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Bilingual and Trilingual First Language Acquisition: Catalan, Spanish and German as heritage languages
Bilingual and Trilingual First Language Acquisition: Catalan, Spanish and German as heritage languages
Project description and main objectives:
This research project aims at investigating multilingualism in (early) childhood and young adulthood for the Romance languages Catalan and Spanish as well as German. Specifically, we want to analyze different quantitative and qualitative factors in children’s input that may promote active bi- and trilingualism. Current studies on early multilingualism, as the work by Arnaus Gil et al. (2020), have observed that regular contact with the heritage or minority language(s) is decisive for active multilingualism (in this project, the minority or heritage languages are Catalan and Spanish in Germany as well as German in the Catalan-speaking countries in Spain).
research team
(until 2024)research team
from left to right:
Anna Münze, Tamara Moraga, Rabiha Saglar, Laia Arnaus, Saray Calderón, Amelia Jiménez, Bárbara Rodríguez
(Photo: Alba Ayala Cejas)
Research output - Articles
Arnaus Gil, L. (2026). The role of siblings for heritage language maintenance. In T. Wörfel, E. Olfert & E. Gürsoy (Hgg.), Special Issue Empirische Forschung zur Herkunftssprachen und herkunftssprachlichen Unterrichtsangeboten in Deutschland. Review on Language. Accepted.
Arnaus Gil, L. (2026). Receptive and expressive skills in French, Spanish and Catalan as heritage languages in Germany. How family and (pre)school team up for heritage language acquisition. Waxmann Verlag. To appear.
Arnaus Gil, L. & A. Jiménez-Gaspar (2026). (Pre)Schoolers‘ literacy practices and heritage language acquisition: Catalan, Spanish and German as heritage languages. In L. Arnaus Gil & A. Jiménez-Gaspar, Linguistic Measures and Outcomes in (Child) Multilingualism: A Focus on Romance Languages as Heritage or Majority Languages. Educational Linguistics Series. Dordrecht: Springer. To appear.
Arnaus Gil, L. & A. Jiménez-Gaspar. (2025). On the early acquisition of (null-)subjects in Catalan as a heritage language. In Mardale, A. (Hrg.), Special Issue 'Romance languages as heritage languages'. Romanica Cracoviensia. https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.24.028.20983
Arnaus Gil, L. & A. Jiménez-Gaspar (2022). Catalan as a heritage language in Germany. In T. Kupisch (Hg.), Special Issue ‘Heritage Languages in Germany’. Languages 7(1), 43. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7010043.
Arnaus Gil, L. & A. Jiménez-Gaspar (2022). The role of internal and external factors for code-switching: A study of early multilingualism in Germany with special reference to Catalan as a heritage language. In J. Hofweber, J. P. Zeller & J. Treffers-Daller (Hgg.), Special Issue ‘Challenging Basic Assumptions in Code-Switching Research: New Linguistic, Sociolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Evidence’. Languages 7, 258. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040258
Jiménez-Gaspar, A. & L. Arnaus Gil. (2022). The role of (older) siblings in the acquisition of heritage languages: early Catalan-German bilingualism in Germany. In T. Pinheiro (Hg.), Cultura en transició. Estudis culturals de catalanística. Aachen: Shaker, 165-211.
Research output - Talks
When the heritage language accelerates the societal language in early multilingualism: The case of Romance heritage languages and German. Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE), Workshop on Heritage Speakers and their Repertoire. Accepted.
The null subject property in HL Catalan: Insights from simultaneous Catalan-German children living in Germany. Catalan Linguistics at Oxford Day (Oxford, UK).
L’adquisició i l’ús de marcadors discursius en el català com a llengua d’herència a Alemanya. Jornades de Lingüística Catalana a Viena (Wien, Austria).
Mehrsprachigkeit mit zwei, drei oder mehreren Sprachen – nach 40 Jahren Forschung: why it matters more than ever. Workshop iin the Summer School Mehrsprachigkeit, früher oder später: Wege des Erstspracherwerbs bis zum Erwerb einer L3, experimentelle Perspektiven auf den Erwerb romanischer Sprachen im digitalen Zeitalter. Bergische Universität Wuppertal (Germany).
Intrasentential code-switching in Catalan-German(-Spanish) multilingual children. Kick-off Workshop The Architecture of the Multilingual Mind New Perspectives on Subjects within Parameter Hierarchies in the Context of Code-mixing/Code-switching. Bergische Universität Wuppertal.
‘zwei stücke síndria’: Code-switching in multilingual children acquiring Catalan, German and Spanish as heritage/majority languages. Bilingualism in the Hispanic and Lusophone World (Reading, UK).
Code-switching in multilingual children acquiring Catalan, German and Spanish as heritage and/or majority languages. English and German Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain).
Geschwister und Eltern für den Erhalt der Herkunftssprachen. HSU-Interregio, Universität Duisburg-Essen (Essen, Germany).
On the early acquisition of null subjects in Catalan and German as heritage or majority languages: early multilingualism in Germany and Catalonia. Going Romance 2024, Braga (Portugal). Together with A. Jiménez-Gaspar.
Tapping into linguistic competence in early heritage language acquisition: the receptive vocabulary task as a measure for monolingual and bilingual baselines. Research Unit 'Emerging Grammars in Language Contact Situations (RUEG) Conference. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany). Together with A. Jiménez-Gaspar.
The emergence of code-switching in early multilingual acquisition: The role of input quantity and quality factors in Catalan as a heritage language. 38. Romanistentag, Universität Leipzig (Germany). Together with A. Jiménez-Gaspar.
The role of internal and external factors for code-mixing: A study of early multilingualism in Germany with special reference to Catalan as a heritage language. AILA 23, Universität Lyon (France). Together with A. Jiménez-Gaspar.
Spanish, Catalan and German as heritage and majority languages in Germany and Catalonia: first results. Forschungskolloquium romanischer Linguistik, Universität Hamburg (Germany).
Catalan-German Code-Mixing in early bilingual and trilingual acquisition: Catalan as a heritage language in Germany. 39 International Conference of the Spanish Society for Applied Linguistics (AESLA). Universidad de Las Palmas (Spain). Together with Amelia Jiménez-Gaspar.
The acquisition of the null subject parameter in Catalan as a heritage language. International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech. University of Louisiana at Lafayette (USA). Together with Caroline Daniel and Amelia Jiménez-Gaspar.
Interne und externe Faktoren zur Sprachdominanz und Code-Mixing im (früh)kindlichen Alter: eine Studie zum Katalanischen als Herkunftssprache in Deutschland. LIMES-Kolloquium. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen (Germany).
Catalan as a heritage language in Germany: past, present and future. Vortrag im Rahmen der Forschergruppe BIBA (Bidirectional Effects of Bilingualism Across Ages). Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain).
Katalanisch als Herkunftssprache in Deutschland. Vortrag im Rahmen der Vorlesung über romanische Sprachen als Herkunftssprachen in Deutschland. Universität Hamburg (Germany).
Family language policies and family language in early bilingualism: language competence and language use in child-parent-interactions. Second International Symposium on Family Language Policy, Paris. Together with A. Jiménez-Gaspar.
L’adquisició del català com a llengua d’herència en infants multilingües a la ciutat d’Hamburg. Katalanistentag 2020, Universität Chemnitz (Germany). Together with A. Jiménez-Gaspar.
Untangling the factors towards language proficiency in Catalan as a heritage language in Germany: A cross-sectional study on language exposure, language proficiency, parental linguistic attitudes and parents’ wellbeing. 42. Jahrestagung der DGfS - AG1: Variation in heritage languages: Language contact vs. internal developments, Hamburg (Germany). Together with E. J. Daussà, A. Jiménez-Gaspar & Renée Pera-Ros.
Frühkindlicher Trilinguismus mit Katalanisch in Spanien und Deutschland: Rezeptiver Wortschatz und Gebrauch der Kopulaverben ésser und estar. Forschungskolloquium romanischer Linguistik, Universität Hamburg (Germany).
Research output - Non-linguistic presentations
Somos multilingües! Wir sind mehrsprachig!
Talk about multilingualism within the framework of the research study BiTriFLA (German as a heritage language) in Barcelona.
Link of the talk: https://uni-wuppertal.sciebo.de/f/946184011
Password: SomMulti25
Herkunftssprache(n) im (früh)kindlichen Alter: die Rolle der Familie
Poster presentation within the Get-together-meeting "Herkunftssprachlichen Unterricht interdisziplinär und interregional erforschen, entwickeln, vernetzen" (HSU-Interregio) an der Universität Duisburg-Essen (9.-10. November).
Tapping into linguistic competence in early language acquisition
Poster presentation within the RUEG conference on "Linguistic variability in Heritage Language Research" (26th-28th September 2023)
Presentation on bilingualism given as part of a series of lectures organized by the Instituto Cervantes in Hamburg.
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