This page offers a list of scholarly and informative readings for those interested in the study of heritage languages. The selection includes research articles, theoretical contributions, and case studies that explore the linguistic, cultural, and sociopolitical dimensions of heritage language acquisition, maintenance, and transmission. The list is by no means complete—please feel free to contact us if you would like to suggest additional readings.
Books and edited volumes
Aalberse, S., Backus, A., & Muysken, P. (2019). Heritage languages: A language contact approach. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Backus, A. (1996). Two in one: Bilingual speech of Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands. Tilburg University Press.
Clyne, M., & Kipp, S. (2011). Pluricentric languages in an immigrant context: Spanish, Arabic and Chinese. Mouton de Gruyter.
Fishman, J. A. (Ed.). (2001). Can threatened languages be saved? Reversing language shift, revisited: A 21st century perspective. Multilingual Matters.
Goglia, F., & Wolny, M. (Eds.) (2022). Italo-Romance dialects in the linguistic repertoires of immigrants in Italy. Palgrave Macmillan
Irizarri van Suchtelen, P. (2016). Spanish as a heritage language in the Netherlands: A cognitive linguistic exploration. Utrecht: LOT.
Kagan, O. E., Carreira, M. M., & Chik, C. H. (Eds.). (2017). The Routledge handbook of heritage language education: From innovation to program building. Routledge.
Laleko, O. (2010). The syntax-pragmatics interface in language loss: Covert restructuring of aspect in heritage Russian (Doctoral dissertation). University of Minnesota.
Lorenz, E. (2022). Crosslinguistic influence in L3 acquisition. Bilingual heritage speakers in Germany. New York: Routledge.
Mazzaferro, G. (Ed.). (2018). Translanguaging as everyday practice. Springer (Multilingual Education series, Vol. 28)
Montrul, S. (2016). The acquisition of heritage languages. Cambridge University Press.
Montrul, S., & Polinsky, M. (Eds.). (2024). The Cambridge handbook of heritage languages and linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
Moro, F. R. (2016). Dynamics of Ambon Malay: Comparing Ambon and the Netherlands. Utrecht: LOT.
Nagy, N. (2024). Heritage languages: Extending variationist approaches. Cambridge University Press.
Onar-Valk, P. (2015). Transformation in Dutch Turkish subordination. Utrecht: LOT.
Polinsky, M. (2018). Heritage languages and their speakers. Cambridge University Press.
Şahin, H. (2015). Cross-linguistic influences: Dutch in contact with Papiamento and Turkish. Utrecht: LOT.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1994). Spanish in Los Angeles. Clarendon Press.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (2014). Bilingual language acquisition: Spanish and English in the first six years. Cambridge University Press.
Van Osch, B. (2019). Vulnerability in heritage speakers of Spanish in the Netherlands. Utrecht: LOT.
Van Rijswijk, R. (2016). The strength of a weaker first language: Language production and comprehension by Turkish heritage speakers in the Netherlands. Utrecht: LOT.
Articles
Aalberse, S., Andringa, S., Faber, M., & Lippe, P. (2020). Definiteness in Wenzhounese Chinese in the Netherlands and in China: Evidence for generational change in two locations. In B. Brehmer & J. Treffers-Daller (Eds.), Lost in transmission: The role of attrition and input in heritage language development (Vol. 59, pp. 16–31). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Aalberse, S., Moro, F. (2014). Stability in Chinese and Malay heritage languages as a source of divergence. In K. Braunmüller, S. Höder, & K. Kühl (Eds.), Stability and divergence in language contact: Factors and mechanism (pp. 141–162). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Aalberse, S., Zou, Y., & Andringa, S. J. (2017). Extended use of demonstrative pronouns in two generations of Mandarin Chinese speakers in the Netherlands: Evidence of convergence? In E. Blom, L. Cornips, & J. Schaeffer (Eds.), Cross-linguistic influence in bilingualism: In honor of Aafke Hulk (pp. 25–48). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Albirini, A., Benmamoun, E., & Saadah, E. (2011). Grammatical features of Egyptian and Palestinian Arabic heritage speakers’ oral production. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 45, 273–303.
Andriani, L., Casalicchio, J., Ciconte, F., D’Alessandro, R., Frasson, A., Van Osch, B., Sorgini, L., & Terenghi, S. (2022). Documenting Italo-Romance minority languages in the Americas: Problems and tentative solutions. In M. Coler & A. Nevins (Eds.), Contemporary research in minoritized and diaspora languages of Europe (pp. 9–54). Language Science Press.
Backus, A., Doğruöz, A. S., & Heine, B. (2011). Salient stages in contact-induced grammatical change: Evidence from synchronic vs. diachronic contact situations. Language Sciences, 33, 738–752.
Benmamoun, E., Montrul, S., & Polinsky, M. (2013). Heritage languages and their speakers: Opportunities and challenges for linguistics. Theoretical Linguistics, 39(3–4), 129–181. https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2013-0009 (Add or adjust DOI if necessary)
Boumans, L. (2006). The attributive possessive in Moroccan Arabic spoken by young bilinguals in the Netherlands and their peers in Morocco. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9(2), 213–231.
Carreira, M., & Kagan, O. (2011). The results of the National Heritage Language Survey: Implications for teaching, curriculum design, and professional development. Foreign Language Annals, 44(1), 40–64.
Chevalier, J. F. (2004). Heritage language literacy: Theory and practice. Heritage Language Journal, 2(1), 1–19.
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2009). Invisible and visible language planning: Ideological factors in the family language policy of Chinese immigrant families in Quebec. Language Policy, 8, 351–375.
Del Vecchio, V. (2023). Code-mixing and intergenerational variation within an Italian community in Bletchley (UK). Italian Journal of Linguistics, 35(1), 71–90.
Doğruöz, A. S., & Backus, A. (2009). Innovative constructions in Dutch Turkish: An assessment of ongoing contact-induced change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12(1), 41–63.
Farr, J., Blenkiron, L., Harris, R., & Smith, J. A. (2018). “It’s my language, my culture, and it’s personal!” Migrant mothers’ experience of language use and identity change in their relationship with their children: An interpretative phenomenological analysis. Journal of Family Issues, 39(11), 3029–3054.
Fishman, J. A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Multilingual Matters.
García, O., Evangelista, I., Martínez, M., Disla, C., & Paulino, B. (1988). Spanish language use and attitudes: A study of two New York City communities. Language in Society, 17, 475–511.
Godson, L. (2003). Phonetics of language attrition: Vowel production and articulatory setting in the speech of Western Armenian heritage speakers (Doctoral dissertation). University of California, San Diego.
Goglia, F. (2024). Onward Migration of Families of New Italians to the UK: Children’s Perspectives on the Use of Languages. The Italianist, 44(1), 169-187.
Goglia, F. (2023). Onward migration and double language maintenance: the case of Italian-Bangladeshis in London. Studi e ricerche sul plurilinguismo 8, 153.
Goglia, F. (2018). 26. Code-switching and immigrant communities: the case of Italy. Manual of romance sociolinguistics, 702-723.
Gondra, A. (2022). Testing the Interface Hypothesis: Heritage speakers’ perception and production of Spanish subject position with unergative and unaccusative verbs. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 25(5), 1730–1764.
Goria, E., & Di Salvo, M. (2023). An Italo-Romance perspective on heritage languages. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 35(1), 45–70.
Guardado, M. (2010). Heritage language development: Preserving a mythic past or envisioning the future of Canadian identity? Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 9(5), 329–346.
Hulsen, M., de Bot, K., & Weltens, B. (2002). “Between two worlds.” Social networks, language shift, and language processing in three generations of Dutch migrants in New Zealand. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 153, 27–52.
Kondo, K. (1997). Social-psychological factors affecting language maintenance: Interviews with Shin Nisei university students in Hawaii. Linguistics and Education, 9(4), 369–408.
Kondo-Brown, K. (2001). Bilingual heritage students’ language contact and motivation. In Z. Dörnyei & R. Schmidt (Eds.), Motivation and second language acquisition (Vol. 23, pp. 433–459).
Kootstra, G. J., & Muysken, P. (2019). Structural priming, levels of awareness, and agency in contact-induced language change. Languages, 4(3), 65.
Kupisch, T. (2012). Specific and generic subjects in the Italian of German-Italian simultaneous bilinguals and L2 learners. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(4), 736–756.
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.
Kupisch, T., & van de Weijer, J. (2016). The role of the childhood environment for language dominance: A study of adult simultaneous bilingual speakers of German and French. In C. Silva-Corvalán & J. Treffers-Daller (Eds.), Language dominance in bilinguals: Issues of measurement and operationalization (pp. 156–173). Cambridge University Press.
Laleko, O., & Polinsky, M. (2013). Marking topic or marking case: A comparative investigation of heritage Japanese and heritage Korean. Heritage Language Journal, 10(2), 178–202.
Lee, T. (2011). Grammatical knowledge of Korean heritage speakers: Early vs. late bilinguals. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(2), 149–174.
Lehtinen, M. K. T. (1966). An analysis of a Finnish-English bilingual corpus (Doctoral dissertation). Indiana University.
Lising, L. (2022). “I want her to be able to think in English”: Challenges to heritage language maintenance in a monolingual society. Multilingua, 41(5), 549–569.
Lorenz, E., Toprak-Yildiz, T. E., & Siemund, P. (2025). L3 English in the German secondary school context: Longitudinal development of bilingual heritage speakers’ multilingual repertoire. International Journal of Multilingualism 22(1): 76–97.
Montrul, S. (2004). Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morphosyntactic convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7(2), 125–142.
Montrul, S., Foote, R., & Perpiñán, S. (2008). Gender agreement in adult second language learners and Spanish heritage speakers: The effects of age and context of acquisition. Language Learning, 58(3), 503–553.
Montrul, S. (2009). Knowledge of tense-aspect and mood in Spanish heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2), 239–269.
Montrul, S. (2012). Is the heritage language like a second language? EUROSLA Yearbook, 12(1), 1–29.
Montrul, S., Bhatt, R. E., & Bhatia, A. (2012). Erosion of case and agreement in Hindi heritage speakers. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 2, 141–176.
Montrul, S., Sánchez-Walker, N. (2013). Differential object marking in child and adult Spanish heritage speakers. Language Acquisition, 20(2), 109–132.
Montrul, S., Bhatt, R., & Girju, R. (2015). Differential object marking in Spanish, Hindi and Romanian as heritage languages. Language, 91(3), 564–610.
Moro, F. R. (2017). Aspectual distinctions in Dutch-Ambon Malay bilingual heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 21(2), 178–193.
Moro, F. R. (2018). Divergence in heritage Ambon Malay in the Netherlands: The role of social-psychological factors. International Journal of Bilingualism, 22(4), 395–411.
Moro, F. R., & Irizarri van Suchtelen, P. (2017). Dominant language transfer in heritage languages. In H. Peukert & I. Gogolin (Eds.), Dynamics of linguistic diversity (pp. 143–162). John Benjamins.
Moro, F. R., & Klamer, M. (2015). Give-constructions in heritage Ambon Malay in the Netherlands. Journal of Language Contact, 8(2), 263–298.
Moro, F. R., & Russo, G. (2024). Family language policy in multilingual Filipino families in Italy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1–15. (Advance online publication—update with volume/issue if available.)
Moro, F. R., & Slomanson, P. (2024). Heritage languages and the study of Malayo-Polynesian diaspora. In A. Adelaar & A. Schapper (Eds.), The Oxford guide to the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Southeast Asia (pp. 251–262). Oxford University Press.
Nagy, N. (2015). A sociolinguistic view of null subjects and VOT in Toronto heritage languages. Lingua, 164, 309–327.
Nagy, N. (2021). Heritage languages in Canada. In S. Montrul & M. Polinsky (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of heritage languages and linguistics (pp. 178–204). Cambridge University Press.
Noels, K. (2005). Orientations to learning German: Heritage language learning and motivational substrates. Canadian Modern Language Review, 62(2), 285–312.
Nortier, J. (1990). Dutch-Moroccan Arabic code switching among young Moroccans in the Netherlands. Kluwer.
O’Grady, W., Kwak, H. Y., Lee, O. S., & Lee, M. (2011). An emergentist perspective on heritage language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33(2), 223–245.
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.
Polinsky, M. (2006). Incomplete acquisition: American Russian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 14, 192–265.
Polinsky, M. (2011). Reanalysis in adult heritage language: A case for attrition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 305–328.
Polinsky, M., & Kagan, O. (2007). Heritage languages: In the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1(5), 368–395.
Polinsky, M., & Scontras, G. (2020). Understanding heritage languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(1), 4–20.
Poplack, S. (1980). Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español: Toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics, 18(7/8), 581–618.
Rothman, J. (2009). Understanding the nature and outcomes of early bilingualism: Romance languages as heritage languages. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2), 155–163.
Sevinç, Y., & Mirvahedi, H. (2023). Emotions and multilingualism in family language policy: Introduction to the special issue. International Journal of Bilingualism, 27(2), 145–158.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (2008). The limits of convergence in language contact. Journal of Language Contact, 2(1), 213–224.
Sofu, H. (2009). Language shift or maintenance within three generations: Examples from three Turkish–Arabic-speaking families. International Journal of Multilingualism, 6(3), 246–257.
Spolsky, B. (2012). Family language policy – The critical domain. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(1), 3–11.
Umbal, P., & Nagy, N. (2021). Heritage Tagalog phonology and a variationist framework of language contact. Languages, 6(4), 201, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6040201
Van Deusen-Scholl, N. (2003). Toward a definition of heritage language: Sociopolitical and pedagogical considerations. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 2(3), 211–230.
Van Osch, B., Hulk, A., Sleeman, P., & Irizarri van Suchtelen, P. (2014). Gender agreement in interface contexts in the oral production of heritage speakers of Spanish in the Netherlands. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 31(1), 93–106.
Wei, L. (1995). Variations in patterns of language choice and code-switching by three groups of Chinese/English speakers in Newcastle upon Tyne. Multilingua, 14(3), 297–322.
Yamamoto, M. (2005). What makes who choose what languages to whom?: Language use in Japanese–Filipino interlingual families in Japan. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 8(6), 588–606.
Zhang, D. (2012). Co-ethnic network, social class, and heritage language maintenance among Chinese immigrant families. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 11(3), 200–223.
