Session Information
31 SES 03 A, Teacher impact on multilingual and diverse learners
Paper Session
Contribution
In recent years, domain theory in the field of to family (heritage) languages has been especially interested in questions of language vitality, i.e. in the fact that languages that are used in many domains have stronger vitality than others (Fishman 1989 & 1991, Spolsky 2012, Rydenvald 2019). Up to 2020/21, all empirical evidence with regard to domains concerns only the physical, “analogue” domains (family, school, church/religion, work, etc.). The Family Language Policy (FLP, see Crump 2017, Smith-Christmas 2019, Kimura 2015), embraces top-down processes from parents meet/conflict with bottom-up processes of the children. The way in which lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and the reduction of social life to the household and online activities have influenced the usage of a heritage language in the different domains and in the FLP has, however, not been researched to date.
Russian ranks second after Turkish among the most spoken family languages in Germany (see the Microcensus 2017). This country has a developed Russian-language infrastructure (mass media, "Russian shops", etc., more in Zybatow 2017). Children and young people can attend heritage language classes or Russian clubs, etc. (Bremer &. Mehlhorn 2018). In the context of the pandemic, however, many groups aimed at children and school HL-classes were forced to temporarily stop their work or move online.
Method
This presentation wants to give insight into HOW adolescents used their heritage Russian during and shortly after lockdown in spring 2021 in Germany, which means giving answers to: WITH WHOM is WHICH language used HOW and HOW OFTEN/HOW LONG in order to reach WHICH goal? What are significant CHANGES between the usage of Heritage Russian when Lockdown and Not-Lockdown are compared? How can the different DOMAIN PATTERNS be characterized, and what could this mean for FLP in the individual families? To answer these questions, we have carried out a longitudinal qualitative study. We conducted qualitative interviews (via a conference system) with four teenagers and their caregivers, during and shortly after lockdown in spring/summer 2021 and will take in the early 2022. Particularly interesting are the results concerning adolescents, who moved all their life online due to and during the pandemic, blurring the borders of language domains.
Expected Outcomes
The analysis of the data shows which languages are used by the informants in their everyday “normal” life.Contrary to our pre-research idea of the lockdown leading to more heritage language, we found the opposite. During the lockdown Russian played a minor role than in not-lockdown-times. At the moment we are still analysing the data, and the comparison to the situation this year will be very insightful. One of the young people speaks Russian and Armenian at home. The results in comparison to the only-Russian speaking adolescents can be especially interesting for the conference in Yerevan.
References
Brehmer, B. & Mehlhorn, G. (2018). Unterricht in den Herkunftssprachen Russisch und Polnisch - Einstellungen und Effekte. In B. Brehmer & G. Mehlhorn (eds.), Potenziale von Herkunftssprachen: Sprachliche und außersprachliche Einflussfaktoren. Stauffenburg-Verlag. Reihe "Forum Sprachlehrforschung", pp. 259-292. Crump, A. (2017). “I Speak All of the Language!” Engaging in Family Policy Research with Multilingual Children in Montreal. In J. Macalister, S.H. Mirvahedi (eds.), Family Language Policies in a Multilingual World. Routledge, 154–174. Fishman, Joshua A. (1989). Language and ethnicity in minority sociolinguistic perspective. Multilingual Matters. Fishman, Joshua A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Multilingual Matters. Smith-Christmas, C. (2019). When X doesn't mark the spot: The intersection of language shift, identity and family language policy. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2019, 133-158. Spolsky, Bernard. (2012): Family language policy – the critical domain. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33, 1-9. Zybatow, G. (2017). Auslandsvarietäten des Russischen. In K. Witzlak-Makarevich & N. Wulff (eds.) Handbuch des Russischen in Deutschland: Migration, Mehrsprachigkeit, Spracherwerb. Frank&Timme, pp. 261-281.
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