Shin (2022) argues that research on heritage language development in children can profit greatly by incorporating insights from Variationist Sociolinguistics. In particular, attention should be paid to structured variation so as to advance our understanding of heritage language development, which in turn can help us move beyond a deficit view of bilingualism. This teaching and learning guide accompanies Shin's (2022) article, and includes an annotated bibliography consisting of 10 relevant articles, a description of four websites to consult, and five sample lesson plans with student learning outcomes and activities to implement with students. Shin, Naomi & Karen Miller. 2022. Children's acquisition of morphosyntactic variation. Language Learning and Development, 18(2), 125–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2021.1941031 In this theoretical keynote article, Shin and Miller outline propose a 4-step developmental pathway for children's acquisition of morphosyntactic variation. The article reviews the concept of structured variation and considers factors related to the input children receive as well as child-internal learning tendencies that shape how children learn variation. The keynote article is accompanied by seven commentaries by scholars of child language acquisition and a response by Shin and Miller. Smith, Jennifer & Mercedes Durham. 2019. Sociolinguistic variation in children's language. Acquiring community norms. Cambridge University Press. This book covers extensive empirical research on 29 children and their caregivers in Buckie, Scotland. The children's ages ranged from ages 2;10 to 4;2. The book covers lexical, lexical-phonological, phonetic, and morphosyntactic variation. Chapter 8 provides a synthesis of the main findings. For example, they note that in cases where caregivers were aware of the variation, they tended to use more standard forms with children than when speaking to other adults; for many variables, the children closely matched the caregivers' patterns; and some variable forms were acquired sequentially, while others were acquired simultaneously. Requena, Pablo. 2022. Variation versus deviation: Early bilingual acquisition of Spanish differential object marking. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.21001.req Requena's empirical study of bilingual children's Spanish differential object marking takes into account variation related to animacy (human vs. animal). He finds, contra previous research, that bilingual children's (including child heritage speakers) rates of differential object marking are in fact similar to those of monolingual children. Shin, Naomi, Pablo Requena & Anita Kemp. 2017. Bilingual and monolingual children's patterns of syntactic variation: Variable clitic placement in Spanish. In A. Auza & R. Schwartz (Eds.), Language development and disorders in Spanish-speaking children (pp. 63–88). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53646-0 In this empirical study, Shin et al. analyse variable clitic placement (la quiero ver ∼ quiero verla) in the speech of Spanish-speaking children and adults in the U.S. and in Mexico. By taking into account the finite verb lexeme, they find that the usage patterns are similar across children and adults and across monolingual and bilingual communities. Shin, Naomi. 2022. Está abriendo, la abrió: Lexical knowledge, verb type and grammatical aspect shape child heritage speakers' direct object omission in Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221124475 Available via Open Access. While previous research has shown that bilingual children omit more direct objects than monolingual children, this empirical study reveals important systematicities in Spanish-English bilingual children's omission patterns. Studying child heritage speakers' grammars in their own right paves the way for a deeper understanding of the systematic nature of the developing heritage grammar. In particular, Shin analyses 61 child heritage speakers' direct object omission in responses to an elicited production task, and finds that the children's omission patterns are guided by progressive aspect and verb type, thus revealing an intricate and nuanced developmental pathway. Shin, Naomi, Alejandro Cuza & Liliana Sánchez. 2023. Structured variation, language experience, and crosslinguistic influence shape child heritage speakers' Spanish direct objects. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 26(2), 317–329. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728922000694. Available via Open Access. This empirical study investigates the direct objects produced by 40 child heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S. and 24 monolingual children in Mexico. The study focuses on the effects of structured variation, in particular the influence of animacy on direct object type and direct object clitic gender, and finds that animacy shapes direct object usage among both groups of speakers. This is particularly relevant since it addresses the tendency to overestimate differences between heritage and monolingual speakers. In addition, the study uncovers some interesting usage patterns that would go unnoticed without careful attention to structured variation. Giancaspro, David, Silvia Pérez-Cortes, S., & Josh Higdon, J. (2022). (Ir)regular mood swings: Lexical variability in heritage speakers' oral production of subjunctive mood. Language Learning, 72(2), 456–496. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12489 This article presents an empirical study in which the authors find that morphological regularity mediates heritage speakers' production of the Spanish subjunctive and indicative verb forms. The authors argue that increased attention to intra-speaker variation is crucial for our understanding of heritage languages. Otheguy, Ricardo. 2016. The linguistic competence of second-generation bilinguals. A critique of “incomplete acquisition”. In C. Tortora, M. den Dikken, I. Montoya, & T. O'Neill (Eds.), Romance linguistics 2013. Selected papers from the 43rd linguistic symposium on Romance languages (LSRL) (pp. 301–319). John Benjamins. In this overview article Otheguy argues that the grammars of second-generation bilinguals (often called heritage speakers) should not be viewed as incomplete but instead as intact grammars that diverge from their input due to normal intergenerational language transmission in situations of language contact. The author criticises the use of monolingual controls for analyses of bilingual grammars as well as the very notion of incomplete acquisition. De Houwer, Annick. 2022. The danger of bilingual–monolingual comparisons in applied psycholinguistic research. Applied Psycholinguistics doi: 10.1017/S014271642200042X This overview article, published shortly after Shin's article in Language and Linguistics Compass was published, is an excellent accompaniment to Otheguy's (2016) article. De Houwer argues that relying on monolingual children as a comparison group for research on bilingual children's language development promotes a deficit view of bilingualism and threatens the well-being of bilingual children. She argues that studying bilingual children's grammars in their own right can help ‘inform educators, policy makers, and language and speech professionals’ and ‘will hopefully contribute to the well-being’ of bilingual children. Forrest, Aster. 2022. Rethinking difference: How bilingualism research helps us combat linguistic bias. Soleado Newsletter (pp. 1, 8–9). Dual Language Education of New Mexico. Access here: https://lobolanguage.unm.edu/publications/rethinkingdifference_sept2022_soleado.pdf This article, written for teachers, reviews how research on bilingual children's grammars can help us move beyond the monolingual bias that pervades our educational systems and ultimately combat the deficit view of bilingualism. The article reviews common myths about bilingualism and language variation and explains how particular language varieties become stigmatised in societies. The article then focuses on research on child heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S. and discusses how input shapes grammatical development. And while the research shows that bilingual children's grammars may differ from those of monolingual children, the author stresses that difference is not the same as delay. This site, produced by the Lobo Language Acquisition Lab at the University of New Mexico, aims to promote bilingualism and minority language acquisition in New Mexico. The site includes resources, information about events, and a link to an online linguistic bias training module (https://bilingualism.unm.edu/resources/linguistic-bias-training.html). This site of the Harmonious Bilingualism Network aims to support research on bilingual development and to make sure that findings are disseminated to both researchers and communities. The site includes links to findings from scientific research as well as resources for families. The Bilingualism Matters site includes resources and information about bilingualism for researchers and communities. Bilingualism Matters has branches in the U.S., numerous European countries, and Israel. The National Heritage Language Resource Center, housed in UCLA, provides information and resources about research and teaching heritage languages. Student learning outcomes: Students will define structured variation and will provide examples of structured variation that are not described in detail in Shin (2022). The following questions can be given as homework or in-class work to be completed in groups or by individuals. 1a.1 Subject-level factor: __________ 1a.2 Verb-level factor: ___________ 1a.3 Discourse-level factor: _____________ Example 1 from Shin (2022) …primero vino aquí mi hermano…y, y luego yo porque yo nací hasta el último. Ø Tengo dos hermanos. ‘…first my brother came here…and, and later I because I was born last. (I) have two brothers’. Me gustan [las películas] un chorro y me interesa más que nada el cine alternativo, o sea, el cine experimental, filmes independientes y …. quiero llevar a mi novio! Porque él es muy Hollywood Production. O sea, sí Ø es bueno porque Ø escoge muy buenas películas, Ø tiene buen gusto. I like the movies a lot and alternative film interests me especially, I mean, experimental film, independent films and… (I) want to bring my boyfriend! Because he is very Hollywood Production. I mean, (he) is good because (he) chooses very good films, (he) has good taste. 1d. How does Shin 2022 define structured variation? Why is the word ‘structured’ important here? 1e. True or false: There has been more research on structured variation in child language than in adult language. 1f. True or false: There has been more research on structured variation in monolingual child language than in bilingual child language. 1g. Insert the correct term for each example Slide 1—introduce the phenomenon with examples Slide 2—present the authors and article title selected Slide 3—brief overview of a few methodological points: Where do the data come from? Were there any contexts that were considered categorical rather than variable and thus excluded? If so, list one or two such exclusions. Slide 4: List 2-3 factors that the authors coded with examples illustrating the coding. Slide 5: Present the results for these 2-3 factors (which ones promoted variant x? variant y?). Slide 6: Conclusions—how does the phenomenon illustrate the concept of structured variation? Expression versus omission of complementiser that. Consult Torres Cacoullos & Walker (2009) On the persistence of grammar in discourse formulas: a variationist study of that. Linguistics 47–1 (2009), 1–43 DOI 10.1515/LING.2009.001 Variation between 'is' and 'are' with plural subjects. Consult Smith, J., & Durham, M. (2019). Sociolinguistic variation in children's language. Acquiring community norms. Cambridge University Press. Dequeísmo in Spanish. Consult Potowski & Shin (2019); Schwenter, S. 1999. Evidentiality in Spanish Morphosyntax: A Reanalysis of (de)queísmo. In M.J. Serrano (ed). Estudios de la variación sintáctica. Madrid: Vervuert/Iberoamericana, 65–87. Kanwit, M. 2015. The Role of Discourse Topic in Evidentiality Marking: Variable (De)queísmo in Caracas. eHumanista/IVITRA 8: 446–470. 'Se lo' versus 'se los' to refer to singular direct objects in Spanish. Consult Schwenter & Hoff. 2021. Variable constraints on se lo(s) in Mexican Spanish. In M. Díaz-Campos & S. Sessarego (Eds.), Aspects of Latin American Dialectology. In honor of Terrell A. Morgan, 47–68. John Benjamins. Student learning outcomes: Students will explore definitions of heritage speakers and discuss language attitudes and language ideologies and how these relate to perceptions of heritage speakers' language abilities. https://www.cal.org/heritage/pdfs/Who-is-a-Heritage-Language-Learner.pdf Sanchez-Munoz, Ana. (2016). Heritage language healing? Learners' attitudes and damage control in a heritage language classroom. 10.1075/sibil.49.11san. Tseng, A. (2021). ‘Qué barbaridad, son latinos y deberían saber español primero’: Language ideology, agency, and heritage language insecurity across immigrant generations. Applied Linguistics, 42(1), 113–135. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amaa004 What are some defining characteristics of heritage speakers? Are you a heritage speaker? Do you know any heritage speakers? What are some examples of heritage speakers? How do their experiences compare to each other? How do they differ? How do heritage speakers feel about their heritage language abilities? What factors contribute to how they feel about their language abilities? How are heritage speakers' language abilities viewed by society? What factors shape those views? Shin writes that ‘a deficit view [of child heritage speakers' grammars] can lead to children being told that the way they talk is wrong, which in turn can lead to linguistic insecurity and ultimately an unwillingness to speak the heritage language’. Do you agree? Do you know of any examples that illustrate this phenomenon? Student learning outcomes: Students will present summaries of empirical research that compares monolingual and bilingual children's grammars. Students will debate whether the findings show that the two groups are similar or different, and will discuss how structured variation plays a role in conclusions reached. Shin reviews research on bilingual Spanish-speaking children's differential object marking, variable clitic placement and subject pronoun expression to demonstrate that investigating structured variation helps us to avoid overestimations of differences between monolingual children and child heritage speakers. Divide the class into two groups in order to compare conclusions reached when structured variation is an important focus of the research versus when it is not. Then hold a debate between the two groups answering the question: ‘Do child heritage speakers differ from monolingual children in their production of x feature?’ There are various ways to do this. One option is to focus on one structure only (e.g., differential object marking). Another option is to focus on multiple structures all in one debate. Slide 1: Name of article and author (include author's picture if found on the Internet) Slide 2: Example of linguistic structure examined (e.g., example of differential object marking) Slide 3: Participants in study Slide 4: Methods (experiment? Naturalistic data?) Slide 5: Main findings from study Slide 6: Conclusion Group 1—Difference. Read: Ticio, E. 2015. Differential object marking in Spanish-English early bilinguals. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 5(1), 62–90. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.5.1.03tic Group 2—No difference. Read Requena 2022. Variation versus deviation: Early bilingual acquisition of Spanish differential object marking. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.21001.req Group 1—Difference. Read Pérez-Leroux, A. T., Cuza, A., & Thomas, D. (2011). Clitic placement in Spanish–English bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14(2), 221–232. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728910000234 Group 2—No difference. Read Shin, N., Requena, P., & Kemp, A. (2017). Bilingual and monolingual children's patterns of syntactic variation: Variable clitic placement in Spanish. In A. Auza & R. Schwartz (Eds.), Language development and disorders in Spanish-speaking children (pp. 63–88). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53646-0 Group 1—Difference. Montrul, S., & Sánchez-Walker, N. (2015). Subject expression in bilingual school-age children in the United States. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco, & N. Shin (Eds.), Spanish subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectical perspective (pp. 231–247). Georgetown University Press. Group 2—No difference. Shin, N., & Van Buren, J. (2016). Maintenance of Spanish subject pronoun expression patterns among bilingual children of farmworkers in Spanish in Slide 1: to differential object marking Slide 2: of study of differential object marking Slide 3: to variable clitic placement Slide 4: of study of variable clitic placement Slide 5: to subject pronoun expression Slide 6: of study of subject pronoun expression Slide Differential object Ticio, E. (2015). Differential object marking in Spanish-English early bilinguals. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 5(1), 62–90. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.5.1.03tic Variable clitic Pérez-Leroux, A. T., Cuza, A., & Thomas, D. (2011). Clitic placement in Spanish–English bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14(2), 221–232. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728910000234 Subject pronoun Montrul, S., & Sánchez-Walker, N. (2015). Subject expression in bilingual school-age children in the United States. In A. M. Carvalho, R. Orozco, & N. Shin (Eds.), Spanish subject pronoun expression in Spanish: A cross-dialectical perspective (pp. 231–247). Georgetown University Press. Differential object Requena 2022. Variation versus deviation: Early bilingual acquisition of Spanish differential object marking. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.21001.req Variable clitic between Shin, N., Requena, P., & Kemp, A. (2017). Bilingual and monolingual children's patterns of syntactic variation: Variable clitic placement in Spanish. In A. Auza & R. Schwartz (Eds.), Language development and disorders in Spanish-speaking children (pp. 63–88). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53646-0 Subject pronoun Shin, N., & Van Buren, J. (2016). Maintenance of Spanish subject pronoun expression patterns among bilingual children of farmworkers in Spanish in groups to discuss questions they want to to the other should any in the research and can for information more information about The lesson can with a about the and of the various and for research. work rather than group work for an online Students an whether child heritage speakers differ from monolingual children for the structures are to on the Students are to about whether child heritage speakers differ from monolingual children. There can be for each are given for responses that on the Students to at Student learning outcomes: Students will factors that contribute to direct object omission and direct object clitic in Spanish. Students will discuss how analyses of structured variation advance our understanding of child heritage speakers' developing grammars. Shin argues that studying patterns of structured variation helps the She focuses on direct object omission and direct object clitic in Spanish to make this the of this lesson should show a understanding of the grammatical patterns and how they illustrate in the children's grammars. In each other to the following and then discuss some than What do with the She What is with the She is What do with the She What is with the Shin found that child heritage speakers of Spanish more direct objects with that without direct objects among Spanish-speaking This that the children were to omit with which or Shin found that child heritage speakers of Spanish more direct objects with in the progressive This that the children were to omit in the a or contexts from Why do the children omit more with progressive Consult the following article to find Shin as an and the in Shin, Naomi. 2022. Está abriendo, la abrió: Lexical knowledge, verb type and grammatical aspect shape child heritage speakers' direct object omission in Spanish. International Journal of Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221124475 Available via Open Access. How does the of the progressive illustrate the of structured variation in child heritage speakers' Shin et al. argue that bilingual children's are not they more in What are those Shin et al. found that some children such as the clitic to the subject rather than the direct How children these What of would children to a that is but Do you these can in monolingual How does Shin et study illustrate the of structured variation in child heritage speakers' Student learning outcomes: Students will the of research on structured variation for children, teachers, and A., C. & A. (2011). of Spanish and competence and in children of in International Journal of of De Houwer, Annick. 2022. The danger of bilingual–monolingual comparisons in applied psycholinguistic research. Applied Psycholinguistics Forrest, Aster. 2022. Rethinking difference: How bilingualism research helps us combat linguistic bias. Soleado Newsletter (pp. 1, 8–9). Dual Language Education of New Mexico. Available here: https://lobolanguage.unm.edu/publications/rethinkingdifference_sept2022_soleado.pdf (2017). The language Access here: Otheguy, Ricardo. 2016. The linguistic competence of second-generation bilinguals. A critique of “incomplete acquisition”. In C. Tortora, M. den Dikken, I. Montoya, & T. O'Neill (Eds.), Romance linguistics 2013. Selected papers from the 43rd linguistic symposium on Romance languages (LSRL) (pp. 301–319). John argue that there is a deficit view of bilingualism and a monolingual bias in many societies. What are some examples of this bias and how it and educational What are some of the of Do you that research can help us move beyond monolingual and a deficit view of Do you with Shin that patterns of variation help us move beyond a deficit view of heritage Why In order to make research to children, teachers, and that relevant research findings are with Consult the websites in the online as well as and (2022) and how some researchers are to beyond What are some other ways can Naomi Shin is in the of Linguistics and the of Spanish & at the University of New Mexico. She Lobo Language Acquisition which is in research on children's acquisition of minority languages and community bilingualism in New Mexico. Shin's interests child language and research focuses on patterns of morphosyntactic variation, how these patterns are acquired and how they in situations of language contact. She has a to teaching Spanish which in the