Heritage Bilingualism in the UK: the case of mood selection in Spanish varieties of Latin America

Heritage speakers (HS) are 2nd-generation immigrants who
acquire their heritage language (HL) at home, but they
become dominant in the majority language of the country. I
will investigate HL acquisition and development by
documenting indicative vs subjunctive mood selection of
heritage Spanish in the UK (i)to test and challenge the three
leading hypotheses which aim at explaining HL acquisition;
(ii)to develop a language training programme for HS to see
if explicit instruction can influence HS's mood selection.
Most of HS literature was developed in the US, where 15%
of their population is Spanish speaker. Census 2021 showed
that Spanish speakers doubled in the UK in the last ten
years, so investigating its specific features in the UK
becomes more pressing, as the migration trajectories and
linguistic history differ greatly from the US
context.Comparing children and adult HS of Spanish (7-
18/19-30) will allow me to test the main hypotheses in HL
acquisition, providing a substantial contribution to the
theoretical development of the field from the European
context, while bridging the gap between studies in the US
and the UK. A training programme for HS will be developed,
contributing with original material to be shared in various
language centres in London. Lastly, it will shed light on the
sociolinguistic characteristics of the Latin American
community in the U.K. As such, it will increase the visibility
of an ever-rising community of Speakers in the country.