Accent perception in heritage speakers of Italian and migrants from Italy

Little is known about how heritage speakers (HS s) and first-generation migrants perceive global accents, including those of their own peers. Our study compares the accent perception of 107 Italian-speaking individuals belonging to three groups: HS s, migrants, and homeland controls. These three groups rated speech samples from second language learners (L2ers), homeland speakers, and other HS s. The results revealed that migrants perceive accents similarly to homeland raters. While heritage raters show the same trends as the other two rater groups, there are some minor differences in perception, as they identify L2ers and HS s less often as foreign. These findings indicate that intensive language contact from early childhood on may lead to different conceptions of ‘nativeness’ compared to homeland raters. Such a difference may arise due to deviations in the perceptual system or sociolinguistic factors. By contrast, migrants’ intense language contact during adulthood does not change their perception of a ‘native’ accent.