The present study examined whether parents’ and bilingual children’s own relative use of the heritage language vs. the majority language in the homes of bilingual children in Denmark before school ...start explains variance in 2
nd
grade majority language skills and reading skills. The study included two groups of children: the Mixed bilinguals group (defined by having a native Danish and a nonnative parent,
N
= 376) and the Heritage bilinguals group (defined by having parents who were both speakers of a Heritage language,
N
= 276). Four-stage hierarchical regression analyses showed that, after accounting for type of bilingualism, socioeconomic status (SES) and home literacy environment quality, relative use of the heritage vs. the majority language explained variance in 2
nd
grade Danish language comprehension scores, but did not explain variance in two reading scores, namely decoding and reading comprehension. In addition, a home literacy factor denoting book exposure (number of books, frequency of reading, library visits, and age of beginning shared book reading) was a significant predictor of both 2
nd
grade language and reading outcomes, whereas SES became a nonsignificant predictor when adding home literacy and language use predictors. We interpret the results to mean that parents’ and the child’s own relative use of the heritage language vs. the majority language before school start does not influence bilingual children’s early reading skills, whereas a supportive early home literacy environment is a positive predictor of reading skills independently of SES and parental majority language use and skill.
Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is considered a universal marker of developmental dyslexia (DD) and could also be helpful to identify a reading deficit in minority-language children (MLC), in which it ...may be hard to disentangle whether the reading difficulties are due to a learning disorder or a lower proficiency in the language of instruction. We tested reading and rapid naming skills in monolingual Good Readers (mGR), monolingual Poor Readers (mPR), and MLC, by using our new version of RAN, the RAN-Shapes, in 127 primary school students (from 3rd to 5th grade). In line with previous research, MLC showed, on average, lower reading performances as compared to mGR. However, the two groups performed similarly to the RAN-Shapes task. On the contrary, the mPR group underperformed both in the reading and the RAN tasks. Our findings suggest that reading difficulties and RAN performance can be dissociated in MLC; consequently, the performance at the RAN-Shapes may contribute to the identification of children at risk of a reading disorder without introducing any linguistic bias, when testing MLC.
In researching the linguistic landscape of Kovačica, we analyze the linguistic diversity of this multicultural town with a focus on both official and public inscriptions. The aim was to ascertain how ...minority language policies regulate public language use, as well as to examine whether one of the languages is more dominant than the other and whether a certain language is used for certain domains. The research corpus consisted of 152 photographs and accompanying notes taken during fieldwork. Through a detailed analysis of the corpus, we come to the conclusion that the linguistic landscape of the town of Kovačica is diverse and in accordance with the structure of the population and the languages that are in official use in the territory of the municipality of Kovačica. Regarding official inscriptions, we notice that Serbian, as the official and majority language in the Republic of Serbia, is more dominant than Slovak, except for some situations, for example street names and inscriptions on local historical monuments. On the other hand, the Romanian and Hungarian languages appear only on official signs as a feature of a multinational municipality in which four languages are in official use, which means that those two languages do not appear in other domains of the language landscape of Kovačica. In addition, English is becoming more prevalent in the official language landscape of Kovačica, especially in the tourist sector, which reflects the impact of globalization and the need to communicate with a wider international audience. When public written signs are concerned, our analysis shows the indisputable dominance of the Serbian language, which indicates a tendency towards monolingualism in the public space. In addition, there are occasional deviations in the spelling and correct use of both the Serbian and Slovak languages in the public space. Overall, the linguistic landscape of Kovačica reflects the town's rich traditional culture and confirms that the official use of languages is in line with Serbian legislation, but the private sphere does indicate a gradual shift from multilingualism towards monolingualism.
This article presents a conceptual history of identity in Swedish minority language policy, exploring how “developing a cultural identity” became integral to the minority language curriculum. ...Following the methodology of Wacquant (2022), which combines Bourdieu's sociology with the conceptual history of Koselleck, the study tracks identity through archived documents from the political, media and academic fields of the 1968–74 immigration inquiry in Sweden and subsequent actualisation of the so-called Home Language Reform in 1977. This reform continues to entitle children who are raised speaking a language other than Swedish to state-mandated tuition in this language via mother tongue instruction (MTI). As a space for non-hegemonic language practice, MTI struggles for political and societal legitimacy and existing research has yet to explore how identity is entangled in its (de)legitimation. Following debate in the 1960s about the unsuitability of “adjustment”, the IC aimed to construct a new conceptual framework for migrant discourse. Analysis of bills, publications, minutes and media op-eds show that agents acted as brokers to jointly construct identity as a flexible framework to cover diverse needs within and across their respective fields. Within the media field, pundits argued either for the right of the individual to choose their level of engagement with established groups, or for the autonomy of migrant groups to establish their own schools and communities. Within the political field, inspiration came from the perceived successes of Canadian immigration reform, while key academics took interest in North American social psychology research. The focal point of this cross-field negotiation was a hybrid concept, a necessarily flexible frame of reference whose meaning differed slightly within each field. Given the lack of semantic precision of hybrid concepts, reflexive language science ought to consider and problematise their application in MTI research and in further academic enquiry.
•This article explores how developing a cultural identity became integral to the Swedish minority language curriculum.•It follows the methodology of Wacquant which combines Bourdieu’s sociology with the conceptual history of Koselleck.•Agents acted as brokers to jointly construct identity as a flexible framework within and across their respective fields.•Identity was imported into Swedish media and academic debate from North American immigration reform and social psychology.•Problematic hybrid concepts can be approached reflexively in the language sciences via socio-historical inquiry.
Research has highlighted the significance of the family and community in minority language revitalisation, whilst raising concern for efforts solely focused at the school level. This article draws ...upon research with children in Gaelic Medium Education, in Scotland, to explore their experiences and perceptions of their language use. The findings illustrate the dominance of English language across multiple aspects of children's lives and highlight the opportunities/threats of recent revitalisation efforts to push the bilingual benefits of language learning. The findings suggest the need for a more considered approach, such as translanguaging pedagogies, in order to effectively revitalise Gaelic language.
The article deals with the current situation of German minority teaching in Poland. The current situation is explored from the perspective of the thirty-year development of the German minority ...language in the Polish school system on the formal legal, social and didactic level. In principle, the focus of the analysis is placed on educational aspects. Accordingly, a redefinition of the German minority language in the didactic frame of reference and the processing of a corresponding textbook are declared necessary.
The ability of bilingual individuals to manage two competing languages is assumed to rely on both domain-specific language control and domain-general control mechanisms. However, previous studies ...have reported mixed findings about the extent and nature of cross-domain generality. The present study examined the role of language dominance, along with bilingual language experience, in the relationship between word recognition and domain-general cognitive control. Two single-language lexical decision tasks (one in L1 and another in L2) and a domain-general flanker task were administered to bilinguals who live in the sociolinguistic context of a minority and a majority language, namely, Uyghur (L1) and Chinese (L2), respectively. The results showed a diversity in language dominance patterns with better performance in L2 than L1 in the recognition modality, even for participants who self-identified as globally being dominant in L1. This finding reflected all bilinguals' self-evaluation that their preferred language for reading was L2, suggesting that language dominance is dynamic, depending on what language modality is measured. Furthermore, it was found that an earlier onset age of L2 acquisition (but not recent exposure) and a higher across-modality dominance in L2 were related to faster L2 word recognition. When self-reported language dominance was operationalised as a grouping variable, it was further found that both across-modality L1- and L2-dominant bilingual participants demonstrated a significant relationship between L2 word recognition and domain-general monitoring control, while only L1-dominant bilinguals additionally tapped into inhibitory control, indexed by the flanker effect during L2 word recognition. These findings suggest that language dominance has an impact on the extent and nature of the overlap in control mechanisms across specific linguistic and domain-general cognitive domains and add evidence to a domain-general monitoring account of bilingual word recognition.
This study explored the academic achievement of students who speak a minority language (ML) at home (i.e., a language other than the official languages of Canada, English and French) and who have ...special education needs (SEN), in two educational programs that differed in language of instruction: English language of instruction (ELoI), and Early French Immersion (EFI). The proportion of students (n = 131) meeting the provincial standard in reading, writing, and mathematics and the effect of gender, place of birth, socio-economic status, English proficiency level, and program were analyzed. Writing was the strongest domain, followed by reading and mathematics. ML-SEN students were equally likely to meet the provincial standard whether in ELoI or EFI, and there were few significant predictors of achievement. Participating in EFI did not increase students’ risk of academic difficulty. Additional supports may be beneficial to ML-SEN students in ELoI and EFI programs.
PDF
