Language Maintenance Research Articles

Sociolinguistics of regional languages: An analysis of Javanese and Madurese usage among elementary school children in Jember, Indonesia

This study analyses the patterns of Javanese and Madurese language use among primary school children in Jember, Indonesia, where the two ethnic cultures meet. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, data were collected through observations, interviews and questionnaires on 50 primary school students, 6 teachers and 10 parents from three different schools. Results show a clear diglossia between Indonesian for education and the regional language (Javanese/Madurese) for informal interaction. Children code-switch between these languages flexibly depending on the social context. Families play an important role in the maintenance of regional languages, while schools and digital media such as YouTube tend to encourage the use of Indonesian. Although regional languages are still strong, national/global influences are increasingly driving the use of Indonesian, reflecting the tension between local identity and national/global demands that children face. This research provides insight into the sociolinguistic dynamics in a region with two dominant languages.

HOST COUNTRY LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AMONG FIRST-GENERATION YAGLIDERE IMMIGRANTS IN THE USA AND THE MAINTENANCE OF THE TURKISH LANGUAGE IN SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS VIA SOCIAL NETWORKS

This article investigated the effect of the social networks of Yaglidere Turkish immigrants on language acquisition and the maintenance of heritage languages by successive generations in the USA. The study was conducted in the cities of Patterson and Burlington between January 2018 and July 2018. This research used qualitative research methods to analyze ethnographic interviews and participant observations. Data were collected using participant observation and informal talks with immigrants conducted in different informal settings such as participants’ houses, their restaurants, and other cafes in Burlington and Paterson. The interviews lasted from 40 to 90 minutes. Questions were open-ended and focused on the role of social networks in the acquisition of English language skills. In order to analyze the resulting data, the audio recordings were transcribed and translated into English. The interviews were first transcribed into Microsoft Word files and then imported into Maxqda, a software program for qualitative analysis, where the data were coded for study. The results indicated that even though social networks have destructive effects among first-generation immigrants, they have undeniable constructive effects on language maintenance in other generations. So, what is destructive for the first generation turns into constructive for the other generations.

Language Dominance in the Input and Use Patterns of Cameroon’s Special Bilingual Students

This paper examines dominance in the language input and use patterns of students of Cameroon’s Special Bilingual Education Programme (SBEP). The participants were 373 bilingual students from 10 schools set in French-speaking Cameroon, who submitted self-ratings via an adapted version of the Bilingual Language Profile questionnaire by Birdsong, Gertken and Amengual (2012). The data were analysed using the subtraction method to determine dominance. The results showed a consistent pattern of OL1-dominance for all the three domains considered under language input (viz. listening, reading, and watch time), but a more contrasted pattern for language use, as the respondents were found to be French-dominant (or slightly OL1-dominant to balanced) in the outer circle of relationships (circle of friends and school environment) and OL1-dominant in the inner circle (self-talk and family circle). The findings of this study suggest that individual language use is more significantly impacted by societal dominance than language input is, most likely because the latter is less constrained by relationships and offers a greater possibility of choice. They equally suggest that there is a directionality in the influence of societal dominance, with a decreasing effect from the public to the private sphere. Lastly, the study underscores the powerful negative impact the lack of official recognition can have on the maintenance of local ethnic languages in a multilingual context.

Beyond roots and wings: co-constructing a framework for heritage language children's liminal and limbotic identities

ABSTRACT As identity research in a globalised world progresses, so does our understanding of the need for nuanced research methodologies, to capture the complexities of multilingual identities. In this paper, we systematically explore the entanglements surrounding dual or mixed identity, supported by the analysis of 132 identity narratives from multilingual young people (11–18 years old) with Chinese heritage. Applying a poststructural lens and drawing on Dörnyei’s motivational self system, Norton’s investment theory, and Little’s conceptualisation of emotional and pragmatic reasons for heritage language maintenance, we strengthen the field of multilingual identity research by introducing a framework that corresponds to the complexities of participants’ lived experiences as heritage language speakers and learners, while honouring their preferences for self-expression. Crucially, the framework has been co-produced with a group of young co-researchers (aged 11–16 years old), ensuring that young people’s views and experiences are respected in the way we research and interpret identities in the heritage language context. In introducing the framework, we provide data examples in the form of relevant quotes for each aspect introduced, highlighting links to existing identity theories and situating the framework as a vital tool within heritage language and multilingual identity research.

A matter of strength: language policy, attitudes, and linguistic dominance in three bilingual communities

ABSTRACT This article investigates the relationship between language attitudes and different bilingual language policies in three European communities where a regional/minority language is spoken: (1) the Lombard – Italian community in Italy, where Lombard does not benefit from any active policy; (2) the Moselle-Franconian – German community of the Belgian Eifel, where Moselle-Franconian speakers are a recognised linguistic minority, albeit as German-speaking, with Moselle-Franconian indirectly supported as a closely related German variety; and (3) the Welsh – English community in Wales, where the Welsh language enjoys full sociopolitical recognition. In two studies that combine a direct and an indirect method, we collected attitudinal data from a total of N = 235 participants (aged 23–38 years) across three locations. Results suggest a link between language policy and speakers’ attitudes, with Welsh scoring higher than both Moselle-Franconian and Lombard, and Moselle-Franconian scoring higher than Lombard. This trend is explained in view of a tripartite model that places horizontal bilingualism as the most positive societal situation for language maintenance, followed by diglossia, and with vertical bilingualism as the least desirable case.

An asymmetrical partnership: The shifting onus of Hmong heritage language teaching from families to dual‐language programs

AbstractFramed by family language policy (FLP), in conjunction with the Douglas Fir Group's ecological transdisciplinary framework for second language acquisition, this multiple case study investigates the FLPs of two Hmong–American families in relation to a Hmong–English dual‐language program (DLP) where their children are enrolled. Interviews, artifacts, and family‐recorded interactions were utilized to get a full understanding of what factors at the different levels of interaction shaped their FLP. The findings reveal that both sets of parents perceived the relationship between the home and school as a partnership for their children's heritage language development, with the school taking on the onus for Hmong literacy. This resulted in both families’ more secondary role and, thus, home language practices that merely supplement the school content. Importantly, while both sets of parents held similar beliefs regarding the role of the DLP in heritage language maintenance, it was their beliefs in the value of Hmong that led to the different FLPs between the families. The article concludes with limitations and implications for schools interested in wanting to better serve their heritage language learners and families.

Resistances to critical language awareness: understanding the role of social class and double consciousness

ABSTRACT Drawing from students’ reflections, classroom observations, and individual interviews, this study examines the case of a Spanish for Heritage speakers class comprised of Heritage Speakers (HS) and international Latin American students in a predominantly white institution (PWI). Focusing on the development of Critical Language Awareness (CLA) , this study shows the various forms of resistance toward these pedagogies (e.g. withdrawal, class divisions, turning to meritocratic answers, among others) across students of different social classes (upper-middle class, working-class, international students from Latin America). This study demonstrates how students resisted structural explanations around Spanish language maintenance, instead resorting to either meritocratic understandings or the family as the primary locus of language maintenance. The epistemological concept of ‘double consciousness frames the experiences of working-class HSs who struggled between feelings of empowerment through CLA and negative perceptions of their own linguistic practices. These feelings were mediated by the challenge of affirming their language identities in the context of a PWI that privileges upper-middle-class cultural values. The study argues that while CLA begins a process of critical consciousness, we need to pay attention to the contextual factors and dynamics that lead to different forms of resistance.

‘Jij bent Chinese! Ik niet! (You are Chinese! I am not!)’: a case study of Chinese heritage language maintenance in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT This paper aims to reveal different stakeholders’ beliefs and opinions on heritage language maintenance and complementary schools in the Netherlands, namely those of parents, educators, and students. A case study was conducted at a Chinese school in the south of the Netherlands. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 respondents (N = 21) consisting of nine parents, eight educators, and four students. The results reveal that (1) Chinese parents value their children learning both Dutch and Mandarin due to economic, socio-cultural, and identity factors; (2) Heritage language maintenance is perceived by parents and educators as vital in ethnic grouping (sense of belonging), connection with the heritage culture, and for instrumental purposes. They also recognise Mandarin as a new diasporic linguistic standard replacing Cantonese; (3) Chinese parents view complementary schools as a platform to strengthen their ethnic bonding and community formation. Despite students’ perceptions of heritage language maintenance do not align with adults’ (parents and educators) views, their identity construction in complementary schools is in line with adults’ expectations.

The Perspective of Haitian Parents on Heritage Language Maintenance in Children With Speech-Language Disorders

Purpose: This study is part of a larger study that explores the beliefs and attitudes of Haitian parents in the United States regarding heritage language maintenance. The study sought to understand Haitian parents' perspective of heritage language maintenance when the parent has a child with a communication disorder. Method: Semistructured interviews were conducted with seven Haitian parents of children who have or had a speech-language disorder. The interviews were conducted virtually through videoconferencing. A thematic analysis was used to explore the data and determine recurring themes. Results: Participants desired to preserve the heritage language; however, fear of further language delay and sociolinguistic factors influenced their language choice. Furthermore, the results revealed that the lack of Haitian Creole language maintenance led to a communication breakdown with family and parental regret on the missed opportunity to pass on the heritage language. Conclusion: The findings from this study demonstrate a need for continued education with physicians, SLPs, and other related service providers on the issues related to bilingual language development, language maintenance, and counseling families regarding home language practice. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.27190611

Language practices of Emilian and Esperanto communities: spaces of use, explicit language attitudes and self-reported competence

ABSTRACT This paper provides a comparative analysis of the language practices maintained by speakers of two minoritised languages: Emilian and Esperanto. Esperanto is seemingly maintaining itself more successfully than Emilian and can therefore serve as an insightful point of comparison. The aim of this study is to quantify spaces of language use and attitudes towards each language to investigate the following: (i) spaces of language use and (ii) explicit language attitudes in the two communities, and (iii) the relationship between spaces, language attitudes and self-reported competence. We administered an online sociolinguistic questionnaire over the summer of 2020, collecting 468 responses for Emilian and 154 for Esperanto. Results from Bayesian linear models suggest that the relationship between language attitudes and competence is modulated by spaces of use: at lower proportions of spaces of use, language attitudes are more positively correlated with language competence, while at higher proportions of spaces of use, the relationship between attitude and competence is reduced. Although Emilian is maintained in fewer spaces than Esperanto, we observe that it is still used in local spaces. We propose that creating spaces for users of minoritised languages like Emilian could engender higher levels of language competence and hence language maintenance.

Positioning Youth in Maintaining the Mandarese Language

Youth is the potential speaker in the future and plays a significant role in language maintenance and vitality. This study aims to investigate the role, attitude, and language skills of Mandarese youth in maintaining their local language. It applied quantitative research and involved five representatives from eighteen districts in Polewali Mandar regency. The results indicate that the youth's role in preserving Mandarese culture, including its language and ability to use it, is deteriorating. The average percentage of their proficiency in the Mandarese language is 48.5%, while the percentage for the actual role is 27.5%. However, given that the youth still have a positive attitude toward that language, which is approximately 78.75% on average, the effort to save Mandarese from the definitively endangered situation is possible.

Intergenerational Language Transmission of Frisian and Low Saxon in the Netherlands

An important mechanism for language maintenance is transmission from parents to their children. This mechanism is stronger for the regional language Frisian than it is for Low Saxon in the northern Netherlands. In this study, we assessed many variables potentially associated with parental language transmission for these regional languages. We analyzed questionnaire responses from around 25,000 Frisian and Low Saxon speakers participating in the Lifelines cohort study. Transmission was strongly associated with whether their children's other parent speaks the same language, and with the frequency of language use in different social contexts. Other important factors included language attitudes and the degree of urbanization of the respondent's neighborhood. Taken together, these findings suggest that language maintenance for Frisian and Low Saxon could potentially be bolstered by adequately stimulating positive language attitudes and the use of the language in different social contexts by both the government and smaller societal organizations.

“For my daughter is not the same, for sure”: learners’ and parents’ attitudes towards home language maintenance and development

ABSTRACT Heritage languages (HL) require special pedagogical resources, and from a sociolinguistic perspective, their status may vary, influencing learners’ and educators’ attitudes. In the case of Portuguese as an HL (PHL) in the German educational context, due to a limited institutionalised offer, non-formal settings prevail as a means of language development. In this ethnographic case study, we present the attitudes of parents and PHL learners in a socio-educational project that promotes bilingual education in Munich, Germany. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with parents, whereas with children, a focus group was set up using visual narratives. This study addressed two questions: How do parents’ and learners’ linguistic attitudes in this specific context differ? How do their beliefs concerning linguistic identity influence the home language maintenance? The results pointed to the convergent affective dimension of PHL. Concerning identity influence in home language maintenance, language attitudes result from different statuses assigned to PHL. While parents see PHL as a means of transmitting their ethnolinguistic identity, children's representations revealed different perceptions prevailing ‘home and family language’ status and a sense of fluid belonging, thus showing an emergent multilingual identity characterised by cultural hybridity.

Language Maintenance in Polyglots from a Dynamic Model of Multilingualism Perspective: Research Results

Language Maintenance in Polyglots from a Dynamic Model of Multilingualism Perspective: Research Results

Language Shift and Maintenance of Chittagonian Language towards Standard Bengali Language

Language Shift and Maintenance of Chittagonian Language towards Standard Bengali Language

Culture-specific heritage language vocabulary and collective identity among three generations of Mountain Jews

ABSTRACT Culture-specific vocabulary denotes objects that bear cultural weight and are not readily translatable or understood in other languages. The present study explores cultural items in an endangered language, Juhuri (Judeo-Tat), the traditional language of Mountain Jews (MJ) who immigrated to Israel and the United States. A set of ten items, five cultural and five neutral, served as stimuli for a picture recognition task inserted in a questionnaire distributed to MJs from three generations (G1, G1.5, and G2). In addition, participants rated their ethnocultural and national identities and their level of Juhuri proficiency. Results yielded significantly better recognition of culture-specific over neutral items by G1.5 and G2 participants, but no difference among more proficient G1 participants. Regression analyses revealed a significant effect of MJ identity on the recognition of cultural items. Neither Israeli nor American national background had an effect on the recognition of either cultural or neutral items. The findings shed light on the role of ethnocultural identity in the recognition of culture-specific vocabulary. Results are discussed in terms of research on heritage language maintenance and shift, identity, and the status of the MJ community in both countries.

Pemertahanan Bahasa Jawa di Tengah Masyarakat Multilingual Kecamatan Cot Girek

This study aims to describe the forms of Javanese language maintenance in the multilingual community of Cot Girek District. This research is qualitative descriptive in nature. The methods used are observation and interviews. The data for this study come from the attitudes of Javanese speakers that influence Javanese language maintenance. The findings of this research indicate that Javanese speakers should use Javanese among fellow Javanese, at home, and when playing with friends, read books about the Javanese language, learn new Javanese vocabulary, frequently use it in family conversations, participate in Javanese language contests or competitions, strengthen Javanese language teaching in schools, attend Javanese language training or courses, teach Javanese to children, use social media or technology to teach Javanese, use social media accounts and follow accounts that use Javanese, raise awareness and maintenance of the Javanese language by listening to and watching Javanese songs and dramas, communicate with native Javanese speakers, engage in cultural events and traditional performances, collaborate with Javanese culture enthusiasts, develop literature, and promote legal protection for the Javanese language as an important cultural asset.

Guardians of the Circassian Heritage Language: Exploring a Teacher’s Agency in the Endeavour of Endangered Language Maintenance

The Circassian language is the heritage language (HL) of a small minority group in Israel. Since its classification as an endangered language around the globe, the focus has been put on effective maintenance programs. Changes in education methods within Circassian communities were inevitable. In Israel, the Circassian Maintenance Program is crucial in primary schools, where formal literacy instruction in the Circassian language begins in fifth grade. This study examined the agentic role of the Circassian literacy teacher in engaging students in learning their heritage language and its maintenance, as expressed in her attitudes, beliefs and knowledge and her classroom strategies. This three-month-long ethnographic data collection was conducted at the teacher’s study centre “Nal” (i.e., a treasure in Circassian). Data was gathered through classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with a Circassian HL teacher to understand her attitudes, beliefs and knowledge and to identify strategies to encourage student engagement in HL learning. In general, the teacher showed expertise in the HL and authentic use of it, as well as cultural and religious competence, adaptability, and flexibility. In addition, she encouraged children’s agency and autonomy and provided individualised support, integration of technology and reflective practice. The results indicated that a sense of identity, unity and belonging to the community are all held together by the pillar of HL knowledge. By engaging her students in translanguaging practices, the teacher promoted their awareness of language patterns, vocabulary and grammar in both Circassian and other languages of their wide linguistic repertoire (Hebrew, Arabic and English).

Pergeseran dan Pemertahanan Bahasa Daerah Pengrajin Kayu di Kabupaten Tegal

This research examines the maintenance and shift of Javanese and other regional languages among wood craftsmen in Tegal Regency, Indonesia. Regional languages are integral to cultural identity, and their retention or shift reflects broader social and cultural dynamics. Using a qualitative case study approach, data was collected through observation, interviews, questionnaires, and documentation. The study employs thematic analysis to provide an in-depth understanding of language use patterns. Findings reveal a linguistic dualism in the community. While Indonesian dominates formal situations, reflecting adaptation to broader communication needs, Javanese and other regional languages prevail in daily interactions, indicating the continuity of local cultural traditions. This language shift and maintenance are influenced by social context, education, and work environment factors. The study contributes to our understanding of language ecology in multilingual Indonesian contexts, drawing on Fishman's domain analysis. It highlights how communities navigate between national and regional languages, adapting to different communication needs while preserving cultural identity. These findings have implications for language policy and cultural preservation efforts in Indonesia, particularly in balancing national unity with linguistic diversity.

Development Digitization of Partuturon Cultural Linguistic Index as Conservation and Revitalization of Angkola Language in South Tapanuli District

The purpose of this research is to develop the digitization of Partuturon cultural linguistic index as an effort to conserve and revitalize the Angkola language in South Tapanuli Regency. This research is structured using the concept of needs analysis, application development, application testing and implementation. This research brings findings and results that stimulate the initialization of the Partuturon cultural linguistic index, provide a deeper understanding of the angkola language and contribute to its preservation and development efforts, and overall understand the impact of digitization on the conservation and revitalization of the Angkola language. The implications of the findings examined towards the maintenance of the Angkola language, as well as the potential development of modern cultural innovations. The results of the analysis show that the digitization of the linguistic index of Partuturon culture has proven to be effective in the conservation and revitalization of the Angkola language. The digitization of the linguistic index has increased public interest in the Angkola language, especially the younger generation. The digitization of the linguistic index has also helped the community in understanding and using the Angkola language better.