Social-psychological factors affecting language maintenance: Interviews with Shin Nisei university students in Hawaii

Abstract

This article examines social-psychological factors affecting language maintenance by analyzing a group of second-generation heritage language learners' reflections on their networks of language contacts in childhood and adolescence. The focused group is American Shin Nisei (new second generation Japanese) university students in Hawaii. The data were collected through intensive interviews with six bilingual and semibilingual focal students and through extensive interviews with numerous other Shin Nisei university students. A statistical reference is also provided. Analysis indicates the strong assimilative pulls of the dominant culture even in multicultural/multiethnic Hawaii. In this sociocultural milieu, Japanese mothers play a critical role in Shin Niseis' Japanese language maintenance, especially oral skills, although a mother's choices cannot determine children's behavior; their language behavior interacts with social identity, which may change across time and space. This article also discusses problems facing educational institutions for Japanese language maintenance in Hawaii, such as the dominant use of English at heritage language schools and Shin Nisei students' socially frustrating and academically unsatisfactory learning experiences in formal foreign language classes.