The Role of Parental Support and Family Variables in L1 and L2 Vocabulary Development of Japanese Heritage Language Students in the United States

Abstract

This study investigated the role of parental support and selected family variables in the first (L1) and second language (L2) vocabulary development of Japanese heritage language (JHL) high school students in the United States. Eighty‐two JHL students ages 15–18 from eight hoshuukoo (i.e., supplementary academic schools for Japanese‐speaking children) were assessed for their L1 Japanese and L2 English vocabulary knowledge. Simultaneously, the students’ parents, at least one of whom was a Japanese native, completed a family background questionnaire. An exploratory factor analysis identified five components that the parents considered effective for supporting their children's language development: Japanese pop culture, reading for pleasure in Japanese, use of Japanese at home, reading to the child, and family conversation. Regression analyses revealed that reading for pleasure in Japanese positively predicted the students’ L1 Japanese vocabulary and that Japanese pop culture negatively predicted their L2 English vocabulary. L1 Japanese vocabulary was also predicted by students’ dominant language and parents’ goals for their children's achievement, whereas L2 English vocabulary was predicted by future residency plan, mother's self‐rated English proficiency, and home language use. In short, JHL students’ L1 Japanese and L2 English vocabulary development involves different family factors. Consequently, different approaches should be recommended to support HL students’ L1 and L2 development.

Parental perceptions of bilingualism and home language vocabulary: Young bilingual children from low-income immigrant Mexican American and Chinese American families

“…Therefore, home language input may vary across families for these DLL children. Moreover, home language input from parents was found to be positively related to young DLLs’ home language outcomes ( Dixon et al, 2012 ; Mori and Calder, 2017 ; Sun et al, 2020 ). Language input and output should be treated equally as a learning process for DLL children.…”

Vietnamese–Australian children’s language proficiency and use

“…Parent factors related to language practices include: parents’ home language input and parents’ language proficiency. Parents’ home language input includes: parents’ direct input by speaking; and teaching their home language to their children and indirect input through the use of books, television, radio, videos and games (Biedinger et al, 2015; DeCapua & Wintergerst, 2009; Keh & Stoessel, 2017; Kim & Pyun, 2014; Mori & Calder, 2017; Verdon & McLeod, 2015; Verdon et al, 2014). Parents’ language proficiency was also found to affect children’s use of home language (Biedinger et al, 2015; Gollan et al, 2014; Saravanan, 2001).…”

The trends and developments of L2 Japanese research in the 2010s

“…Hence, one of the goals of JHL research involving multilingual youth is to identify familial, educational, and sociocultural factors contributing to the creation of environments where multilingual literacy is nurtured (e.g., Lauwereyns, 2011). Mori and Calder (2017), for instance, demonstrated that parental support and their effort to establish good family reading habits had a positive impact on their children's development of Japanese as a home/heritage language, and that supporting home language literacy did not in the least hinder the development of the mainstream language (i.e., English in this study). Further, they reported that JHL development was influenced by parental involvement, whereas English proficiency was accounted for by families’ future residency plans and the amount of interaction by the children in English.…”

“…To explore JHL learners’ language development, various factors, including age, length of residence, age of arrival, language abilities, and familial, educational, and sociocultural variables, have been investigated (e.g., Oriyama, 2010, 2011; Doerr & Lee, 2012; Hayashi & Murphy, 2013; Mori & Calder, 2013, 2017; Kurata, 2015; Nakajima & Sano, 2016; Liu, 2018a). Mori and Calder (2013), for example, demonstrated that JHL high school students who came to the United States by age nine were three grades behind in Japanese vocabulary knowledge and were at their grade level in English, whereas those who arrived at age ten or older were at their grade level in Japanese and two to five years behind in English.…”