Correlates of Turkish vocabulary in adolescent Turkish heritage language learners in Germany

Abstract Little is known about resources for adolescent heritage language learners’ vocabulary. In a sample of adolescents (n = 78), we exploratively examined correlates of seventh-graders’ Turkish vocabulary as potential resources. Drawing on what is known about young heritage language learners and monolingual adolescent vocabulary learners, we considered a number of adolescent characteristics such as nonverbal reasoning (analogies subtest of the SON-R, Snijders, Tellegen, & Laros, 2005) and their self-reported identification with Turkish culture (Berry et al., 1993; Phinney & Ong, 2007). We also considered adolescents’ self-reports on reading activities, language use in the family and among friends, the percentage of Turkish speakers among their friends, as well as whether they attended Turkish classes. Turkish receptive vocabulary was assessed with an adapted research version modelled on the PPVT-4 (Dunn & Dunn, 2007; Glück, 2009). A set of regression analyses indicated that adolescent characteristics such as nonverbal reasoning skills and identification with the Turkish culture explained the most variance in Turkish vocabulary. This suggests that being motivated to maintain the heritage language may be major resources for adolescents’ vocabulary. However, it raises the question from what sources adolescents are receiving input in their heritage language. We discuss various reasons for why the other factors such as language use in the family and reading activities may not have shown significant connections to Turkish vocabulary and provide impulses for further research.