The complexity of factors influencing the linguistic production of Heritage-German speakers in Newcastle, Australia

Research on German as a heritage language in Australia tends to focus on either the grammatical features in the linguistic output of its speakers, particularly in the context of language contact with English (e.g., Clyne, 1991, 1994), or on factors influencing language maintenance and shift within the community (e.g., Clyne, 1988; Hunt & Davis, 2019; Kipp, 1980; Pütz, 1991; Schüpbach, 2006) and within the family (e.g., Hunt & Davis, 2022; Schüpbach, 2009). Therefore, there appears to be few studies which combine these research foci in order to shed light on the variability within, and factors that influence, the linguistic products of Heritage German (HG) speakers. For this presentation, we analysed transcripts of (as yet publicly unavailable) interviews with 40 HG speakers in Australia to establish the factors contributing to inter-individual variation in heritage-language productions. The output of six participants from this larger cohort were selected because these speakers fulfilled the criteria of having been born and grown up in Australia with at least one German-speaking parent and were able to have a basic conversation in German on everyday topics, e.g., childhood memories, daily activities, work, etc. We used both quantitative and qualitative methods in our analysis. First, we quantified the volume of each interviewee’s HG output as a total word count per interview. Most participants identified Standard German as their heritage variety, allowing us to also develop a crude measure of accuracy in HG productions against this baseline by totalling the number of incorrect word choices (e.g., use of wenn ‘if’ instead of wann ‘when’ in recounting an action in the past), codeswitches with English (e.g., “… aber [der] Mann lebt in Österreich, und Anna is back in Australia so their son was born here.” ‘… but the husband lives in Austria, and Anna is back in Australia…’), and deviations from standard word order (e.g., “… das ich möchte sehen” instead of “… das ich sehen möchte” ‘that I would like to see’.) We then explored the main themes in each individual’s linguistic history provided in the interviews, including childhood and current language exposure and use, heritage-language education, attempts to reinforce the heritage language within the family and the self, ongoing family connections to the heritage-language community both locally and abroad, as well as travel to German-speaking countries. Finally, we combined the results of these two analyses to extrapolate the variables contributing to the heterogeneity in the interviewees’ heritage language output. Our study shows that macro-, meso-, and micro-level factors combine to create a complex, multi-faceted network of influence upon an individual’s linguistic production and comprehension, creating a heterogeneous cohort whose linguistic output is highly variable in both quantity and quality. Our sample size is small and our baseline for comparison is opaque; however, it appears that frequency of use and means of acquisition (i.e., learning German in the home versus in formal educational settings) may have the greatest influence upon language output volume and accuracy. Therefore, we tentatively suggest that scholars consider including such variables as current frequency of heritage language use and level of formal training in future research design and analyses.