Abstract

Whether people acquire knowledge of their native language or embark on studying a different language, the fascination surrounding language learning worldwide has created a need for categorizations and new definitions. This paper focused on the third-year Russian heritage student who has come to realize that the Russian language was his linguistic and cultural heritage that he wanted to reconstruct academically. Interestingly, having fallen into heritage learner category, this participant’s motivational orientation carried rather instrumental character, since pursuing future career for him was one of the most important factors for studying the language. Thus by obtaining evidence directly from language learners and conducting such case studies as the one discussed below on the Russian heritage speaker may provide a deeper insight and further promote language researchers’ understanding on how these speakers may function within the linguistic domains of their native and second languages.