Veranstaltung: Workshop Multi-word units in heritage speakers
Organisers: Evelyn Wiesinger (Romanistik, UR) & Björn Hansen (Slavistik, UR)
Date: Thursday-Saturday, 26-28 November 2026
Location: University of Regensburg, “Altes Finanzamt”, Landshuter Str. 4, 93047 Regensburg, R319
Heritage speakers typically acquire and use the heritage language at home within a different majority-language environment. Their linguistic outcomes are highly variable and show diverse language-contact phenomena (Rothman 2009; Benmamoun, Montrul & Polinsky 2013; Polinsky 2018; Aalberse et al. 2022). Previous research on HS has primarily investigated the morphosyntactic features of heritage languages, whereas lexical, phraseological, and pragmatic aspects have received far less attention (compare, for example, the contributions in Montrul & Polinsky 2021). Existing studies on the lexical proficiency of HS have largely focused on individual lexical items, usually in comparison with monolingual speakers or L2 learners (see Zyzik 2021 and Hržica et al. 2024 for heritage Spanish and Italian).
However, MWUs have been shown to play an important role in both first and second language learning, processing, and use (see Hennecke, Perevozchikova & Wiesinger 2023 for an overview). Traditionally, MWUs are defined as formulaic and conventionalized word combinations (e.g. Wray 2012; Buerki 2020), whereas usage-based and psycholinguistic approaches rely on criteria such as frequency-based word associations (Altenberg 1998; Biber et al. 2012; Bybee 2010). Psycho- and neurolinguistic experiments have demonstrated speakers’ sensitivity to the distributional properties of some MWUs and their importance for acquiring both lexical and grammatical features (e.g. Kuperman et al. 2008; Arnon & Snider 2010; Arnon & Christiansen 2017). Constructionist approaches have further highlighted MWUs along a potential lexicon-grammar continuum and at different levels of schematicity and complexity, which may also carry specific pragmatic or sociolinguistic functions (e.g. the contributions in Hennecke & Wiesinger 2023a).
Research on different language-contact scenarios has shown that phenomena such as code-switching or calquing can be tied to different types of MWUs, including compounds, verb-object collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms, and prepositional or noun phrases (e.g. Backus 2003, 2015, 2019; Backus & Verschick 2012; Hakimov 2016; Hakimov & Backus 2021; Treffers-Daller 2005; Alexiadou & Lohndal 2018; Alexiadou 2020; Hennecke & Wiesinger 2023b; Wiesinger, in press). In this context, some MWUs may also function as identity markers in specific sociolinguistic settings (e.g. Wiesinger 2021; Cruz 2024) and play particular roles in speech-act pragmatics (Dubinina 2021; Gironzetti 2021; Bar On & Meir 2022).
The present conference therefore aims to provide empirically grounded insights into the role of MWUs in HS by bringing together results from different linguistic subfields investigating heritage languages in German-dominant contexts. More generally, these insights are intended to broaden our understanding of multilingual language learning, storage, perception, and production, and to contribute to a more unified picture of MWUs in multilingualism research. Given the current lack of studies on MWUs in HS, it is particularly important to investigate their formal, semantic, and pragmatic characteristics, and their role in heritage language acquisition, use, and processing across different developmental (or attrition) scenarios. These involve conditions of early onset, divergent input and exposure, (il)literacy, and varying opportunities for use, as well as different multilingual and sociocultural settings. For example, Kopotev, Kisselev & Polinsky (2020, p. 1) hypothesize – based on an exploratory corpus study of Russian HS – that these speakers “deploy fewer probabilistic strategies in language production compared with native speakers and that their active knowledge of and access to ready-to-use MWUs are restricted compared with native speakers”. Such hypotheses require further refinement and testing in future research.
Methodologically, contributions to the conference should also help to advance the particularly challenging study of HS (see Bayram et al. 2024; van Osch et al. 2025). This includes the need for studies based on larger, carefully annotated multilingual corpora (Kisselev 2021; Hansen & Zielińska 2022), using advanced computational and AI tools, as well as longitudinal investigations (Endesfelder Quick et al. 2016). Various corpus studies have shown that HS produce MWUs that are unattested in the corresponding monolingual variety (e.g. Doğruöz & Backus 2009; Kopotev, Kisselev & Polinsky 2020; Bučková 2021; Wiesinger 2021; Centner 2024). However, it is often unclear whether such MWUs are one-time occurrences or conventionalized units within individual speakers or HS communities. More systematic research is also needed to determine the role of MWUs in HS groups with the same and with different heritage languages, while considering the sociolinguistic and cultural dimensions of HS multi-word competences (see also Kopotev, Kisselev & Vakhranev 2025 on the complex relationship between using collocations and language proficiency in HS as well as Anstatt & Scholze 2025 for the sociolinguistic dimension). From an acquisitional perspective, further work is needed to clarify which MWUs were already present in the input to which HS were exposed – thus acquired as ready-made expressions, possibly with specific pragmatic or sociolinguistic values – and which were formed independently (e.g. Koch, Endesfelder Quick & Hartmann 2025). While acceptability studies for HS have been strongly criticized and provide an inconclusive picture of HS perception of MWUs (e.g. Karl 2012 vs. Zyzik 2021), experimental research on online language processing (e.g. eye-tracking or neuroimaging techniques) in HS is emerging. However, it has so far focused mainly on morphosyntactic features (e.g. Jegerski 2018; Keating 2024; Luque et al. 2023; Uygun 2023 and most of the contributions in Loureda & Ivanova 2025). The study of MWU processing in HS, as well as triangulation with other research methods, therefore remains a key desideratum for an adequate understanding of the characteristics of multilingual language development and processing in various acquisitional and sociolinguistic scenarios (see Valero Fernández et al. 2025, Cruz et al. 2025 and Hennecke, Wiesinger & Wolf, in prep. for first accounts).
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