Marie-Michelle Monéreau-Merry MS, MPhil, CCC-SLP Loraine K. Obler, Ph.D Maria Polinsky, Ph.D

1. Patterns of Definite Article Use in the Heritage Language Among U.S. Born Heritage Speakers of Haitian-Creole Marie-Michelle Monéreau-Merry MS, MPhil, CCC-SLP Loraine K. Obler, Ph.D Maria Polinsky, Ph.D Martin Gitterman, Ph.D

2. Section I: • Motivation for this study • Definition of heritage speakers • Developmental path of the heritage language • Problematic areas in the heritage language among heritage speakers • Spectrum of heritage speakers 2

3. Motivation for the Study • There is a sizeable population of patients who are diagnosed with aphasia or other neurogenic based language disorders who are heritage speakers. • A significant population of U.S. school age children are heritage speakers from various language backgrounds. 3

5. Incomplete Acquisition in a Language • Late language learners • Early learners • Heritage Speakers • a) Broad definition • b) Narrow definition

6. Narrow Definition • “Heritage speakers are individuals who are reared in a home environment where a language other than the societal language is spoken” (Valdés, 2000). 6

7. Developmental Path of the Heritage Language Among U.S. Born Heritage Speakers 7

8. Continuum Among Heritage Speakers(Polinsky & Kagan, 2007) Baseline

9. Sudden Language Interruption (Pallier et al.,2008) 9

10. Problematic Areas in the Heritage Language Semi-literate or illiterate in the heritage language (Montrul, 2008) Limited vocabulary skills Reduced speech rate when compared to native speakers (Polinsky, 2008) Difficulty with gender inflection (Anderson, 2001; Silva-Corvalán, 2003; Polinsky, 2008) Poor control of morphology (Sekerina, 2005; Montrul, 2008) 10

11. Section II: Heritage language of study Haitian-Creole Genesis of Haitian-Creole 11

12. Haitian-Creole • Bona fide language in par with French (DeGraff, 2000) • Developed on the island of Haiti (Saint-Domingue) • Haitian-Creole is a combination of a 17th and 18th century French variety and West African languages.

13. West African Languages

14. Plantation History in Saint-Domingue

15. Genesis of Haitian-Creole • Language bioprogram hypothesis (Bickerton, 1984) • Basilectilization process (Chaudenson, 1992) • Relexification hypothesis (Lefebvre, 1999)

16. Post-Nominal Determiners • A hallmark of French Creoles around the world is post-nominal determiners. • Post-nominal determiners in Haitian-Creole may be evidence of first language interference by adult Africans who were attempting to acquire the French variety (LeFebvre,1996).

17. Comparative Syntax Haitian-Creole Fongbe • M manje krab la. • I eat crab (Det) Translation • “I ate the crab.” (in question/that we know of). • N du ason o. • I eat crab (Det) Translation • “I ate the crab.” (in question/that we know of)

18. Comparative Syntax Haitian-Creole Standard French • pwason an • fish the (det) Translation “the fish” • le poisson • the (det) fish Translation “the fish”

19. Section III • Definite articles in Haitian-Creole

20. Definite Articles • Gender agreement does not exist in Haitian-Creole as in the lexifier language. • Haitian-Creole has a complex morphophonological system that determines the application of the definite articles (Valdman, 1978). • Definite determiners (i.e., a, an, nan, la, lan) are governed by phonological context. There are several dialect variations. 20

21. Definite Article Rules • If a word ends in a nasal consonant the definite article is nan or *lan. • If a word ends with a nasal vowel or if the final vowel is preceded by a nasal consonant, the definite article is an. • If the word ends in a non-nasal vowel, than the definite article is *a or in some regions it is *an • Otherwise la/lan is utilized.

22. Nan If the final position of the word is a nasal consonant, the correct phonological form of the definite article becomes nan: Kannnan *Kann lan 22

23. An If the final position of the word is an oral vowel and is preceded by a nasal consonant, the correct phonological form of the definite article becomes an: Fami an

24. An If the final position of the word is a nasal vowel, the phonological form of the definite article becomes an: Chyen an

25. A • If the last sound of the word is an oral vowel and is preceded by an oral consonant, the correct phonological form of the definite article becomes a:Krapo a *Krapo an

26. La/lan If the last sound of the word is a consonant and is preceded by an oral vowel, it becomes la: *Chat la Chat lan 26

27. Section III: Purpose of the study Research questions Predictions 27

28. Purpose of the Study • The purpose of this study is to examine the patterns of performance in the production of the morphophonological form of the definite articles between two groups of early learners of Haitian-Creole. 28

29. Research Question I Are there differences in the production of the morphophonological form of the definite articles during a translation task comparing two groups of early learners of Haitian-Creole? 29

30. Prediction I The responses of the heritage speakers during the definite article translation task, will differ from the responses of the native speakers. 30

31. Prediction I cont…. Heritage speakers will reanalyze the definite articles as characterized by omission and substitution differences, and native speakers will perform at ceiling or near ceiling level. 31

32. Research Question II Are there differences in the definite article recognition task, between the two groups of early learners of HC, whereby the participants will be required to select the definite articles that correspond with the same forty-four nouns as in the translation task? 32

33. Prediction II In the definite article recognition task, the heritage speakers, as a group, will perform significantly better than they did on the translation task, however not at ceiling. 33

34. Prediction II cont…. Their correct responses will not be characterized with automaticity. By contrast, the native speakers’ responses will be accurate and immediate. 34

35. Research Question III Are there differences in the frequency of definite articles produced, between the two groups of early learners of HC, during a narrative discourse task? 35

36. Prediction III There will be significant differences between heritage speakers and native speakers in the production of definite articles during the narrative discourse task. Heritage speakers will produce fewer definite articles than native speakers, and demonstrate deletion and substitution errors. 36

37. Summary • The heritage speakers will deviate from the native controls in the following categories: • Translation of sentences with definite articles • Selecting the definite articles that correspond with the nouns • Producing and employing definite articles correctly during narrative discourse

38. Section IV Participants Research Design 38

39. 39

40. Social Language Questionnaire (i) Socio-economic status during childhood and adulthood (ii) Attending church services during childhood and adulthood conducted in ethnic languages (iii) Age of arrival of parents to the U.S (iv) Residing with a non-English speaking grandparent during childhood (v)Experiences with translation (vi) Attitude towards the heritage language (vii) Residing in a community with a significant population of Haitian-Americans during childhood and adulthood (viii) Proficiency in Haitian-Creole and French (ix) Educational attainment of the participants (x) Personal ethnic identity (xi) Literacy in the heritage languages 40

41. Social Language Data Pilot data collected from the social language questionnaire form indicated that 80% of the heritage speakers reported that they were literate in the heritage language, and during their childhood they attended religious services conducted in the ethnic language. In addition, they also indicated that they resided with non-English speaking grandparents during their childhood. All participants indicated they had experience with translation. 41

42. Task I: Translation Task • The first proficiency measure consisted of forty-four English sentences presented auditorily. • “Marie ate the sugarcane”. • “Marie te manje kann nan”. • “Marie te manje kann lan”. • The stimuli consisted of 44 sentences each including a target noun (Sentences were created to reflect all the variations of the definite articles (e.g., a, an, la/lan, nan). 42

43. Task I cont…. Translated responses were analyzed as: (i) correct/incorrect (ii) types of reanalysis (e.g., omissions and substitutions) (iii) form distribution of reanalysis 43

44. Task 2 Participants were instructed to select the definite articles that corresponded with the same forty-four nouns as in the first task. Five trial items of the definite articles were presented with each noun (e.g., a, an, nan, la, lan). 44

45. Task 2: cont… “The Cat” Chat a Chat an Chat nan Chat la Chat lan 45

46. Task 2: Scoring Responses were measured in the following categories: (i) immediately correct (ii) correct after a short pause (5 sec) (iii) correct after a longer pause (more than 5 sec) (iv) incorrect (v) uncertain 46

47. Task 3:Narrative Discourse“Mwen Damou Pou Vava” 47