Yiddish-Hebrew speakers residing in Israel are primarily Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox Jews, living in relatively closed communities, characterized by their large number of children, low parental formal ...education, and low family income. Religious literacy and schooling are highly respected. We tested the impact of these demographic factors on children's vocabulary size and language dominance. Data was collected for 34 bilingual children aged 2–4, in Yiddish, the Minority Language (MiL-Yiddish), and in Hebrew, the Majority Language (MaL-Hebrew). Demographic and language use information was gathered using a multicultural questionnaire, completed by the mothers. Significantly larger vocabulary sizes were observed across the group for Yiddish, and significant correlations were found between vocabulary measures and exposure variables. Vocabulary size in the MiL-Yiddish increased with family size. This unbalanced bilingualism may be explained by the strong Yiddish-based identity of this population and the support of MiL-Yiddish by these closed communities and particularly by their schools. The positive effect of family size on Yiddish may stem from the number of children attending these Yiddish-speaking schools. The unexpected role of family size and the dominance of MiL-Yiddish among these bilinguals undermines the definition of Yiddish as the MiL, calling for a different paradigm of in-group and out-group languages.
Bilingualism in the family and child well-being: A scoping review Müller, Lisa-Maria; Howard, Katie; Wilson, Elspeth ...
The international journal of bilingualism : cross-disciplinary, cross-linguistic studies of language behavior,
10/2020, Letnik:
24, Številka:
5-6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Aims and objectives:
The aim of this scoping review is to investigate the association between bilingualism in the family and child subjective well-being, by reviewing the literature to identify key ...themes to date and remaining questions for future research.
Methodology:
Scopus, Web of Knowledge, ERIC, Psych Articles and PsychInfo were searched systematically between September and October 2018, and after title, abstract and full-text screening, 17 of the initial 1433 articles were included in this review.
Data and analysis:
Each study was coded for the discipline from which it emerged, the language combination studied, the measures of well-being and language proficiency it used, the geographical location of the study and the number of participants. Data on the link between bilingualism and well-being was extracted from each study.
Findings and conclusion:
Two main themes were identified: ‘The effect of language proficiency on family relationships’ and ‘The acculturation of parents and children as mediated by language’. Across studies, there was significant heterogeneity in definition of concepts and a diverse range of measures employed. In addition, the studies identified suggest a positive link between minority language maintenance and child well-being, and a positive influence of bilingualism, rather than knowledge of only the home or the majority language. However, the directionality of these relationships will need to be investigated in future research.
Originality:
This is the first scoping review conducted systematically to explore the link between bilingualism in the family and child well-being internationally. It builds on previous work such as a narrative review which examined this association in the European context.
Numerous studies suggest that bilinguals demonstrate smaller vocabularies than monolinguals, and that bilinguals' breadth of vocabulary knowledge - both expressive and receptive - is linked to input ...frequencies in each language e.g. Hoff, E., S. Welsh, S. Place, and K. Ribot. 2014. "Properties of Dual Language Input That Shape Bilingual Development and Properties of Environments That Shape Dual Language Input." In Input and Experience in Bilingual Development, edited by T. Grüter, and J. Paradis, Vol. 13, 119-140. Amserdam: John Benjamins. However, relatively little is known about the quality of bilinguals' knowledge of the words they do know (e.g. their understanding of how words relate to each other semantically) and how input frequencies influence that knowledge. Using the Cognitive Abilities Tasks - 4 (CAT-4), this study explored the potential links between three types of input sources - home language exposure, self-reported rates of language use in general, and language use with friends - and bilinguals' performance on two types of vocabulary tests in both Welsh and English: verbal analogy and verbal categorisation. Results revealed similar performance across-the-board in relation to their knowledge of English vocabulary, regardless of their exposure to and use of Welsh and/or English in general and with friends, but their knowledge of the links between words in Welsh was related to home language exposure and rates of language use. The implications and application of these results in practice are discussed.
This article investigates the economy of monolingual media systems in nine European minority language communities during 2009–2015, a period of strong economic crisis and accelerated digitalization. ...The main areas of study are three: The economic volume or weight of those media systems and its variation between 2009 and 2015; the current funding structure of the four media types (press, radio, TV and cybermedia); and the qualitative evaluation of media editors and managers on the effect of those two crises as well as the significance of the public aid. The nine European minority languages are Basque, Welsh, Galician, Irish, Breton, Frisian, Sámi, Corsican and Scottish-Gaelic. As for the findings, it can be highlighted that the economic volume or revenue of European minority language media is close to five hundred million euros per year, of which over ninety per cent is public funding, mostly devoted to broadcasting media. The conclusion set forth is that public funding should not be framed as aid but as a social, cultural and economic investment.
Many studies have shown that bilingual children outperform monolinguals on tasks testing executive functioning, but other studies have not revealed any effect of bilingualism. In this study we ...compared three groups of bilingual children in the Netherlands, aged 6-7 years, with a monolingual control group. We were specifically interested in testing whether the bilingual cognitive advantage is modulated by the sociolinguistic context of language use. All three bilingual groups were exposed to a minority language besides the nation's dominant language (Dutch). Two bilingual groups were exposed to a regional language (Frisian, Limburgish), and a third bilingual group was exposed to a migrant language (Polish). All children participated in two working memory tasks (verbal, visuospatial) and two attention tasks (selective attention, interference suppression). Bilingual children outperformed monolinguals on selective attention. The cognitive effect of bilingualism was most clearly present in the Frisian-Dutch group and in a subgroup of migrant children who were relatively proficient in Polish. The effect was less robust in the Limburgish-Dutch sample. Investigation of the response patterns of the flanker test, testing interference suppression, suggested that bilingual children more often show an effect of response competition than the monolingual children, demonstrating that bilingual children attend to different aspects of the task than monolingual children. No bilingualism effects emerged for verbal and visuospatial working memory.
The purpose of this paper was to unpack French-minority language teachers’ perspectives on the impact of the pandemic on their teaching. In fall 2021, semi-structured interviews were conducted ...virtually with 40 K-12 teachers of French as a minority language in Manitoba and Nova Scotia. While the pandemic has undoubtedly been challenging for language and literacy teachers, many have also developed adaptations and strategies. This paper focuses on those pedagogical accomplishments and teachers’ self-reported moments of success. Three main themes explored were the integration of technology into language teaching, language teacher collaboration and linguistic community building with students.
Immigrant minority (IM) languages have a significant presence in certain European regions. Nonetheless, these languages are not usually included in the school curriculum. This paper aims to analyse ...the studies published between 2010 and 2020 considering IM languages in multilingual European education contexts. The method included a search of academic papers published in the databases ERIC, Web of Science and Scopus, which yielded 42 studies. The studies were analysed by considering (1) the demographic characteristics of the countries where the studies were conducted, (2) the sociolinguistic or psycholinguistic focus of the papers in relation to the European country, and (3) the characteristics of the bi-multilingual education programme including IM languages. The results indicate that (1) the demographic characteristics of the country are not strictly related to the number of studies published, (2) most studies have a sociolinguistic approach even though many studies analyse both sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors, and (3) only seven multilingual education programmes including IM languages were described in these papers. We conclude that there is a lack of research focusing on IM languages in educational settings and discuss how addressing these gaps could create opportunities for building equitable multilingual communities in Europe.
Poland’s ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has imposed several obligations on the Republic of Poland. At the moment of ratification, Poland indicated which ...languages would be considered regional or minority, referring to the Act on National and Ethnic Minorities and Regional Language. This article outlines the mechanism for assessing Poland’s compliance with the Charter and indicates which responsibilities rest with the executive power that needs to present detailed reports on the Charter’s implementation to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. The article presents the contents of the first report from 2010. It also shows the position of the Committee of Experts that initially evaluated the 2010 report, while analysing the existing normative acts in Poland in this regard to other regulations and actual practices. The activities of the Committee of Experts resulted in a report suggesting recommendations submitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The Polish government referred to the Report of the Committee of Experts with its comments and objections. Based on all these documents, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe formulated recommendations for Poland, fully sharing, despite the reservations of the Republic of Poland, the position of the Committee of Experts. From the content of the documents analysed in this article, it follows that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe believes that Poland still has a lot of work to do in promoting awareness and tolerance of regional or minority languages. Poland also needs to improve in the field of education, relating to media, and finally in the delicate matter of communication between minorities and public authorities.
In the context of globalization, the landscape of language in Korea has changed dramatically in the last three decades because of the influx of marriage migrants and foreign workers. The growing ...number of immigrant and international marriages has led to the emergence of new linguistic minorities in Korea who have multicultural and multilingual backgrounds, and they challenge Korea’s long-lasting tradition of linguistic homogeneity and purity. Language related education for this newly emerging group of language minority students, whose number has increased dramatically since the late-1990s, has become a salient issue. This paper critically analyzes the current education policies and programs designed for the newly emerging group of language minority students, and examines the prospects for sustainable development of these students in Korea. In particular, it focuses on the underlying ideology of linguistic nationalism and assimilationist integration regime embedded in various education policy initiatives and reforms, which require language minority students to forgo their multilingual background and forcibly embrace linguistic homogeneity. The paper elaborates on alternative educational programs that could enable language minority students to achieve sustainable development and progress.
The increasing number of primary students with varying degrees of exposure to a family minority language requires a reflection on whether specific aspects of their daily language experience influence ...their learning. Indeed, Minority Language Children (MLC) often report difficulties in reading that must be better investigated to exclude neurodevelopmental conditions such as developmental dyslexia.
To this aim, we developed a new instrument, the Daily Linguistic Practice Interview. It allows for collecting information about the linguistic practice and use in the family (Scale A) and extra-family context (Scale B), and about the child's linguistic preferences and habits (Scale C). The Interview further provides analogic quantitative measures of minority language active speaking with mother, father, and passive listening, in the form of clocks to paint.
The relationship between these linguistic aspects and reading skills was investigated on 79 MLC aged 8 to 11 y.o.through a correlational approach and regression models. Our results show that family and extra-family language use influence accurate lexical recognition, moreover a “mother effect” broadly affects reading skills in the majority language.
Our findings suggest that MLC deserve a more careful evaluation of learning disorders with ad hoc standardized tests, that incorporates information about the family language exposure.
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