Cover not available

Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 15:6 (2025) ► pp.812–842

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

Facilitative use of classifiers in heritage Vietnamese

ORCiD logo with link | University of California San Diego
ORCiD logo with link | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of California, San Diego.

Published online: 2 December 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.24001.ngu
Abstract
Recent research has highlighted the value of investigating the online language processing of heritage speakers (HS) as a means of accessing their implicit language knowledge ( (2023). The psycholinguistics of heritage language acquisition. In A. Godfroid & H. Hopp (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). While studies have shown that Spanish and Polish HS use grammatical gender cues to predict upcoming nouns (Fuchs, Z. (2022a). Eyetracking evidence for heritage speakers’ access to abstract syntactic agreement features in real-time processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 131, 960376. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (2022b). Facilitative use of grammatical gender in Heritage Spanish. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 12(6), 845–871. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), less is known about Vietnamese HS’ use of prenominal classifiers (e.g., con for animate objects, cái for inanimate objects) to facilitate their processing (but see Ito, A., Nguyen, H. T. T., & Knoeferle, P. (2024). German-dominant Vietnamese heritage speakers use semantic constraints of German for anticipation during comprehension in Vietnamese. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 27(1), 57–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This study examined if and how home-country raised and heritage speakers of Vietnamese in the U.S. use classifiers to facilitate the processing of upcoming nouns, and whether heritage language proficiency is a modulating factor. Forty-one adult native speakers of Vietnamese (18 home-country raised, 23 HS) completed a visual-world eye-tracking experiment, an offline cloze test to assess knowledge of classifier–noun pairings, and a Vietnamese listening proficiency test. The results indicate that despite more variable knowledge of classifier–noun pairings and generally slower lexical access, HS use classifiers as a semantically informative cue during real-time comprehension, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent than their home-country raised peers. Increased proficiency in the heritage language, whether measured objectively or self-rated, was not found to enhance engagement in prediction.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Processing of classifiers among adult L1 speakers
    • 2.2Processing of classifiers in L2
    • 2.3Online processing of noun class information by heritage speakers
    • 2.4Classifiers in Vietnamese
  • 3.This study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials
      • 3.2.1Language Background Questionnaire (LBQ)
      • 3.2.2Vietnamese Listening Proficiency Test (VLPT)
      • 3.2.3Visual-world experiment
      • 3.2.4Classifier–noun pairing test
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Classifier–noun pairing test
      • 4.1.1Typical nouns
      • 4.1.2Atypical nouns
    • 4.2Visual-world experiment
      • 4.2.1Mouse-click accuracy
      • 4.2.2Eye-gaze: Typical nouns
      • 4.2.3The role of proficiency
      • 4.2.4Eye gaze: Atypical nouns
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Limitations and future directions
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Data availability statement
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (52)
References
ACTFL. 2012. ACTFL proficiency guidelines. ACTFL.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Adams, K. L. (1989). Systems of numeral classification in the Mon-Khmer, Nicobarese and Asian subfamilies of Austroasiatic (Pacific Linguistics B101). Australian National University Press. Retrieved from [URL]
Brown, J. D. (2014). Classical theory reliability. In A. J. Kunnan (Ed.), The companion to language assessment. Wiley Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cao, X. H. (1988). The count/mass distinction in Vietnamese and the concept οf “classifier.” STUF — Language Typology and Universals, 41(1–6). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dao, L. (2012). The Vietnamese classifiers ‘CON’, ‘CÁI’ and the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach: a preliminary study. In M. Ponsonnet, L. Dao & M. Bowler (Eds), Proceedings of the 42nd Australian Linguistic Society Conference — 2011 (pp. 58–74), Australian National University, Canberra ACT, 2–4 December 2011.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dietrich, S. & Hernandez, E. (2022, August). Language use in the United States: 2019. American Community Survey Reports. United States Census Bureau. [URL]
Dussias, P. E., Valdés Kroff, J. R., Guzzardo Tamargo, R. E., & Gerfen, C. (2013). When gender and looking go hand in hand: Grammatical gender processing in L2 Spanish. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35(2), 353–387. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuchs, Z. (2022a). Eyetracking evidence for heritage speakers’ access to abstract syntactic agreement features in real-time processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 131, 960376. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2022b). Facilitative use of grammatical gender in Heritage Spanish. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 12(6), 845–871. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grüter, T., Lau, E., & Ling, W. (2020). How classifiers facilitate predictive processing in L1 and L2 Chinese: The role of semantic and grammatical cues. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 35(2), 221–234. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grüter, T., Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2012). Grammatical gender in L2: A production or a real-time processing problem? Second Language Research, 28(2), 191–215. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hao, J., Chondrogianni, V., & Sturt, P. (2024). Heritage language development and processing: Non-canonical word orders in Mandarin–English child heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 27(3), 334–349. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopp, H. (2013). Grammatical gender in adult L2 acquisition: Relations between lexical and syntactic variability. Second Language Research, 29(1), 33–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huettig, F., Chen, J., Bowerman, M., & Majid, A. (2010). Do language-specific categories shape conceptual processing? Mandarin classifier distinctions influence eye gaze behavior, but only during linguistic processing. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 10(1–2), 39–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hui, S. S. (2003). The semantics and grammar of Vietnamese classifiers [Thesis, National University of Singapore]. [URL]
Ito, A., Corley, M., & Pickering, M. J. (2018). A cognitive load delays predictive eye movements similarly during L1 and L2 comprehension. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 21(2), 251–264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ito, A., Nguyen, H. T. T., & Knoeferle, P. (2024). German-dominant Vietnamese heritage speakers use semantic constraints of German for anticipation during comprehension in Vietnamese. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 27(1), 57–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ito, A., & Pickering, M. J. (2021). Automaticity and prediction in non-native language comprehension. In E. Kaan & T. Grüter (Eds.), Bilingual Processing and Acquisition (Vol. 121, pp. 26–46). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jegerski, J., & Sekerina, I. A. (2021). The psycholinguistics of heritage languages. In S. Montrul & M. Polinsky (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics (1st ed., pp. 449–470). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaan, E., & Grüter, T. (2021). Prediction in second language processing and learning: advances and directions. In E. Kaan & T. Grüter (Eds.), Prediction in second language processing and learning (pp. 2–24). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, H., & Grüter, T. (2021). Predictive processing of implicit causality in a second language: A visual-world eye-tracking study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 43(1), 133–154. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klein, N. M., Carlson, G. N., Li, R., Jaeger, T. F., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2012). Classifying and massifying incrementally in Chinese language comprehension. In D. Massam (Ed.), Count and Mass Across Languages. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuperberg, G. R., & Jaeger, T. F. (2016). What do we mean by prediction in language comprehension? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31(1), 32–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kupisch, T., & Rothman, J. (2018). Terminology matters! Why difference is not incompleteness and how early child bilinguals are heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 22(5), 564–582. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lau, E., & Grüter, T. (2015). Real-time processing of classifier information by L2 speakers of Chinese. In E. Grillo & K. Jepson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 311–323). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Le, D.-T., & Quasthoff, U. (2016). Construction and analysis of a large Vietnamese text corpus. Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’16), 412–416. [URL]
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2007). Young children learning Spanish make rapid use of grammatical gender in spoken word recognition. Psychological Science, 18(3), 193–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009). Fluency in using morphosyntactic cues to establish reference: How do native and non-native speakers differ? In J. Chandlee, M. Franchini, S. Lord, & G. Rheiner (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 290–301). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). Real-time processing of gender-marked articles by native and non-native Spanish speakers. Journal of Memory and Language, 63(4), 447–464. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macbeth, A., Atagi, N., Montag, J. L., Bruni, M. R., & Chiarello, C. (2022). Assessing language background and experiences among heritage bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology, 131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matin, E., Shao, K. C., & Boff, K. R. (1993). Saccadic overhead: Information-processing time with and without saccades. Perception & Psychophysics, 53(4), 372–380. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mitsugi, S. (2020). Generating predictions based on semantic categories in a second language: A case of numeral classifiers in Japanese. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 58(3), 323–349. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, S. (2011). Introduction: The linguistic competence of heritage speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33(2), 155–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). The psycholinguistics of heritage language acquisition. In A. Godfroid & H. Hopp (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, S., Davidson, J., De La Fuente, I., & Foote, R. (2014). Early language experience facilitates the processing of gender agreement in Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(1), 118–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nagano, T. (2015). Demographics of adult heritage language speakers in the united states: Differences by region and language and their implications. The Modern Language Journal, 99(4), 771–792. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nguyen, H. D. (1957). Classifiers in Vietnamese. WORD, 13(1), 124–152. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ortega, L. (2020). The study of heritage language development from a bilingualism and social justice perspective. Language Learning, 701, 15–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paradis, J. (2023). Sources of individual differences in the dual language development of heritage bilinguals. Journal of Child Language, 50(4), 793–817. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pham, G., & Kohnert, K. (2008). A corpus-based analysis of Vietnamese ‘classifiers’ con and cái. Mon-Khmer Studies, 381, 161–171.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2013). An integrated theory of language production and comprehension. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(4), 329–347. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polinsky, M., & Kagan, O. (2007). Heritage languages: In the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1(5), 368–395. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothman, J. (2009). Understanding the nature and outcomes of early bilingualism: Romance languages as heritage languages. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2), 155–163. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothman, J., Bayram, F., DeLuca, V., Di Pisa, G., Duñabeitia, J. A., Gharibi, K., … Wulff, S. (2023). Monolingual comparative normativity in bilingualism research is out of “control”: Arguments and alternatives. Applied Psycholinguistics, 44(3), 316–329. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schlenter, J. (2023). Prediction in bilingual sentence processing: How prediction differs in a later learned language from a first language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 26(2), 253–267. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shook, A., Goldrick, M., Engstler, C., and Marian, V. (2015). Bilinguals show weaker lexical access during spoken sentence comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 441, 789–802. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stone, K., Lago, S., & Schad, D. J. (2021). Divergence point analyses of visual world data: Applications to bilingual research. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 24(5), 833–841. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tran, J. (2010). Child acquisition of Vietnamese classifier phrases. Journal of Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 3(2), 111–137.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). The acquisition of Vietnamese classifiers. [PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii at Mānoa]. Scholarspace Manoa Hawaii. [URL]
Tsang, C., & Chambers, C. G. (2011). Appearances aren’t everything: Shape classifiers and referential processing in Cantonese. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37(5), 1065–1080. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue