Jennifer Leeman

RECASTS AND SECOND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Recasts have figured prominently in recent SLA research, with studies documenting significant advantages for learners exposed to this type of negative feedback. Although some researchers have suggested that such findings imply a beneficial role for negative evidence (i.e., information regarding the impossibility of certain utterances in the language being learned), the source of these benefits has not been explored directly, as multiple variables are conflated in recasts. Specifically, recasts not only offer implicit negative evidence, but they also provide positive evidence. Moreover, recasts are believed to make this positive evidence especially salient. In the present study, 74 learners of L2 Spanish engaged in communicative interaction with the researcher in one of the following conditions: (a) recasts (i.e., negative evidence and enhanced salience of positive evidence), (b) negative evidence, (c) enhanced salience of positive evidence, and (d) unenhanced positive evidence (control). Only the recast and enhanced-salience groups performed significantly better than the control group on posttreatment measures, which suggests that the utility of recasts is derived at least in part from enhanced salience of positive evidence and that the implicit negative evidence they seem to provide may not be a crucial factor.

FROM IDENTITY TO COMMODITY: IDEOLOGIES OF SPANISH IN HERITAGE LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS

This article presents a critical analysis of language ideologies in the instructional discourse of Spanish for heritage speakers in the United States. We focus on the discourse present in prefaces and introductions to Spanish for heritage speakers textbooks published between 1970 and 2000. Whereas previous research on language ideologies in heritage language instruction has tended to focus on standard language ideologies, in our analysis we broaden the perspective to examine a wider range of ideologies that are part of an institutionally entrenched and socially pervasive politics of knowledge. Our analysis revealed that the intertextual discourse emerging in Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) textbooks correlates with broader ideologies regarding the societal role of the university, the positioning of ethnic studies programs, and the portrayal of cultural and linguistic diversity within academia and society at large. Further, mirroring the evolution of these ideologies, we found that discourses of textbooks from the 1970s and 1980s tend to underscore access, inclusion, and representation for minority Spanish language students while textbooks published in the 1990s emphasize economic competitiveness and globalization. In our discussion of this move from the portrayal of Spanish as linked to student identity to the commodification of linguistic and cultural diversity, we underscore the multifaceted and often contradictory implications of these two ideological constructions.

Heritage Language Education and Identity in the United States

ABSTRACT Despite the frequent references to identity within the field of heritage language education, it is only in the past decade or so that scholars have begun to conduct empirical research on this topic. This article examines recent research on identity and heritage language education in the United States. The article begins with a discussion of the simultaneous development of heritage language education as a field and growth of interest in identity and language learning, followed by a critical examination of the terms “heritage language” and “heritage language education,” as well as of “heritage language learner” as an identity category. Next is a review of empirical studies conducted within the past 5 years, including survey-based research that considered identity in the exploration of students’ reasons for heritage language study, in addition to qualitative and ethnographic research that focused specifically on heritage language learners’ sense of themselves and their relationship to the heritage language, as well as on the ways that heritage language learner identities are constructed, indexed, and negotiated in classroom settings. The next section looks at recent research on pedagogical approaches designed to engage heritage language learners in critical considerations of language and identity. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

Mi Lengua: Spanish as a Heritage Language in the United States: Ana Roca and M. Cecilia Colombi

Mi Lengua: Spanish as a Heritage Language in the United States. Ana Roca and M. Cecilia Colombi. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003. Pp. 344. ISBN 0878409033.

Engaging Critical Pedagogy: Spanish for Native Speakers

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