Bilingualism and the Second Generation: Investigating the Effects and Methods of Heritage Language Maintenance and Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, the field of bilingual education has been in the headlines in the US, which was different from the English-only activism in the 1980s where no one had imagined witnessing the nation's dominant language to be endangered by the encroachment of other languages. Afterward, there were several legislative campaigns focusing on the exclusivity of the English language in the US. However, bilingual education did not stop there as more and more immigrants decided to call the US home. The aim of this study was to explore both the cultural and linguistic identities of Chinese immigrant parents and teenagers in the US and how parental involvement impacted children's language awareness and attitudes. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted through a series of questionnaires, field notes and a semi-structured interview to examine the participants' linguistic identity and parental language influence. The present study analyzed the methods the participants used to successfully maintain their L1 in conjunction with acquiring English as their L2 in the US. The findings revealed that parents' involvement substantially affects both children's heritage language maintenance and second language acquisition with a few affective variables identified influencing their overall language development. Several pedagogical implications are also provided for bilingual practitioners and immigrant parents.