Does structural priming lead to contact-induced language change?

Abstract Subject pronoun expression (SPE) has been extensively investigated in studies of language contact, with studies finding higher rates of SPE in consistent null subject languages that are in contact with non-null subject languages. Recent studies have explored the role of structural priming in these processes of language change by analyzing different language pairs and societal contexts. We contribute to this line of research by examining the role of structural priming on the SPE rates of three groups of Spanish–English bilinguals: a group of 40 heritage speakers of Spanish living in the U.S., a group of 35 first-generation immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries also living in the U.S., and a group of 60 monolingually-raised speakers of Spanish living in a Spanish-speaking country. Participants completed two production experiments (one with a within-language priming treatment and one with a cross-linguistic priming treatment) as well as a task to control for language dominance. Results showed that SPE rates were significantly higher in the within-language condition than in the cross-linguistic condition. However, the effect did not extend to a post-test task in either experiment. Between-group differences were only found in the within-language condition, with heritage speakers producing the highest SPE rates. Language dominance was not significant.