J.-H. (2011). Practical and theoretical issues in the study of heritage language acquisition. Heritage Language Journal, 8(3), 23–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Özel, S. A., Bektaş, Y., & Yılmazer, H. (2016). Formulaicity in Turkish: Evidence from the Turkish National Corpus. Mersin Üniversitesi Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi MEUDED, 13(2), 1–33.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pascual y Cabo, D., & Rothman, J. (2012). The (il)logical problem of heritage speaker bilingualism and incomplete acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 33(4), 450–455. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pires, A., & Rothman, J. (2009). Disentangling sources of incomplete acquisition: An explanation for competence divergence across heritage grammars. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2), 211–238. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polinsky, M. (2005). Word class distinctions in an incomplete grammar. In D. Ravid & H. Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (Eds.), Perspectives on language and language development (pp. 419–436). Dordrecht Netherlands: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polinsky, M., & Scontras, G. (2020). Understanding heritage languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(1), 4–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2016). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R foundation for statistical computing. Retrieved from [URL]
Rakhilina, E., Vyrenkova, A., & Polinsky, M. (2016). Linguistic creativity in heritage speakers. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 1(1), 1–29. [URL]
Rothman, J. (2007). Heritage speaker competence differences, language change, and input type: Inflected infinitives in Heritage Brazilian Portuguese. International Journal of Bilingualism, 11(4), 359–389. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sak, H., Güngör, T., & Saraçlar, M. (2008). Turkish language resources: Morphological parser, morphological disambiguator and web corpus. In B. Nordström & A. Ranta (Eds.), Advances in natural language processing GoTAL 2008 (2008 ed., pp. 417–427). Retrieved from [URL].
Schmid, M. S. (2011). Language attrition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013). First language attrition. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 4(2), 117–123. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmid, M. S., & Dusseldorp, E. (2010). Quantitative analyses in a multivariate study of language attrition: The impact of extralinguistic factors. Second Language Research, 26(1), 125–160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmid, M. S., & Jarvis, S. (2014). Lexical access and lexical diversity in first language attrition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(04), 729–748. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmid, M. S., & Köpke, B. (2017). The relevance of first language attrition to theories of bilingual development. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 7(6), 637–667. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seliger, H. W. (1991). Language attrition, reduced redundancy, and creativity. In Herbert W. Seliger & R. M. Vago (Eds.), First language attrition (pp. 227–240). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sezer, T., & Sever Sezer, B. (2013). TS corpus: Herkes için Türkçe derlem. Proceedings of the 27th National Linguistics Conference, 217–225. Available online at [URL]
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Treffers-Daller, J., Daller, M., Furman, R., & Rothman, J. (2016). Ultimate attainment in the use of collocations among heritage speakers of Turkish in Germany and Turkish–German returnees. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19(3), 504–519. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yılmaz, G. (2013). Bilingual language development among the first generation Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands (Doctoral Dissertation). University of Groningen, Groningen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yılmaz, G., & Schmid, M. S. (2012). L1 accessibility among Turkish-Dutch bilinguals. The Mental Lexicon, 7(3), 249–274. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Felser, Claudia & Serkan Uygun
2022. Optional Plural Agreement in Heritage Turkish Speakers’ Verb Form Choices. Heritage Language Journal 19:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Gedik, Tan Arda
2022. A Usage-Based Constructionist Approach to Evidentiality in Turkish: The Unevidentiality Construction. Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 16:1 ► pp. 61 ff. DOI logo
Perez-Cortes, Silvia & David Giancaspro
2022. (In)frequently asked questions: On types of frequency and their role(s) in heritage language variability. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue