Ethnic Language Maintenance Research Articles

STRENGTHENING THE NATION VIA- NATIONAL LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AND SOCIAL IDENTITY REINFORCEMENT

Conveniently, human language could be taken into consideration as a worth property at outset belonged to the whole man. It has been comprising a proper way for conveying thoughts, expression, and aims as well. A particular language is not only regarded as a national one but as a personal identity of nation. Thus, a language might articulate a given identity belonging to society such as way of speech and way of thinking. The presence of different way of talking is resulted by the different social background. Moreover, it is regarded as part of the groups existing in a community having sameness in terms of synchronic participation to produce a common language. In relevance to language as marvelous identity in which set of each human ought to be maintained through Education, language Policies, and language improvement. A nation might be considered as being progressive while possessing a particular language representing a typical and fervent identity. Having had fervent idealized identity, a nation could have been led to flourishing one in terms of expancement through a national language as well as ethnic language maintenance. In line with social changes passing in capacious social aspects which trigger towards human language as social, economy, politic, and culture. These social aspects of life could have been affected by unawareness of national language maintenance. Thus, the writer puts forward social change in terms of language shift to language death. A national language is considered as a identity symbolizing the existence of it, signifying the unite of folk, and triggering towards progressive traits of nation. In case of indigenous language lies on paramount role in terms of national aims due to the fact that aboriginal language belonging to societies can signifies its identity as well as represents the culture. A common type of language ideology are standard language ideologies, the belief that language homogeneity is beneficial to society to construct interconnection in the hope that they may properly make language live. Thus, the expancement of national language as well as indigenous language would be increasingly wide-spread towards national Advancement.

Bilingual Students’ Identities in EFL Settings

This research examines bilingual students’ language choice between Korean and English and their identity negotiation in Korean local contexts. As the world has been globalized, the absolute association between one nation and one language fades. In some cases, maintaining a heritage language is the choice of an individual. Drawing concepts from community of practice, social identity, imagined communities, and the notion of investment, this study uses the quantification of bilingual participants’ language production and a qualitative research design. The quantitative data demonstrates that the participants’ language choice depends on the interlocutors. The qualitative findings show parents’ attitude, peer group as a community of practice, and ideology of the local community influence their language use and language identity construction. These findings show that the bilingual participants are influenced by the conflicting ideologies (ethnic language maintenance and hegemony of English) of Korean society.

Influence of Social Network on Language Use of Kejaman Speakers in Sarawak, Malaysia

The Kejaman are a small indigenous group living in the interior of Belaga in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. This preliminary study examines the influence of social network on the language use of Kejaman speakers. The study involves 30 Kejaman teenagers who had moved out of Belaga to continue their secondary education in a nearby town, Bintulu. Their ability to speak Kejaman varies, ranging from those who cannot speak Kejaman to those who can interact fluently in Kejaman. The density of their exchange network (M = 82.22 percent) is much higher than that of their interactive network (M = 50.00 percent). The low multiplexity score of 20.83 percent shows that the interaction among the Kejaman participants tends to be confined to one capacity or domain. The results show low usage of Kejaman in relation to other languages in the exchange and interactive networks (mean ratio of 0.39 and 0.30, respectively). There are no significant relationships between the density of their social network, the ability to speak Kejaman, and the use of Kejaman in relation to other languages. Established procedures of social network analysis were used, but the results showed that density and multiplexity can no longer be considered as cooccurring indicators of network ties because communication technologies have brought geographically distant network ties into frequent contact, and yet the geographical distance means that the ties are not multiplex. The findings suggest that the ethnic index of social networks may be more indicative of ethnic language maintenance or shift.

The Persian Paradox: Language use and maintenance among Iranian Americans

AbstractAs a relatively new, highly educated, professional and entrepreneurial immigrant group, Iranian Americans display complex linguistic patterns. In this article, we analyze data from the American Community Survey (ACS) on English language proficiency and languages spoken at home for the first- and second-generation Iranian Americans. These quantitative data are supplemented by in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of Iranian American families in the northeastern United States on their behavior and attitudes toward learning and preserving their native language (Persian). Although ACS data show high English language proficiency among first-generation Iranian immigrants, they also show a relatively high usage of Persian language among this ethnic group. Findings show that parents and children had positive behavior and attitudes toward the preservation of Persian. As transnational families, parents have created a “tool kit” to ensure that Persian will persist at least through the second generation. Maintaining transnational ties, attending weekly cultural and religious events, providing Persian instruction, and controlling children’s language use at home were among the most important mechanisms of ethnic language maintenance.

Family language policies among Albanian immigrants in Greece

This article reports on an investigation of family language policies among 37 Albanian immigrant families in Northern Greece within the framework of Spolsky's language policy model. Data collection was based on semi-directed interviews with parents which were analysed using both content and discourse analysis. According to our findings, three groups of families were observed in our sample. A small number of families (n=4) did not transmit the ethnic language to their children and showed no interest in maintaining ties with the homeland. In another group of families (n=12) positive attitudes towards ethnic language maintenance were accompanied by specific language management efforts and language practices in support of the ethnic language. However, the majority of our informants (n=21) did not engage in such efforts, even though they, too, expressed positive attitudes towards Albanian language maintenance. We argue that although most immigrant parents may share positive attitudes towards ethnic language maintenance, they may differ as to whether they embrace bilingualism as an asset or accept the dominant ideology according to which the simultaneous development of two languages may hinder the development of the majority language.

Bilingual Myth-Busters Series Language Confusion in Bilingual Children

This article is the first in a series that will attempt to deconstruct myths about bilingualism. Language confusion is the popularly held belief (or myth) that children are incapable of becoming bi...

<i>Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in Greek Education: Investigating Ethnic Language Maintenance among Pupils of Albanian and Egyptian Origin in Athens</i> by N. Gogonas

<i>Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in Greek Education: Investigating Ethnic Language Maintenance among Pupils of Albanian and Egyptian Origin in Athens</i> by N. Gogonas

Belonging and Attitudes towards Ethnic Languages among African Migrants in Australia

Based on data from a research project on African identities in Melbourne, this paper assesses the attitudes of non-refugee African-Australians towards their ethnic languages in the context of the utility and prestige of English in Australia. The paper explores the tensions between discourses on rights to language(s) of choice and discourses on conforming to prescribed languages. It opens new questions about ethnic language loyalty and language maintenance among African-Australians. The following questions are addressed: how do African communities in Australia perceive their ethnic languages? What is the state of ethnic language maintenance among African-Australians? How do dominant monolingual discourses influence the attitude of African migrants towards their ethnic languages? How are African-Australian identities shaped and mediated by competing attitudes towards English on the one hand and migrant ethnic languages on the other?

GROWING UP ETHNIC IN TRANSNATIONAL WORLDS: IDENTITIES AMONG SECOND-GENERATION CHINESE AND DOMINICANS

Transnationalism refers to the phenomenon of immigrants maintaining connections to their country of origin and using a dual frame of reference to evaluate their experiences and outcomes in the country in which they have settled. How does transnationalism matter in the identities among the second generation? This article argues that growing up with parents who want children to participate in their homeland imaginary and in a strong transnational social field does not necessarily mean second-generation Dominicans and Chinese will themselves adopt transnational orientations and/or practices. I find that my Chinese respondents, because of authoritarian parent-child relationships, relative loss of the ethnic language, and scarcity of contact with their parents’ countries of origin, viewed themselves as mainly ethnic subjects. Identities for my Chinese respondents involved a generational- and class-specific ethnic identity grounded in the enclaves and perceived rarefaction vis-à-vis mainstream America. My Dominican respondents, because of greater communication within the family, ethnic language maintenance, and the very frequent number of trips they made to the Dominican Republic, drew from both transnational and ethnic orientations, meaning they situated who they were within both national contexts. Although my Dominican respondents acknowledged the differences between Dominicans “back there” and themselves, they spoke cogently on class, gender, and the color line there as well as here. At the same time, their identities were informed by their pan-ethnicity in the United States, namely, how Latinos and Dominicans, in particular, are perceived.

Ethnic language maintenance among Chinese immigrant children in the United States

Based upon ethnolinguistic theory, this study examined the familial and peer influences on immigrant Chinese American children’s ethnic language maintenance. Children’s decisions to retain their ethnic language were hypothesized to be influenced by their parents’ attitude toward the maintenance of Chinese, parent–child cohesion, grandparent–child cohesion, peer influence on language behavior, and age of immigration. Of the 250 respondents, 131 were first-generation and 114 were second-generation immigrants to the United States. The results indicated that Chinese-speaking peer influence, followed by English-speaking peer influence, were the most important factors in Chinese American children’s ethnic language retention. Parent–child cohesion was an important mediating factor in the relationship between parent’s language attitude and the children’s ethnic language retention. In addition, age of immigration played an important role in Chinese American children’s ethnic language maintenance.

Non-separatist Policies Regarding Ethnic Minorities: Positive Approaches and Ambiguous Consequences

This paper provides a tour d'horizon of institutional and other nonseparatist responses to ethnic minority claims, including affirmative action, ethnic recruitment, ethnic language maintenance and instruction, communalism, multiculturalism, supranationalism, and "corporatist" arrangements. It is suggested that these responses may have positive as well as unintended or perverse consequences both for society at large and for the minority ethnic group. These consequences depend on a variety of factors, among them the degree of economic and political development; the rootedness and cohesion of the ethnic minority community; the nature and attitudes of the ethnic elite; the intensity of ethnic cultural commit ment ; and the sincerity of national policy makers. Finally, the paper sets out the conditions conducive to combining "national integration" with ethnic minority accommodation.

Bilingualism in Indonesia: Ethnic Language Maintenance and the Spread of the National Language

Bilingualism in Indonesia: Ethnic Language Maintenance and the Spread of the National Language

The International Bilingual City: How A University Meets the Challenge

Abstract Can language departments in schools on the U.S.‐Mexico border take advantage of bilingual situations, expanding their programs through a creative serving of diverse publics, or must they be constrained by cross‐ethnic taboos and restrictive local “rules of speaking”? These and kindred questions are addressed in this essay, which, following a sociolinguistic description of the El Paso‐Ciudad Juarez metropolitan area, relates how placement tests, multiple tracking, trans‐institutional program articulation, and an honest appraisal of weaknesses as well as strengths have contributed to improvement. Various topics discussed include the role of women in ethnic language maintenance, some intra‐ethnically segregative consequences of language‐dominance‐based tracking in the elementary school, the pitfalls and the benefits of establishing a mandatory placement system, and the price that is paid for failing to finely articulate FLES at the district level.

Exploring Student Attitudes in Australia towards Ethnic Language Maintenance

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