{"title":"Exploring Socio-Political Dimensions of Heritage Language Maintenance: The Case of Vietnamese Speakers in Montréal","authors":"Thao-Nguyen Nina Le, Pavel Trofimovich","doi":"10.3138/cmlr-2022-0078","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Research on heritage language (HL) development often focuses on immigrants’ identity and social network as predictors of HL maintenance. However, an important and overlooked factor is the socio-political circumstances that trigger emigration, such as whether immigrants relocate due to economic hardship or political turmoil. This study examines if the pattern of HL maintenance and its association with immigrants’ ethnolinguistic identity and social engagement differ for families of political versus economic immigrants. Participants were 38 parent–child pairs from Montreal’s Vietnamese diaspora. The parents identified their reason for immigration and completed an ethnolinguistic questionnaire, their children provided a HL communication profile, and all participated in interviews. To determine participants’ Vietnamese speaking skills, short interview excerpts were rated for accentedness, comprehensibility, fluency, and global knowledge. Participants were generally successful at maintaining their HL, but there was a decline in the children’s Vietnamese, especially for the economic immigrants. Several ethnolinguistic variables (desire to preserve a HL, pride in heritage culture) and social network properties (network size, intimacy, communication-related stress) appeared to contribute to HL maintenance. However, these relationships were different (and sometimes opposite) in the groups of political versus economic immigrants, suggesting that HL development and maintenance are subject to various contextual influences.","PeriodicalId":47109,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Modern Language Review-Revue Canadienne Des Langues Vivantes","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian Modern Language Review-Revue Canadienne Des Langues Vivantes","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr-2022-0078","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Research on heritage language (HL) development often focuses on immigrants’ identity and social network as predictors of HL maintenance. However, an important and overlooked factor is the socio-political circumstances that trigger emigration, such as whether immigrants relocate due to economic hardship or political turmoil. This study examines if the pattern of HL maintenance and its association with immigrants’ ethnolinguistic identity and social engagement differ for families of political versus economic immigrants. Participants were 38 parent–child pairs from Montreal’s Vietnamese diaspora. The parents identified their reason for immigration and completed an ethnolinguistic questionnaire, their children provided a HL communication profile, and all participated in interviews. To determine participants’ Vietnamese speaking skills, short interview excerpts were rated for accentedness, comprehensibility, fluency, and global knowledge. Participants were generally successful at maintaining their HL, but there was a decline in the children’s Vietnamese, especially for the economic immigrants. Several ethnolinguistic variables (desire to preserve a HL, pride in heritage culture) and social network properties (network size, intimacy, communication-related stress) appeared to contribute to HL maintenance. However, these relationships were different (and sometimes opposite) in the groups of political versus economic immigrants, suggesting that HL development and maintenance are subject to various contextual influences.
期刊介绍:
During the more than 60 years of its existence, The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes has evolved from an Ontario-centered journal containing mainly classroom-based teaching strategies and resources to a Canada-wide, bilingual, refereed scholarly publication of national scope and international repute. The CMLR/RCLV serves members of the teaching profession, administrators and researchers interested in all levels of English and French as second languages and, in addition, those interested in native and other modern, international, or heritage language programs and issues.