Abstract

ALAMILLO, Rosalva. (No)genericidad en sustantivos plurales en hablantes de español como lengua de herencia: ¿Qué revela la traducción sobre las diferencias interlingüísticas entre el español y el inglés?. RASAL lingüíst. [online]. 2023, vol.2023, n.1, pp.29-57. ISSN 2618-3455.  http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.56683/rs231160.

This study analyzes determined plural and bare plural noun phrases in preverbal position with the aim of examining the amount and direction of linguistic interference, if any, and, in turn, understanding how speakers of Spanish as a heritage language (HL) handle interlinguistic differences regarding the (non)genericity feature. The definite article presents interlinguistic differences in Romance and Germanic languages ​​when it modifies plural subjects. In English, there are two different structures to convey a generic reading (Plants are colorful) and a specific one (The plants are colorful), while in Spanish a single structure carries these two possible interpretations (Las plantas son coloridas). This may cause negative interference from one language to the other (Chierchia, 1998; Cuza et al., 2012; Gelman & Raman, 2003; Ionin et al., 2013; Longobardi, 1994; Montrul & Ionin, 2010, 2012; Snape et al., 2013). 162 speakers of Spanish as a HL, who were taking a college-level heritage Spanish-speaking course, completed two translation tasks to analyze the influence of English on Spanish and vice versa. English interference towards the HL was found in sentences with generic readings in all groups, but, it is observed that such transfer decreases as language proficiency increases in the HL. Interference from Spanish to English was also found, but to a lesser degree.

Keywords : linguistic interference; definite article; heritage speakers; plurals; genericity.

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