Italian-German bilinguals: The effects of heritage language use on accent in early-acquired languages:

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions:This study investigates perceived accent in the two early-acquired languages of 21 adult-aged bilinguals with Italian as the heritage language (HL) and German as the majority language (ML). We test the relative ability of ‘age of onset (AoO) in German’ (range = 0–6 years) and ‘Italian use’ to predict perceived nativeness in Italian and German.Design/methodology/approach:Two accent rating experiments were carried out (one in each language) comparing the bilingual speech samples to those of monolingual and second language (L2) control groups. The samples were rated by German and Italian-speaking judges for foreign accent (‘yes’ or ‘no’) and for degree of certainty (‘certain, ‘semi-certain’, ‘uncertain’).Data and analysis:The effects of ‘AoO in German’ and ‘Italian Use’ (operationalized as an Italian Use Score) were analysed using correlational analyses and logistic regression.Findings/conclusions:Our results show that almost all bilinguals were indistinguishabl...