1. • WORLD VIEW
• It is important to consider that parts of the cultural or natural heritage
are of outstanding interest and therefore need to be preserved as part
of the world heritage of mankind as a whole.
• Linguistic domains of heritage competence
• Maintaining Spanish in the United States: Steps Toward the
Effective Practice of Heritage Language Re-
acquisition/development (Valdes & Fishman, 2008)
• Contact and Contracting Spanish (Zapata, Sanchez,Toribio, 2005)
• Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and SLA research:
Opportunities lost or seized? (Valdes, 2005)
• Current Issues in Heritage Language Acquisition (Montrul, 2010)
• Heritage languages
• Literate students
• Unique stories
• Process of schooling
• Education
• Social & economic aspects
• Young adults in the ages between 18-25
• 20-25 participants
• Graduates of “Cesar Chavez High School”, have attended all four
years of high school.
• Heritage Speakers of Spanish
• Contact through personal knowledge or “snowball method”
(Cornelius,1982)
• Should a participant withdraw, all data provided by that participant will
be excluded
• Identities of individuals will remain confidential
• McNair Program/Sponsors
• Dr. Pucci
• Family
Please contact Dr. Pucci
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Curtin Hall 525
PO Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
pucci@uwm.edu or geg@uwm.edu
CONCEPTUAL
METHODOLOGY
The project will take a mixed methodological approach.
Three part phenomenological interviews:
1. The life histories of young adult Spanish heritage language speakers
2. Details of the phenomenon under study as experienced
3. Reflections on the meanings of such experiences
•All interviews will be audiotaped for transcription and analysis.
•Each interview will take approximately 45-60 minutes.
•A domain analysis will be used to sort the data into multiple categories, allowing a portrait to
emerge that is reflective of the “big picture” of the systems and issues involved in the
phenomenon.
•There will be an oral production task, and a written acceptability judgment task.
•The oral measure will be individually administered, while the written task will be
administered in small groups.
•Mean percentages will be calculated, and specific components of language will be analyzed.
•Obtaining a more complete picture
Participant 1 was born and raised in Milwaukee, but with Mexican heritage. Participant 1
school attended K4-K5 Bruce Guadalupe Community School, elementary and middle school
in Prince of Peace Catholic School, 7th
and 8th
grade in Holy Wisdom Academy, ninth grade
and partial tenth grade in Thomas More High School and finally tenth to senior year in
Advanced Language & Academic Studies (ALAS) High School. The participant is currently
attending University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. All K-5 through Thomas More High School,
student attended catholic monolingual school with predominantly heritage speaking students.
Participant 2 was born in Leon, Guanajuato Mexico attended K-5 in Mexico speaking
Spanish only. Then, participant was brought to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attended St.
Anthony’s Pre-School Catholic School. He was “thrown in there” referring that the participant
was placed in a monolingual program without knowing any English. Participant went to
school from first grade to fourth grade and then returned back to Mexico to continue fifth and
sixth grade. As a fifth and sixth grader, the participant did not know how to write and read
Spanish. However, he was able to adapt and performed great in school. Participant returned
back to Milwaukee entering seventh grade in Holy Wisdom Academy and had to rapidly
accustom himself. It took him a month to adapt to English since the school prohibited
students to speak Spanish and among friends he still socialized in Spanish. When entering
high school, he attended Advanced Language and Academic Studies (ALAS) High School
and although he did not have much education in Spanish, he still received a five in the
Advanced Placement Exam.
Participant 3, attended K-5, first and second grade in Mexico. He was also born in Mexico.
He arrived to Milwaukee at age of eight and attended Allen-Field Elementary School in the
bilingual program. The participant was in the United States third, fourth and fifth grade. Then
he returned back to Mexico to continue 6th
and 7th
grade. When returning to Milwaukee, he
entered eighth grade in the bilingual program in Kosciuszko Middle School. Both in Allen-
Field and Kosciuszko, students were taught one week in Spanish and one week in English
reading and writing each language separately. Participant 3, would read in Spanish since he
was given books. He continued his studies from ninth grade to eleventh grade in South
Division High School, finished twelfth grade in Advanced Language and Academic Studies
(ALAS) High School.
•Spoke Spanish at home with family members; in terms who they socialized with it
depended.
•Understood the importance in maintaining their heritage language.
•Emerging themes (9/25)
VALDES, G. (2005). Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and sla research:
Opportunities lost or seized?. The Modern Language Journal.
Zapata, G., Sanchez, L., & Toribio, A. (2005). Contact and contracting Spanish. International
Journal of Bilingualism, 9(3 & 4), 377-395. Retrieved from
http://ijb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/3-4/377
Valdes, G., Fishman, J., Chavez, R., & Perez, W. (2008). Maintaining Spanish in the united
states: Steps toward the effective practice of heritage language re
acquisition/development. American Association of Teachers of Spanish and
Portuguese, 91(1), 004-024. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063620
EVENT OR RESEARCH
PROBLEM
When populations immigrate to a different country it is
possible for them to experience heritage language loss due
to adaptation to a new culture, social forces, or simply as a
result of advancement in the societally dominant language.
However, that is not always the case for all heritage
speakers. This study focuses on the heritage (Spanish)
language maintenance and loss of young adults of ages 18
to 25 who graduated from a small urban high school with a
Latino core curriculum aimed at maintaining bilingualism
despite situations or circumstances influencing their heritage
language maintenance.
HERITAGE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE
University-Wisconsin Milwaukee
Gladys Gonzalez, Health Sciences
Mentor Sandra Liliana Pucci, Ph.D Associate
Professor of Linguistics
WORLD VIEW
PHILOSOPHY
THEORY
PRINCIPLES
RECRUITMENT/PARTICIPANTS
METHODOLOGY
FINDINGS
ACKOWLEDGEMENTS
How individual
situations and
circumstances influence
heritage language
maintenance and
development? RESULTS
REFERENCES
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION