Cultural values and practices: the pillars of heritage language maintenance endeavours within an immigrant multilingual Malayali community in the UK

Meddegama, Indu Vibha

doi:10.1080/13670050.2019.1701978

Cited by 1 publication

(3 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Strong positive attitudes to home culture and language can countereffect some unfavorable parameters of ethnolinguistic vitality (Miller, 2017). For example, Malayali community in the UK (Meddegama, 2020), Russian (Glozman & Chuang, 2019; current study), and Mandarin Chinese (Harrison, 2000) communities in Canada have high levels of language maintenance primarily due to the strong desire among parents to pass the language over to their children. Other factors identified in LMS studies, such as age group, socioeconomic status, personalities, and individual aptitudes (Adversario, 2021), are also taken into consideration in LE.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…The idea of “language dominance” in general is associated with colonialism (Stembrouck, 2013, p. 156). Despite positive efforts in some countries to include minority languages into school curricula, linguaphobic attitudes and marginalization of heritage languages continue to be widely spread (Dovchin, 2019; Meddegama, 2020). A statement which is worth considering in the Canadian context is provided by Raza and Chua (2022) as follows: “Disregarding the multilingual reality of the Canadian society and not utilizing the linguistic diversity of the multilingual workforce is a missed opportunity to benefit fully from these skilled workers” (p. 1).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mastery of the host language is crucial for success in immigration (e.g., Hill et al, 2021). Maintenance of home language and cultures is often important for immigrant communities even in situations when their language is marginalized in public and political discourse, and home may remain the only stronghold domain for immigrant/heritage languages (Meddegama, 2020). Multiple studies have shown associations between immigrants’ and refugees’ choices of home language policies (i.e., a shift to the majority language of the host country or maintenance of their home language) and language attitudes (Alsahafi, 2022; Gogonas & Maligkoudi, 2022; Makarova et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The linguistic Odyssey of Russian-speaking immigrants in Canada

Makarova

Morozovskaia

2022

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Very little is known to date about the long-term dynamics of balancing home and dominant languages by adult immigrants. Russian-speaking immigrants in Canada remain an underrepresented group with no available studies of their language development. To address these gaps, this article describes a linguistic journey experienced by Russian-speaking immigrants in Canada as they adapt to the life in the host country. The major objective of the study is to examine the importance of learning the host country’s majority languages (English and French) vis-à-vis maintenance of the home language as seen by the participants in the beginning and after a few years of immigration. Design/methodology/approach: The article reports the results of a mixed-methods study involving an online survey and written narratives about language dynamics in immigration. Data and analysis: One hundred Russian-speaking immigrants from nine countries residing in seven Canadian provinces participated in the study. The analysis involves quantitative comparisons of responses involving correlation and chi-square tests as well as qualitative descriptions of the participants’ linguistic experiences. Findings/conclusions: The results indicate that over the time since immigration, the importance of the English language learning decreases, and the importance of Russian language maintenance increases for the participants, whereas the salience of acquiring French remains unchanged. Originality: The new finding is the trajectory of the relationship between the participants’ interest in the home language and culture maintenance and host languages and cultures learning over the years of immigration. Significance/implications: These results align with the authors’ linguistic equilibrium hypothesis of language dynamics in immigration. The implications of the study involve long-term support of linguacultural needs of immigrant communities. Limitations: The research conducted during COVID-19 was limited in methods and would benefit from in-person interviews in future. Expanding the project to other immigrant groups for comparison is another direction for future research.

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