Language Processing in Spanish Heritage Speakers

This is a Reprint of the Special Issue Language Processing in Spanish Heritage Speakers that was published in Languages. 

This reprint offers a collection of empirical research on how Spanish heritage speakers process language input. It brings together ten contributions from varied theoretical and methodological perspectives, providing a comprehensive overview of the field and a solid foundation for future research on Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL). Research on SHL has gained prominence as a lens for examining the linguistic, social, and cognitive mechanisms underlying its intergenerational transmission. Increased mobility among Spanish-speaking populations has intensified attention to how heritage Spanish is acquired, taught, and used. Its expansion—especially in the United States—has generated extensive demolinguistic, sociolinguistic, and applied research on the factors shaping its transmission and use. At the same time, migration flows in Europe, Asia, and within Spanish-speaking communities have heightened interest in how Spanish and its varieties are maintained and learned.

In this context, the cognitive dimension of SHL acquisition and use remains underexplored. Studying how heritage speakers process Spanish can deepen our understanding of bilingual cognition, acquisition constraints, and the interaction between cognitive systems and linguistic structure. To advance this line of inquiry, this reprint presents a set of experimental studies that contribute to the development of psycholinguistic research in the area.