The Impact of Context on Attitudes Toward Heritage Languages: A Case Study of Jewish Schools in the Asia-Pacific Region

Abstract

ABSTRACT This qualitative study, examining seven communities in the globalized Asia Pacific area, aimed to investigate Jewish community attitudes toward Hebrew, their heritage language (HL), as influenced by the social environment. The main finding was that the “complex ecology” of context influences attitudes to Hebrew. The article delineates three major categories: expatriates in Asia, whose particularistic identity, including Hebrew, was strengthened; citizens, the majority native-born, in Australia and immigrants in New Zealand, whose Jewish identity was weakened. Findings demonstrate the importance of community contact, adding to understanding HL learning and linguistic distance between micro and macro elements in the sociolinguistic context.