Maintenance Is Not Enough: Refocusing the Heritage Language Debate

• In Event: Roundtable Session 51
  In Roundtable Session: Supporting Family Language and Literacy Development

Abstract

Research suggests that children of immigrants learn their heritage language at home and only later, with an increasing exposure to English, experience language attrition and loss. Consequently, heritage language scholarship has focused on the static notions of language retention and maintenance. A qualitative study with immigrant parents from 11 Czech and Slovak families suggests that immigrant families face larger challenges than language retention and maintenance. Heritage language proficiency of many children in this study was limited to home-related conversations and some children never learned the heritage language to begin with. I argue that we must move away from an emphasis on maintenance and retention and embrace more fluid concepts of heritage language improvement, expansion, and development.

Author

• Marta McCabe, Durham Technical Community College