2012/09/01 by Diego Pascual y Cabo, Jason Rothman · 285 citations
Social Sciences · Computer Science · Psychology · #Multilingual Education and Policy #Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition #Language Development and Disorders #Neuroscience of multilingualism #Competence (human resources) #Linguistics #Psychology #Linguistic competence #Heritage language #Second-language acquisition #Cognitive psychology #Social psychology #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.1093/applin/ams037
published in Applied Linguistics 33(4), 450-455 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2012/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This Forum challenges and problematizes the term incomplete acquisition, which has been widely used to describe the state of competence of heritage speaker (HS) bilinguals for well over a decade (see, e.g., Montrul, 2008). It is suggested and defended that HS competence, while often different from monolingual peers, is in fact not incomplete (given any reasonable definition by the word incomplete), but simply distinct for reasons related to the realities of their environment.