Heritage Language Maintenance Research Articles

Language ideologies and heritage language maintenance among Egyptian Nubian families: a comparative study of urban and rural families

ABSTRACT This article explores language ideologies in urban and rural Nubian families in Egypt toward Arabic, English, and Nubian, analysing how these families’ different language ideologies could influence heritage language maintenance. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and observations with three urban and three rural families in Egypt, and qualitative content analysis was conducted to compare differences in parents’ ideologies between rural and urban Nubian families. The survey results show that parents from urban and rural families greatly emphasise Arabic learning. Parents in urban families are more willing to invest in their children's foreign language education. In contrast, parents in rural families consider Nubian to be of great significance for their children's education, which leads parents to prioritise having their children speak Nubian as the main language at home. They strongly recognise the value of the Nubian language in ethnic identity and cultural inheritance. The results suggest that parents’ language ideologies and heritage language maintenance in urban and rural Nubian families may be affected by macro factors (e.g. national language policy, socio-cultural environment) and micro factors (e.g. parents’ education level, family economic level).

Regional, state, and immigrants’ heritage languages in high school: The effect of geographic origin and linguistic acculturation profiles on language attitudes

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: This study explores the language attitudes that high-school students of immigrant origin hold toward Catalan, Spanish, and the heritage languages of immigrant communities, focusing on linguistic acculturation profiles at school and geographic origin of these students. It takes place in Catalonia (Spain), a multilingual setting where Spanish and Catalan have official status. Design/Methodology/Approach: Using a 5-point Likert-type scale, 198 students of immigrant background were asked about their attitudes regarding these three languages, as well as questions regarding their linguistic acculturation profiles at school. Data and Analysis: A K-means cluster analysis was conducted to create identity groups based on linguistic acculturation profiles at school. Then, a series of analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were run: first to analyze the relationship between linguistic acculturation profiles and attitudes toward heritage languages, such as Catalan and Spanish, and second between linguistic acculturation profiles and continent of origin. A two-factor ANOVA was conducted to test the interaction effects between linguistic acculturation and geographic origin regarding language attitudes. Findings/Conclusions: Those in the acculturation profile that incorporates all three languages at school have significantly lower attitudes toward Catalan, suggesting that heritage language maintenance is perceived as incompatible with Catalan at school. As for geographic origin, the European origin group is more commonly placed in the Catalan assimilation acculturation profile than the African and Latin American groups. There is also a significant interaction effect between origin and the acculturation profile, with the European multilingual group showing significantly less positive attitudes toward Catalan. Originality: While other studies have explored immigrant attitudes toward Catalan and Spanish, very few have incorporated the wide range of unofficial languages present in the territory, like Arabic, Amazigh, or Romanian. Significance/Implications: These results complement previous general acculturation research showing that, for linguistic acculturation as well, racialized ethnic hierarchies affect the acculturation options available to different linguistic groups.

Understanding networked family language policy: a study among Bengali immigrants in Australia

ABSTRACT Family language policy (FLP) impacts the maintenance of heritage language(s) in the family domain, where parents play a crucial role in making language-related decisions for their children. Globalisation, immigration, the COVID-19 pandemic, and digital communication have all affected FLP. Studies are now calling for examining how dispersed transnational families incorporate digital practices as a part of their FLP, given the shift from the exclusive use of traditional face-to-face communication to the inclusion of digital communication media such as Skype and WhatsApp. This research examines the viability of utilising Spolsky’s tripartite framework to study the new concept of ‘networked FLP,’ a term coined by Curdt-Christiansen and Huang, which acknowledges dispersed families and digital communication. We examine data from ten Bengali immigrant families in Australia with dispersed senior family members living abroad. Our findings enrich the concept of networked FLP by highlighting the digital affordances that networked FLP provides to dispersed transnational families and the importance of socio-cultural and emotional factors when applying Spolsky's framework to FLP with digital media. We show that family bonding, maintaining heritage culture, and emotional connections are the primary motivations for digital communication, while language learning is secondary. Our study finds that it is essential to incorporate sociocultural and emotional factors when investigating networked FLP.

Family dynamics towards heritage language maintenance

This article investigates Family Language Policy and grassroots-level practices of the heritage language speakers who are first-generation migrants of Indian background in Northern Ireland. Having been settled since the 1920s, Indians are one of the longest-established ethnic minorities in the region, representing around 0.5% of the total non-white residents. Whilst languages of migrant communities brought further complexity to the existing linguistic diversity of Northern Ireland, discussions around language policy in this geopolitical domain focus primarily on its two indigenous languages: Irish and Ulster-Scots. There is no particular policy to promote the languages of migrant communities. Drawing on ethnographic observations and two focus groups, the article analyses the language dynamics of eight Belfast-based families. It further demonstrates how these parents become policy intermediaries by monitoring their children’s heritage language learning through explicit teaching, creating a favourable literacy atmosphere at home, ensuring its use in the family through continuous policing and developing identity through constant dialogue with children about Indian culture. Although the under-the-radar participation of these parents may appear intermittently in the policy discourse, their actions can be interpreted as bottom-up language planning to contest the monopoly of the dominant language and culture in the broader community.

Family Language Policy and dialect maintenance in the Lithuanian diaspora

In this article, we adopt Spolsky’s Family Language Policy framework and Curdt-Christiansen’s dynamic model to explore the situation of dialect maintenance in the Lithuanian diaspora of three emigration waves. The qualitative data from in-depth interviews with representatives of all the waves or their descendants, resident in different continents, is explored to reveal the family language policy and the main factors that influence it. Different family language policies concerning dialect have been adopted by the different emigration waves for a combination of reasons, such as motives for emigration, education, language and dialect situation and language ideology in Lithuania at the time of leaving the country. The internal factors would favour dialects in situations where the dialect speakers themselves emigrate, but the external ones often have a stronger impact in the complex context of heritage language maintenance concerning passing on the language to the younger generation. This study of family language policies applied in different historical periods adds to a better understanding of the complex and dynamic reality of language maintenance in diasporic contexts.

Changing attitudes toward heritage language education: a longitudinal study of marriage-migrant mothers in South Korea

ABSTRACT This study explores Vietnamese marriage-migrant mothers’ changing attitudes toward heritage language (HL) education in South Korea through narratives collected in an interview setting over a period of four years. The findings show that while the mothers placed some value on HL education, they initially prioritized Korean at home because they viewed it as key to their children’s academic success in Korea. However, the mothers’ perceptions of the value of their native language changed over time, influenced by their increasing awareness of the benefits of bilingualism, their imagined bilingual communities, Korea’s increasingly competitive job market, and their children’s social and academic experiences in school. Over time, the mothers came to view their minority language as an asset rather than a deficit and thus chose to invest in developing their children’s HL skills to position them as potentially valuable bilingual workers in both Korean and transnational contexts. The participants’ narratives reflect their view of the minority HL as primarily a socioeconomic resource rather than an identity resource, while the longitudinal study highlights the dynamism and changing nature of language ideologies in relation to HL maintenance.

Language policy and planning for heritage language maintenance: a scoping review

ABSTRACT The study of language maintenance and shift (LMS) has attracted a large body of empirical work in language policy and planning (LPP) contexts, including allochthonous (immigrant) and autochthonous (indigenous) languages. However, some critical ontological questions that relate to the scope and terminology of language maintenance studies remain unanswered, and there seems to be a lack of consistency in the definitions of the relevant terms, such as what ‘heritage’ language refers to, whose heritage it is when a language can be classified as a heritage language, and what ‘language’ is at all. Therefore, this review summarises existing literature on LPP for language maintenance by employing a scoping review methodology, providing an overview of empirical studies of LPP in migration context over the past two decades (2001-2023), focusing on terminology, geographical settings, research focus and methods. The findings reveal that most studies (66.3%) use the term ‘heritage language’ to refer to the ‘language of transnational minorities’ among other terms. The results also highlight geographical gaps and imbalances in the literature, calling for more LPP studies from South American and East Asian contexts. In addition, further investigations are needed to explore the transnational and translocal aspects of language maintenance.

Language, responsibility, and agency: How UK's immigrant‐background young adults navigate linguistic heritage

AbstractThis study explores the intersection of agency and responsibility in navigating linguistic heritage among immigrant‐background young adults (18–29 years old) in the UK. Drawing on Judith Butler's theorisation, it provides a nuanced understanding of how individuals engage with and respond to the burdening aspects of heritage language maintenance within the complex context of globalised power structures and privileged dynamics. The research employs a qualitative approach, integrating journal entries, interview transcripts, and co‐analysis to elucidate participants' experiences. Through grounded theory development, the study identifies key themes such as: negotiating responsibility across temporalities; the sense of guilt, shame and indebtedness embedded in the process of language maintenance; and finding agency through renarration. The paper contributes to geographical thought on migration and language by going beyond discussions of family language policy and proficiencies and drawing attention to the multifaceted implications of navigating linguistic heritage within immigrant families and monolingual Britain across the instabilities of social and temporal relations and power‐laden positionings. It also highlights the repertoires of narrative and interrelational approaches to reframing heritage that immigrant‐background young adults may access as they formulate their identities with and against language expectations, norms, proficiencies and hegemonies.

<i>Kshetra</i> and the nurturing of a plurilingual ethos

This article discusses a family’s plurilingualism from a southern and decolonial lens, looking at the role of language ideologies in its plurilingual practices. It focuses on the concept of space as kshetra and its accompanying plurilingual ethos, originating in the Asian origins of the family. The overarching claim is that by holding on to its legacy of a plurilingual ethos, the family has maintained its ever-changing plurilingualism over three generations by navigating a tension or duality between an out-group assimilation to the prevalent monolingualism that it encounters outside the home in its transcontinental migrations and an in-group maintenance of plurilingualism within the kshetra of the family. The article concludes that it appears to be the ethical attitude to linguistic and cultural heterogeneity, rather than the actual use or maintenance of a specific heritage language, that is of more value to transnational and transgenerational plurilingual families.

“English on a pedestal”: the language attitudes and practices of African migrant bilingual parents and early years professionals in the U.K

ABSTRACT Bilingual parents must often make difficult and complex choices about which languages to use with their children. While existing research has explored family language practices and attitudes within certain language communities, the experiences of African parents are conspicuously absent from the literature. This study explores factors influencing intergenerational language transmission among African families in the UK. As educators can influence parental language choices, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with Early Years Professionals and parents of children attending nurseries. Interviews considered participants’ language backgrounds, attitudes and practices, especially in relation to heritage language maintenance. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that being proficient in the English language was prioritised by all participants over maintaining the children’s heritage language, and the value of African languages was low. The findings suggest that the educators’ language practices were influenced by the monolingual education system and, for parents, colonial language ideologies that place English on a pedestal over African languages continue to play an influential role in shaping their language attitudes. Implications of this study include the need for increased understanding within Early Years practice of the unique language profiles and practices of bilingual African families.

Intergenerational autoethnography of heritage language maintenance: Focusing on emotion, identity, and power

AbstractThis collaborative autoethnography explores the intersection of heritage language (HL) maintenance, emotion, and identity from the perspectives of a mother and her 15‐year‐old daughter learning and maintaining Korean in the United States. The analysis of their narratives concerning critical emotional experiences relevant to HL maintenance reveals that their complex emotional experiences were guided by a feeling rule: Be evincive of a desire for HL maintenance. Both of them engaged in emotion labor by demonstrating their continuous desire for HL maintenance and masking other felt emotions such as anxiety, shame, guilt, and regret. The results also demonstrate that complying with the feeling rule (for immigrant families) goes beyond emotional expressions—it entails self‐fulfillment and social recognition. The mother's desire for establishing her identity as a good (Korean) mother by fulfilling her gendered responsibility of maintaining the HL bolstered her desire for her daughter's Korean language maintenance. The daughter's desire for meeting expectations of others via learning Korean increased her desire for developing bilingual skills, through which she moved away from a racialized and stereotyped Asian image to construct an image of a cool kid with bilingual skills. The article ends with implications for immigrant families’ emotional well‐being and further research on HL maintenance.

The Cultural and Linguistic Diversity of Migrants in South Africa

This article reflects on the position of migrants in a South African setting and on their integration in the host community, with attention paid to family religious affiliation. As an interdisciplinary contribution, it introduces the concepts of “language policy” and “family language policy” in reference to African migrants’ narratives of adults who recently moved to the Western Cape in search of security and better life chances. Multilingual repertoires shape social mobility options, and vulnerable people draw on religious ideas to interpret their life journeys while seeking a better future. Also, in maintenance of heritage languages, religion often plays a central role. The notion of “family” applied to migrant workers rarely fits traditional definitions. The paper attends to how migrants’ and refugees’ mobility affects their experiences in culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse communities. Finally—mostly embedded in a discussion of other pertinent themes—the article indicates how migrants refer to the role of church and religion in their itineraries.

An AsianCrit perspective on Chinese immigrant parents’ language ideologies

ABSTRACT Drawing on Asian Critical Race Theory, this qualitative case study analyzed first-generation Chinese immigrant parents’ language ideologies on their children’s heritage language (HL) maintenance in the United States. The findings revealed parents’ persistence in preserving their HLs for their children, as they considered HLs to be an integral component of their identities and a resource for their families. The study also found that parents’ immigration history, racialized experiences, and their children’s schooling experience, together with the larger sociopolitical contexts that perpetuated English hegemony and nativistic racism toward Asian Americans, contributed to their variously conflicted language ideologies toward HL maintenance.

Attitude towards language use and maintenance among Yorùbá-English bilinguals in the United States

ABSTRACT This study examines attitudes to language use and maintenance among Yorùbá-English bilinguals in the United States. Using the direct approach in language attitude research, it specifically interrogates attitudes toward using the heritage language (HL) in public domains and maintenance among subsequent generations. It also jointly examines the effect of age and length of stay in the United States on attitudes. Data is sourced via survey and semi-structured interviews from one hundred and twenty-four Yorùbá-English bilinguals residing in New York, Maryland and Texas. Results indicate a positive attitude toward HL use and maintenance among older immigrants (in spite of perceived negative attitudes) compared to the younger ones. Also, findings on attitude toward language maintenance vary depending on the immigrant’s age. Further inferential analysis reveals that age and length of stay are not significant on attitude items collectively but are significant on selected attitude elements.

Korean mothers’ attitudes towards their dual heritage children’s maintenance of heritage languages in New Zealand

AbstractThis study investigates family language policy (FLP) in three dual heritage and interlingual families in New Zealand. It focuses on the language use of three Korean migrant mothers and their attitudes towards their children’s multilingualism and heritage languages (HLs). Each family’s FLP took a “one person, one language” approach, with the mothers consistently using Korean but occasionally switching to English. All three mothers in this case study showed positive attitudes towards their children maintaining their HLs, and used various strategies to encourage their children’s exposure to the HLs. However, each of the mothers conceptualized the positions of the children’s HLs somewhat differently, which influenced language socialization at home. Moreover, despite their strong commitment to bilingual or multilingual parenting, the mothers had low expectations for their children’s HL proficiency, reflecting the minority status of HLs in the wider society.

Heritage language maintenance and education in Korean communities

Heritage language maintenance and education in Korean communities

Cultural and Linguistic Capital of Second-Generation Migrants in Cyprus and Sweden

Abstract The linguistic and cultural values of migrants, as well as their attitudes and behaviour, differ from those of the host society. All resources and values can be characterised as linguistic and cultural capital, which can provide migrants with certain advantages in their new country of settlement. A heritage language (HL) and knowledge about another culture are important components of this linguistic cultural capital. It is crucial for multi-generational families to maintain their HL and transmit the culture of their heritage to help individuals gain a better understanding of their own identity. This study aims to investigate the views, attitudes, and beliefs of second-generation migrants in Cyprus and Sweden in relation to their HL, linguistic and cultural capital, factors affecting HL use, maintenance, and development, as well as their future plans and aspirations regarding HL transmission. Narrative analysis of the semi-structured interviews revealed certain differences and similarities between the countries under investigation regarding the personal reflections of the participants and their perceptions regarding the role of family language policies, home literacy environments, child and parental agency, socio-emotional well-being, local context, and other internal and external factors influencing HL use, maintenance, and transmission. Storytelling proved to be an effective method of narrative inquiry, providing a deeper insight into the complex process of HL development and support. In addition, it offered participants an opportunity to reflect on their personality, language, and culture.

Monolingual disobedience, multilingual guilt?: an autoethnographic exploration of heritage language maintenance during COVID-19 lockdowns

Abstract In this study I indicate that lengthened family interaction time during pandemic lockdowns can afford children significantly more exposure and opportunities to enhance their heritage language, but that this does not diminish the constant dilemma between striving to balance English acquisition and heritage language maintenance. Using autoethnography, and as a first-generation immigrant mother of a preschool-age Chinese American child, I will demonstrate how our family language policy and languaging practices evolved during the COVID19 lockdowns, and indicate how, despite the growing development of my child’s heritage language skills, her multilingualism was achieved at the cost of my constant ideological struggles between disobeying rampant English-only ideologies in society and feeling guilty about decentering academic English in our family language policy. With this study, I call for future research to adopt a longitudinal lens to explore whether shifting family language policies and languaging practices during lockdowns may have long-term influences on children from multilingual households.

Spanish heritage speakers as pre-departure conversation partners

Abstract Drawing on previous research showing the centrality of pre-departure interventions in the success of a study abroad (SA) program and on a translingual practice framework (Canagarajah, 2013), the current study addresses the implementation of a pre-departure conversation exchange between peers from diverse racial/ethnic/cultural/linguistic background as an integral part of a four-week SA program in Spain. Reflections and survey data were collected from a mixed group of SA participants, both second language learners (n = 14) and Spanish heritage speakers (SHSs; n = 4), as well as from their SHS conversation partners (n = 5) to determine: (a) the perceived goals and challenges of the mixed SA cohort for studying abroad; (b) the perceived benefits of the pre-departure conversation exchange with SHSs on SA learners’ performative competence; and (c) the perceived benefits for SHS conversation partners on their identity formation, heritage language maintenance, and agency.

Individual agency in language-in-education policy: a story of Chinese heritage language schools in multilingual Brussels

ABSTRACT It is increasingly recognized that agency plays an essential role in shaping language-in-education policy (LEP) and influencing the learning process. Research on agency has not yet adequately engaged with the field of heritage education and maintenance in diasporas. Drawing on Shohamy’s and Bonacina-Pugh’s conceptualization of declared, perceived, and practiced language policies, we examine the individual agency of three groups of actors – people with power (principals), people with expertise (teachers), and people with interest (students) – in a variety of policy or planning activities within two Chinese heritage language (CHL) schools in Brussels. On the basis of collected ethnographically informed data in conjunction with the conversation analysis of audio-recorded classroom interactions, our findings illustrate how three types of agentive roles are effective in forming language policies and constructing discursive spaces within the CHL schools, with a clear orientation shift from monolingualism to multilingualism. This study contributes to research on heritage language maintenance in a highly multilingual, diasporic, and educational context by providing a portrait of how educational practitioners and learners assert their agency to explore locally appropriate language policies that maximize actors’ potential to teach and learn heritage languages.