Parents with Different Mother-Tongue and its Effect on their Children’s Language Identity

Abstract

This research aims to examine the effects of parents with different mother-tongue on their children’s language identity since the native language is very important in every individual because a child’s first language is part of the social, personal, and cultural identity. The participants were 10 pairs of parents with different native languages. The participants are chosen based on a criterion that male participants must have the same native languages and female participants must have different native languages. Every male participant in this study has the same Tagalog language, while the female participants have different languages, namely Bisaya and Bicolano. The researcher used qualitative and quantitative research methods consisting of questionnaires and interviews. The results showed that if parents want to teach their children to learn both native languages, the one-parent-one language approach is the best practice because it is easier to implement and use. The research shows that parent often finds ways to motivate his/her children to use the native language he/she had; it also reveals that somehow, parents are still providing and using some ways or techniques and exerting efforts to these techniques to promote their native language to their children. This study would exemplify the possible factors affecting having a parent with different native languages to the language identity of their children.