Vietnamese Heritage Language: From Silence to Voice

Abstract

AbstractImmigration and emigration shape unique language contact environments and multilingual settings, intertwined with language ideologies, attitudes, practices, and the emergence of new contact languages. Heritage languages, spoken by immigrant children or individuals who migrated at a young age, have garnered attention, particularly in the United States and Canada since the 1960s and 1970s, and later in Europe and elsewhere. However, despite approximately 4 million individuals with Vietnamese immigration backgrounds worldwide, research on the Vietnamese language has only spanned since the 2000s. This review assesses the current state of Vietnamese heritage language studies, identifying topics explored, their development, existing gaps, and potential research directions. It synthesizes diverse findings, highlighting recent focus areas on heritage language loss, maintenance, ideology, education, proficiency assessment, and linguistic characteristics. The review identifies limitations in existing literature and offers recommendations for addressing them.