immigration – Multilingualism in Society

Family language policies: how is the language transmitted through generation of immigrants ?

Aleksandra Jankovic, Tryphène Kileki

In this blog entry, we will discuss different possibilities of heritage language transmission, from the first generation to the second. We will especially concentrate on the factors on which language transmission depends and the parents’ motives for the transmission or non-transmission of the language.

Key words: family, bilingualism, generation, immigration

Three generation of a family
“3 generation family” by OURAWESOMEPLANET: PHILS #1 FOOD AND TRAVEL BLOG is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Introduction

As second-generation migrants we both have learned our heritage languages, but this is not the case for every migrant child. It depends on many factors, such as family relationships or parents’ effort, whether the child will learn the heritage language or not. Language has an important role for communication, understanding and relationships between different generations within a family. It is also important for identity. According to Spolsky (2012), the relationship that the second-generation migrants have with the heritage language is strongly linked with emotions and identity.

In this blog entry, we will discuss different possibilities of heritage language transmission, from the first generation to the second. We will especially concentrate on the factors, on which the language transmission depends and the parents’ motives for the transmission or non-transmission of the language. For this purpose, we will explore various types of family language policy in the UK.

Wilson (2020) reports that, according to the latest report of the office for National Statistics, 34% of the children born in the UK have at least one parent from another country, which means that many children are in contact with another language other than English at home. This does not mean that they do not know English, quite the contrary. According to Bloch and Hirsch (2017), in the UK, 92.3% of the national population speak English as their main language. Only 0.3% of the national population do not speak English at all. However, Bloch and Hirsch (2017) assert that the political discourse of the state about language plays a negative role in the heritage language transmission. They add that politicians promote “integrationism” that forces people to learn English in order to gain citizenship. Foreign languages are negatively portrayed by the government and are linked to the image of the “outsider”. Spolsky also highlights that “state-controlled education commonly sets up a conflict between heritage languages and the national standard language” (2012: 4).

Generalities and basic information

Before getting to the heart of the matter, certain concepts need to be clarified in order to avoid confusion.

Heritage languages (HL) are “ethnic minority languages”. They are spoken within a migrant community in a foreign country, where another dominant language is spoken. (Montrul 2011).
By native language, we mean the language that the parents spoke in the foreign country before coming to the UK.
First generation migrants are people who were born in a foreign country and then came to the UK. People from this generation master their native language. Some of them can also speak English.
Second generation migrants are children who were born in the UK, from parents that come from another country. They “present the most variability in bilingual ability.” (Montrul 2011). They are also the most analyzed group.
Language shift happens when a community starts to replace their own native language with another language.
Family language policy (FLP) is when a family explicitly plans which language they will use between the family members.

Many studies about the transmission of the heritage language in migrant families in the UK were conducted. For our review, we will be focusing on six research papers. All these studies assert that the acquisition of the heritage language happens mainly at home, within the family. Children learn the language from their parents. Thus, migrant parents play a significant role in the transmission of their native language to their children, who were born in the UK. Miekisz, Haman, Łuniewska, Kuś, O’Toole & Katsos (2017) argue that the exposure of children to a bilingual environment (e.g bilingual day care setting) can also have a positive impact. But not every migrant child acquires their parents’ native language, and some of them can only speak English. It can also happen that children understand the family heritage language but cannot speak it or cannot speak it fluently. Another possible outcome of FLP are the bilingual second-generation migrants, who understand and can speak their HL fluently as well as English as the dominant language.. Some people learn the heritage language when they are children but once they grow up and do not live with their parents anymore, they tend to forget their language and speak English only. A lot of variations in the acquisition of the heritage language by the second generation are possible; all the studies agree on this point. There are no universal patterns, as it changes from family to family : hence the importance of FLP as a new field of research.

The studies that we selected are trying to find out and understand the factors that play a role in the transmission of the heritage language and also to grasp the parent’s motives for the transmission or non-transmission of the language. Several factors can impact the transmission of the language and they vary from one family to another. We will attempt to provide some examples from the six articles in order to explain the impact of different factors on the acquisition of the heritage language. These factors can be linked to personal factors like the family situation (divorced parents, contact with other members of the family), national identity (how the speaker perceives him- or herself), to integration or even to discrimination (fear of being different). But politics can also play a role in the acquisition of the heritage language (e.g. speaking Kurdish in Turkey is forbidden, so when people emigrate, they tend not to speak this language to their children).

Literature review

According to Canagarajah’s study (2008), the Sri Lankan Tamil migrants experienced a language shift toward English and they tend to lose their native language more than other migrant communities. He interviewed different Tamil families from Sri Lanka in order to understand their behavior concerning language transmission and the reasons for the lack of transmission of the Tamil language. He found out that the reasons are not the same in every family. But he argues that English colonialism has played a significant role in the loss of the Tamil language within migrant families. English was introduced in Sri Lanka around 1780 by British colonizers and it has been perceived as a superior language since then. He explains that, in Sri Lanka, people see English as a prestigious language. They think that it is very important to learn English. People who do not know English think that they will be considered as ignorants and simple-minded. Canagarajah explains that, as a consequence, when Tamil people come to the UK (or another English speaking country), they are so preoccupied with learning English that they tend to neglect their native language. The parents’ fluency in English can also impact the transmission of the language in different ways. Canagarajah explains that some Tamil parents who do not speak English rely on their children’s help for interactions outside the home (e.g for administration). They also count on their children to teach them English and most of them learn English via their children. For these reasons, parents tend to encourage their children to learn and use the English language more than their heritage language. This can lead to a loss or a non-acquisition of the heritage language by the children. However, it is also possible that parents that lack fluency in English talk with their children in their native language only, consequently the child will acquire the heritage language and will be fluent in it. Among migrants in the UK, there are also refugees, who had to flee their home country. Bloch and Hirsch (2017) have interviewed second generation migrants, whose parents have fled their home country. They attempted to analyse how and whether the transmission from the first to the second generation happens and they also analyse the context in which it happens. They have found out that most of the second generation refugees children have indeed acquired proficiency in their heritage language. However, Bloch and Hirsch have noticed that the use of the heritage language was limited to the home and the family context.

They argue that “politics of language use and the policies that exclude languages other than English create an environment where heritage languages are not valued” (Blosch and Hirsch 2016). A Sri Lankan Tamil person interviewed in this study explained that when she was with her classmates and her mother called her on the phone, she used to reply in English, even if her mother talked in Tamil. She justifies this by saying that she did not want to be different from her classmates.

Blosch and Hirsch explain that other participants also felt that way and that they sometimes experienced racism from their classmates. But they also assert that this is because children assimilated school policies about language. They give the example of a girl who spoke only Tamil when she started school. Her teacher was worried about this and she advised the girl’s parents to speak English only at home, in order to improve her English. Consequently, the parents decided to also speak in English with their younger children. Furthermore, two Kurdish girls explain that, when they spoke Kurdish in their classroom, their teacher forced them to only speak English.

The case of French second-generation migrants in the UK differs from the others because of several reasons. The principal reason is the high prestige of the language in the UK. As a matter of fact, French is part of the British curriculum, which means that the second-generation migrants have an advantage in speaking French at home. In Wilson’s study (2020), a group of children from three families were interviewed to understand the FLP through their eyes. It is true that the parent’s choice about what language they will talk to their children has a great impact, but there is not a lot of research taking into account what the children feel about it and how they perceive that language policy in action Wilson’s case studies are children that have one french parent and one British one and the three families have different FLP in regards to the HL (French).

In the first family (A), the children (9 and 16 years old) “use English exclusively with their father, whereas French is the only language of interaction with their mother, in all circumstances” (Wilson, 2020). This is due to the french mother’s strict language policy, ignoring her children when they are addressing her in English. The reason behind such a strong insistence on her children speaking French is said to help them be more proficient. The effect of this FLP on the children is that they both define themselves as half English and half French. However, the girl expressed resentment towards her mother who ignores her when she speaks in English, when the big brother is more resigned. Overall they say they are grateful to be able to connect with their French relatives.

This is a self-portrait that Ella (older sister in family B) did. The notes address the difference of proficiency in the languages she speaks. There is also information about the situation when she uses her languages. Interestingly, her mouth and heart (skills and emotional connection) are both in two colors.
DOI: https://doi.10.1080/01434632.2019.1595633

In the second family (B), the French mother translanguages often but addresses her children (11 and 13 years old) mostly in French. She “qualifies her approach to the transmission of the minority language as ‘relaxed’” (Wilson, 2020). She is conscious that her children’s French could be better but also that they have an advantage in school because of their level in French. The attitude of the children towards the language is not the same even if they had the same education.
Her brother sees himself as English, on the contrary. Both siblings recognize their lack of skills in French but the sister has taken the initiative of improving her French whereas her brother does not do the same

The third family (C) have a strict French-only policy. It means that in their home and outside, the family only communicate in French. The father is French and the mother has a really high level in French. The application of the only-French rule makes the parents (especially the father) have a “immediate and systematic” (Wilson, 2020) negative response whenever the children (6 and 4 years old) speak in English or mix it with French. Wilson argues that this leads to a problem of communication since the children are stopped in their attempt to say something. In other words, the strong reaction of the parents makes the form of what the child is saying more important than the content. The children in this family are still young but the older brother already said that he will not speak to his children in French because “it takes too much time” in his words. He also expresses negative feelings related to the ignorance of his father when he tries to speak in English.

In conclusion, this study has revealed the feelings that the children have during the moment the FLP that their parents choose is in action. The feelings are mixed and often differ between the children of the same family. The future of the French into the children’s lives is not known yet, but there is already a tendency that can predict whether or not they will keep speaking in French.

Conclusion

In order to conclude, we can say that this is not possible to make certain predictions about language transmission. According to Wilson “different FLPs may produce similar results, while similar language management methods may lead to different reactions among children” (2020). What can be seen are tendencies about how the different language policies that the parents decide to have in their home will affect their children. There are a multitude of factors that determine if at the end of the day the second-generation migrants will have the relationship with the Heritage Language that the parents wanted them to have. One of the major factors is that all humans are different and even in the same home the reactions can be different.

As second-generation migrants, we did not feel any particular pressure to speak French only, in our environment (French-speaking Switzerland). There is no shame about speaking another language. Thus, we can say that our environment is maybe more “multilingual friendly” than the UK. In addition to all the factors linked to the family, politics also can impact the transmission of the language. It would be interesting to compare the swiss and the british political environment and to compare the impact that they have on the transmission of the heritage language in migrant families in future studies.

Bibliography

Bloch, A. and S. Hirsch. 2017. “Second generation” refugees and multilingualism: identity, race and language transmission. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40 (14). pp. 2444-2462. Available at: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/623131/3/Bloch_and_Hirsch_ERS_2016_author_accepted_.pdf Accessed on: 15/12/2020

Canagarajah, A. Suresh. 2008. Language Shift and the Family: Questions from the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora. Journal of Sociolinguistics, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 143–176. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00361.x Accessed on: 15/12/2020

Montrul, S. (2011) INTRODUCTION: The Linguistic Competence of Heritage Speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33, no. 2: 155-61. Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/44485999. Accessed on: 23/12/2020

Miękisz A., E. Haman, M. Łuniewska, K. Kuś, C. O’Toole & N. Katsos. 2017. The impact of a first-generation immigrant environment on the heritage language: productive vocabularies of Polish toddlers living in the UK and Ireland, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 20:2, 183-200, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2016.1179259. Accessed on: 15/12/2020

Spolsky, B. 2012. Family Language Policy – the Critical Domain. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 3–11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2011.638072 Accessed on: 15/12/2020

Wilson S. 2020. Family language policy through the eyes of bilingual children: the case of French heritage speakers in the UK, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 41:2, 121-139, DOI: https://doi.10.1080/01434632.2019.1595633. Accessed on: 15/12/2020

The paradox of societal exploitation and unawareness of migrants’ multilingualism in Switzerland

Lina Junctorius

As multilingualism gains importance in the globalized word and migration becomes more frequent, new challenges arise for host societies in Europe. In Switzerland, migrants are at a disadvantage on the labour market if they are not fluent in the local languages. They therefore mostly have job positions that are rather invisible, and not well compensated. Their skills in non-local languages are not officially recognized. Simultaneously, migrant employees’ language skills are exploited by the companies to increase their efficiency and simplify the daily work life. Official unemployment institutions often choose to minimize costs instead of investing in migrant’s language learning. This leads to the discrimination of migrants as it limits their social mobility through professional chances. Switzerland and individual workplaces need to introduce strategies that handle the issues in the reviewed studies.

Keywords: Racism – Linguistic Discrimination – Swiss Labour Market – Immigration – Multilingualism

Switzerland, migration and language

In September 2020, Switzerland held a referendum about the free movement of people. The right-wing party, Swiss People’s party (SVP), tried to limit the immigration of non-national people. They argued that too many people immigrate to Switzerland. The referendum was rejected by 61.7% of the voters. It was not the first attempt of the SVP to limit the free movement of people. (Henley, 2020) The referendums are the result of the increase in migration related to the ongoing globalisation.

In the light of the globalisation, language becomes more and more important. For the longest time, it was sufficient to speak the dominant language of the area you live in. In Switzerland, that means, for example, being able to speak French in the Romandie and German in the German-speaking part. Nowadays, new demands concerning the competences in the local and multiple other languages arise. This is especially the case in workplaces (Duchêne, 2011). The new importance of language is in particular connected to migration. In Switzerland, for example, the percentage of non-local languages being spoken as the home language has increased from less than 1% to 21.5 % from 1950 to 2013 (Lüdi et al, 2016). Since people gained new mobility because travelling became more affordable and new communication technologies are provided by the internet, the rate of migration has increased significantly. These developments allow migrants to stay in touch with their friends and family from all over the world. Furthermore, they have led to the establishment of new businesses and services. The resulting linguistic variety in host societies goes hand in hand with different advantages but also issues. On the one hand, linguistic exclusion can happen easily when institutions do not adjust to the new linguistic circumstances and stick to the national language. Institutions, whether public, private or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are points of contact for migrants. Often they are ideological sites, meaning that existing ideologies of power are often (re)produced. The power origins in the unequally distributed value that is given to different languages making it seem as if some languages have more worth than others. In the case of workplaces, it can be seen how employers want to profit economically from the migrants’ language skills (Duchêne, 2013).

The aforementioned developments lead to the question of how present discrimination of migrants is in Switzerland and which role language plays in it. This blog post will focus on how migrants are linguistically incorporated into the Swiss labour market. To do this, the hierarchy of languages and speakers for different types of jobs will be considered. Following Duchêne et al (2013), in this entry people migrating or being mobile for work or other reasons are called “migrants”. This is to distance from any stereotypes and negative connotations that are associated with the word “immigrant”. Although technically the second term describes a person who moves to an area they are not native to, it is generally associated with a person from a developing country who moves to a more developed one, e.g. in the Western world.

When talking about language in society, an important concept is language ideology. Language ideologies are what members of a society believe and feel about language (Piller, 2015). They are social discourses about what language is or should be, how it is learned, how it is used, etc. Furthermore, language ideologies represent interests of specific societal groups (Piller, 2015). The standard language ideology implies that the speech of the most powerful group of a society is superior to other varieties, meaning that the standard language speakers are privileged and others are disadvantaged. Another language ideology is the belief that monolingualism is best for the unity of a nation and a harmonic society (Piller, 2015). This disadvantages especially people immigrating from other countries. The language ideology of integration is the believe that only migrants who speak the local language fluently and as their main language are integrated into society.

Previous Literature

Each language has a value on the linguistic market which is based on spatial occupation, social status and its social relevance. Language therefore becomes a human capital as knowledge of different languages is profitable on the job market and can lead to better salary (Filhon, 2013).

Switzerland is one of only five countries in Europe that have more than one national language and one of three that promotes an historical minority language, Romansh (Filhon, 2013). Shortly before the Second World War it was made a national language (Lüdi et al, 2016). Despite the official multilingualism in Switzerland, most cantons are monolingual on an institutional as well as on an individual basis (Filhon, 2013; Lüdi et al, 2016). It is expected that a person is fluent in each language and speaks only one language at a time (Lüdi et al, 2016).

In Europe, the language ideology concerning multilingualism related to immigration creates the image of an integration deficit. Also, regional languages are favoured over immigration languages. The Council of Europe tried to give more recognition to multilingual practices by adopting two laws, the Charter of regional and minority languages in 1990 and the Common European Framework of reference for languages in 2001. However, in 2010 the cantons of Switzerland were still demanding the knowledge of their official languages for arriving migrants who plan to stay permanently (Filhon, 2013). Furthermore, in many companies’ corporate policy linguistic diversity and thus multilingualism is neglected since its management is challenging (Lüdi et al, 2016).

Within the new globalized economy multilingualism emerges as a market value (Duchêne, 2011), especially in the service economy. Language in every form, meaning oral, written and computer-mediated, has developed into a central tool. Efficiency and economic profitability is now created by using multilingualism which is why the knowledge of languages has an economic value. As a result, institutions exploit the linguistic skills of migrants and least qualified employees to increase productivity and flexibility (Duchêne, 2011). The exploited employees do not generally receive any benefits like a higher salary or professional mobility in return. In a study conducted in a baggage and passenger managing company at the Zürich international airport by Duchêne (2011) it was found that the requirements for language skills were based on the visibility of the employee. The visibility describes the degree of contact the employee has with the clientele. Employees in direct contact with passengers, namely in customer service, were required to have very good German (national language) and English as well as basic French skills. Employees having some direct contact with certain costumers but also doing tasks where they stay invisible needed to have very good knowledge of German and English. The invisible employees working in the baggage sector and not having direct contact with passenger were only required to be good in German. Due to negative changes in the working conditions, new groups of the population were applying to the job positions. Before, most employees were Swiss women belonging to the lower middle-class. New employees were mostly either less educated Swiss with fewer foreign languages skills or high educated migrants who are not fluent in the national languages. The number of employees speaking non-local languages were especially high in the semi-visible and invisible sectors since less Swiss in comparison to the visible positions worked in these positions.

“Flughafen Zürich” by caribb is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Language is interrelated with power. This is why the knowledge of a language has an impact on an individual’s social status. Someone who is competent in several socially and economically valued languages can have more power in the sense that they can exclude people who do not know these languages without being at risk of being excluded themselves. When speakers have to use a language they do not prefer or are not fluent in they have to be more attentive to the ongoing discourse, need to cognitively process more, might question their identity and are symbolically excluded. This is why they might feel discriminated against (Lüdi et al, 2016). In case of the airport company (Duchêne, 2011), due to the language requirements an entire group of applicants is excluded from access to certain positions while others are privileged. The work activities are hierarchized and the level of visibility of an employee is therefore synonymous with their desirability for the company (Duchêne. 2011). Thus, the company is using its power by discriminating candidates on the basis of their knowledge of the national languages German and French as well as English as a lingua franca. The employees’ language skills are managed with regards to costs so that for example language classes are not paid for. Since the language skills are a requirement for getting a job, the impression is created that it is not the company’s role to officially recognize or maintain the skills of their employees but their own responsibility (Duchêne, 2011).

Language competences are handled similarly in regional employment offices (REOs) in the canton of Fribourg (Flubacher et al, 2016). Unemployed people in the region need to report to their local REO in order to be professionally reintegrated, i.e. to get re-employed. In a study observing especially the treatment of migrants in REOs, two coexisting discourses justifying the provision or lack of official language courses were discovered. First, the discourse of integration which follows the idea that competence in the local language is indispensable for the professional and individual integration of a migrant. Second, the discourse of investment which obeys a logic of cost-benefit, meaning the measures which are necessary to improve the chances of the person being employed are evaluated. These two discourses are complementary to regulate the diversity that comes with the increasing number of migrant workers. One way of increasing the chances of an unemployed migrant to settle in the new environment as well as being employed is by improving their local language skills in a language course. From the integration discourse point of view, knowledge of the local language avoids the creation of a parallel society in which migrants only speak their native language. In terms of the investment discourse, knowledge of the local language is only viewed to be necessary when it helps the migrant’s employability. It is also considered that the required level of knowledge for non-qualified migrants to get employed is rather low. The language courses as well as other strategies are paid by the REOs and therefore by Swiss taxpayers. This is why the overall costs paid by the REOs are tried to be minimized. However, in the case that a migrant does not attend a language course for the sake of keeping the costs low they cannot develop social mobility. Higher language competences lead to better employment which in turn entail social mobility (Flubacher et al, 2016).

In the airport company, languages that are not required for employment are not officially recognized through financial compensation or promotion but are nevertheless indispensable for the daily working life in the company (Duchêne, 2011). Employees speaking other languages are registered in a list so that they can translate in situations where unpredictable language needs arise. The majority of these so-called translators for rare languages are migrants in invisible or semi-visible positions. They become only visible when they linguistic services are needed meaning that they are exploited. At the same time they are objectified and their language skills and thus multilingualism are trivialized as they are taken for granted and relied on but not compensated (Duchêne, 2011).

These ways of dealing with migrant languages and multilingualism in general make the capitalist market discriminatory and reproduce social inequalities between Swiss citizens and migrants (Duchêne, 2011). A way to better the general perception of languages spoken by migrants is to offer education in these languages to migrants. This would help dissolving the hierarchical structure by recognizing the benefits of multilingualism and support the migrants’ social mobility. In general, recognition of migrants, their languages and culture by host countries like Switzerland would be a key element to integration (Filhon, 2013).

Discussion and Conclusion

The presented studies suggest that migrants often have disadvantages on the Swiss labour market. Language is used to create a hierarchy that benefits people who speak the dominant official local languages, i.e. German and French in the regions investigated. Since languages have value on the linguistic but also on the labour market these individuals have a higher social status and better chances to get a job. Also, because of this language ideology, being able to speak several relevant languages gives an individual power over people who are not fluent in these languages. The latter are therefore discriminated against for not knowing the languages required for given jobs.

The knowledge of the official languages is often required to immigrate to Switzerland in the first place but also to be eligible for many jobs. It is often expected that each individual speaks the local language fluently. Migrants who do not speak the local languages or are not fluent in them are less desired. Also, their multilingualism is seen as indicator for them not being well integrated instead of a benefit for the society.

At the same time, the language skills of migrants are exploited to increase the productivity and flexibility of companies. On the labour market, multilingualism has an economic value because language is developing into a central tool. It helps companies to create efficiency and economic profitability in the daily work life. The migrant employees’ knowledge of non-local languages are used without compensating them for their extra work or recognizing their skills. This leads to the impression that the migrants’ language skills are not valuable while simultaneously naturalizing the knowledge of non-local languages.

In the study of Flubacher et al (2016), it can be seen that the official institutions in Switzerland recognized that knowledge of the local language is needed to accomplish the social as well as professional integration of migrants. However, the institutions do not want to take responsibility for this process and due to cost-benefit logic often decide that basic language skills are enough for the migrant to be employed. This leads to migrants working only in invisible or semi-visible positions.

The more visible an employee is, the more important their language skills are. That is why most migrants who do not speak the local languages fluently enough usually work in semi-visible or invisible positions. Here, a clear hierarchy of languages and speakers can be seen. The local languages are considered more important than non-local ones. Speakers of local languages are therefore more valued and are compensated with, for example, higher salary. Therefore, the hierarchy of languages leads to applying a hierarchy to workers. This is why it can be said that the labour market in Switzerland is discriminating groups of people who do not speak the local languages well, especially migrants. Also, by sticking to the hierarchy of languages, existing social inequalities between Swiss nationals and migrants are not changed but reproduced. To break the hierarchy of humans it is necessary to stop valuing some languages more than others. This could be achieved by recognizing migrants’ languages, getting to know their culture and meeting their needs. As Filhon (2013) suggested, offering education in migrant languages is one way to do it. If the migrants’ social mobility were increased, integration would be easier which would also lead to a higher social status and better professional opportunities. In my opinion, it is the responsibility of the Council of Europe, the confederation of Switzerland, the cantonal governments and every institution and company to work on the recognition of multilingualism related to migration. Even though the Council of Europe, for example, already released some language policies (see Filhon, 2013) these are not sufficient and need to be better implemented on a daily basis. However, it also has to be pointed out that language is not the only factor leading to discrimination of migrants.

References

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