Gender and Number Agreement by Spanish Heritage and Second Language Children in Dual Immersion

Abstract This study examines number and gender concord in the nominal domain by heritage ( HL ) and second language (L2) children in Spanish-English dual language immersion ( DLI ). Participants were 36 HL and 90 L2 children in their 5th and 6th year of DLI and 55 age-matched control children from a Spanish-majority environment. All children completed the same spontaneous written production task. Results indicate that Spanish HL children retained their crib-learned nominal concord, as demonstrated in ceiling scores for number agreement and noun-adjective gender matching. However, some gender instability in determiner selection persisted. L2 children showed mastery of number agreement but significantly lower accuracy than control children in gender assignment and agreement measures. HL and L2 children had difficulties with both masculine and feminine nouns, and canonical and non-canonical ending nouns. Despite differences between groups, overall accuracy levels above chance confirm the benefits of DLI for L2 acquisition and HL maintenance and development.