Heritage language use among Turkish and Vietnamese mothers in Germany

Abstract

In this study we investigate heritage language use among Turkish and Vietnamese mothers in Germany. We suggest that exclusive use of the heritage language in mother-child interactions is affected by an interplay of structural characteristics in the family environment as well as mothers’ rational expectations aimed towards their language use. We seek to provide an appropriate explanation for mothers’ heritage language use by expanding the usual model through the integration of further types of rationalities. Our results strongly confirm recent findings that immigrants’ heritage language use is mostly linked to the respective social environment and its opportunity structures. The use of the heritage language between immigrant mothers and their children is therefore mainly influenced by situational instrumental rationality aimed towards interactional pragmatism. Interestingly, we did not find any negative relation between mothers’ exclusive heritage language use with their child and mothers’ strategic instrumentally rational expectations aimed towards their child’s future educational success.