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Topic

Production of verbal morphology in heritage speakers of Tamil

School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures

Date & location

• Thursday, April 10, 2025
• 10:00 A.M.
• Virtual Defence

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Sonya Bird, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. John Archibald, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Chandan Narayan, Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Gregory Rowe, Department of Greek and Roman Studies, UVic

Abstract

This study investigates the differences in the verbal morphology of heritage Tamil speakers and L1 Tamil speakers with the ultimate goal of providing applicable pedagogical insights for heritage Tamil teachers and learners.

This work is centred within my community of heritage Tamil speakers. Tamil is a Dravidian language that is dominant primarily in South Asia. Tamil heritage speakers, like heritage speakers of other languages, often face issues of social stigma, shame, and feelings of exclusion when speaking their heritage language, in addition to linguistic barriers because of the lack of pedagogical materials and research on heritage Tamil acquisition. Nevertheless, many adult Tamil heritage speakers have a strong motivation to learn their heritage language.

The long-term goal of my research is to identify and implement strategies to support heritage Tamil learners who want to (further) develop their oral proficiency in the language. For the purposes of this thesis, I limited my scope to verbal morphology, and the question I investigated was how heritage Tamil speakers and fluent L1 Tamil speakers differ in their production of verbal morphology. I used a combination of games and stories to elicit verb forms with a range of tense and person-number-gender (PNG) affixes, making sure to use methods that could be reapplied in the classroom as teaching tools. The heritage speakers I worked with used a combination of target-like forms as well as different strategies of overgeneralization, notably overmarking, to simplify irregular morphological paradigms that are present in L1 tense and PNG morphology. The findings from this study demonstrate that heritage Tamil speakers have a deep awareness of Tamil’s complex verbal morphology, while also highlighting clear points of divergence between L1 Tamil and heritage Tamil grammars that parallel those seen in other heritage languages cross-linguistically and which can be useful for heritage language teachers in determining what types of forms to target in the classroom.