Linguistic Profile of Indonesian Heritage Language Learners Juliana Wijaya UCLA Madison, June 10, 2008

Age of Arrival & Exposure to the Language StudentPlace of BirthIndonesian Parents Home LanguageExposure to HL outside home/family & class 1CaliforniabothEnglishfriends, trip to the country 2CaliforniamotherEnglish, a little Indonesian trip to the country 3CaliforniabothEnglish, Indonesian friends, church 4CaliforniamotherEnglishtrip to the country 5CaliforniabothEnglishtrip to the country 6Indonesia: came at the age of 5 1/2 bothEnglish Indonesian none 7England: came at the age of 5 bothEnglish Indonesian friends, trip to the country

HLs’ Self Assessment of Language Skills StudentListeningSpeakingReadingWriting

Oral Proficiency: ACTFL - Oral Proficiency Interview Novice, Intermediate, Advance, Superior ILR – Interagency Language Roundtable Scales: 0+  5 Measuring general ability and place learners/speakers on global scales

Global Tasks and Functions Lexical Control Structural Control Sociolinguistic Competence Delivery Text Produced On ACTFL - ILR scale, a person’s oral proficiency of a specific language is be rated against the following criteria :

ILR/OPI Speaking Ratings of HLs HLs #1-5: 0+ Simple and basic sentence structures Individual words and phrases Memorized words & phrases related to immediate survival needs Sociolinguistic competence: very limited Perception & production differ greatly Stress, intonation usually quite faulty

DLI/OPI Speaking Ratings of HLs HLs #6-7: 2+ Sufficient to discuss high frequency concrete topics. Imprecise for less common topics Use of structural devices is flexible and elaborate Speak effortlessly and smoothly when discussing common topics Use of cultural references

What They Know: Lexicons HLs w/ Low Proficiency: Greetings: - Apa kabar? ‘How are you?’ - Terima kasih. ‘Thank you.’ Kitchen/Children Words: - Makan ‘to eat’ Minum ‘to drink’ - Bobo vs. Tidur ‘to sleep’ HLs w/ Int. proficiency: Words/Phrases beyond greetings, kitchen and survival words High-frequency words/phrases Dialectical words/phrases Full formed words: Beyond base words -Inflection/derivation

What They Know: Morphosyntax Low Proficient HLs: Basic Simple sentences: Memorized forms No mastery of complex morphosyntax structures Intermediate HLs: Some knowledge of complex morphosyntax: Use of inflections and derivatives in high- frequency phrases & structures is usually accurate

Issues in Speaking Low Proficient HLs: Pronunciation: - Unaspirated initial stops: p, t, k - Problem with initial & final glottal stops - Problem with ‘trill r’ - Stress on wrong syllables - Faulty intonation No/little mastery of discourse particles E.g. Emphatic/mirativity marker loh and kok No/little mastery of cohesive markers

Issues in Speaking Intermediate Proficient HLs: No problem with pronunciation of high frequency words and common topics Will be perceived as native speakers Speak with certain dialects (spoken by parents & friends) Good mastery of discourse particles and cohesive markers Problem: Colloquialism

HLs’ Production: Writing (1) Misspelling: vowels: a, i, u E.g. teman  temen ‘friend’ sebenarnya  sebenernya ‘actually’ Silent ‘h’ E.g. tujuh  tuju ‘seven’ (without final h it is the base of ‘destination/purpose’) bawah  bawa ‘under’ (without final h it means to ‘bring’) sudah  suda ‘already’ tahu  tau ‘to know’

HLs’ Production: Writing (2) Colloquialisms The use of colloquial expressions in formal writing : - buat in the place of untuk ‘to/for’ - sama in the place of dan/dengan ‘and/with’ - bikin in the place of membuat ‘to make’ - situ in the place of sana ‘there’ Inconsistent use of first person plural pronoun kami/kita ‘exclusive/inclusive we’

HLs’ Production: Writing (3) HLs’ use of informal a ‘double’ genitive/possessive marker -nya in their formal writing. (used mostly in colloquial spoken language) E.g. rumah dia ‘his/her house  HLs & FLs rumahnya – preferable form rumahnya dia  HLs Int HLs’ use of colloq. verb Intransitive marker – in (dialectical) instead of –kan/-i (standard)

Intermediate HLs’ Strength in Writing: Syntax: A more natural use of active and passive sentence structures Morphosyntax: A more natural use of transtive and intransitive verb phrases A more natural use of reduplications: plural markers, repeated actions, etc. Note: Basic/no metalinguistic knowledge

Implications: Instructions/Materials: Low Proficient HLs grouped together with FLs: HLs’ share of socio-cultural knowledge Intermediate Proficient HLs: Different treatment & different instructional materials to develop their presentational skills & to bring them to advanced and educated native speakers’ levels.