国外继承语习得研究新进展

New development in heritage language acquisition abroad

近十年来,继承语习得研究在国外尤其是美国发展迅速,逐步成为应用语言学的一个分支学科。本文首先讨论了继承语的概念内涵,然后从继承语与二语及母语习得比较研究、继承语学习者的语言和认知潜能、继承语的非完整习得和多语能力观的转变等四个维度评述了继承语习得研究取得的成果和存在的问题。本文最后讨论了该领域的未来发展趋势以及继承语习得研究本土化的现实可能性。

This paper reviews the research on heritage language(HL) acquisition in America in the past decade or so, which has been developing into a sub-discipline of applied linguistics and second language acquisition(SLA). The review starts with a survey of various definitions of HL and HL learner. Then, it highlights the achievements and problems in this field from four perspectives: differences and similarities between HL learning, SLA and L1 acquisition, the language and cognitive potentials of HL learners, the incomplete acquisition of HL, and multilingual competence. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the developmental trends of this field and the possibility to conduct HL research in China.