This paper has reviewed existing Russian heritage language and foreign language anxiety research, in addition to larger issues of heritage language identity and the unique elements of anxiety heritage language learning fosters, in order to illuminate the areas in which further study is needed. As discussed, a focus on Russian heritage language learning anxiety, with an eye towards identity, in conjunction with existing works detailing technical components of language output or comparisons with native and foreign language speakers, would only add to the facets of the presently crafted profile of a Russian heritage speaker. While past research has contributed to the current understanding of heritage language learning, there are bounds to be made in understanding the role of identity in Russian heritage language learning, which is especially pertinent, given the intricate linguistic landscape of modern Russia and surrounding countries.
Additionally, we have discussed the ways in which heritage speakers inhabit more than one space in the practice and learning of their respective languages, and thus the next pertinent path is to intentionally consider the multiplicity of cross-sections that impact an individual’s access (inhibited or unfettered) to their identified heritage language. I suggest not only further investigation of Russian heritage language anxiety, as other heritage language studies, but also work specifically looking into the elements of identity and the imagined dichotomy between national and heritage language. Both factors are of particular interest in the Russian context because of the diversity of the country’s peoples and the tumultuous dynamics of ownership and belonging at play as a result of that diversity. In the context of Russian heritage speakers in the United States, ethnic, national, and racial affiliations are still further complicated in this melting pot environment, further warranting
thorough examination in order to form a more complete profile of a heritage speaker of Russian.
While this work has focused primarily on heritage speakers and learners of Russian, the issues that accompany the complex relationship between language and identity, particularly as it exists in relation to race, ethnicity, and nationality, are universal to heritage speakers across the globe. I have emphasized the case of Russian heritage speakers in part due to the complex linguistic landscape that colors the existence of these speakers, however, similar or similarly intricate situations exist around the world that impact heritage speakers of countless minority languages. As indigenous languages inch closer and closer to extinction, investigating the processes that may discourage a heritage language speaker from becoming a heritage language learner may help to strengthen society’s link to and hold on these languages. Only through such understanding of the processes and impediments to heritage language learning and teaching can we begin to adequately understand the distinctly cumbersome task heritage language learners occupying an intersectional identity face when attempting to gain a deeper knowledge of or reconnect to their heritage language.
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