Language Proficiency, Use, and Maintenance among People with Vietnamese Heritage Living in Australia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jmbs.10973Keywords:
multilingual, bilingual, Vietnamese, heritage language, language maintenance, language proficiencyAbstract
Multilingualism provides cultural, economic and social benefits to individuals and societies. Many people with Vietnamese heritage have migrated to English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada and the US. This study describes language proficiency, use and maintenance of 271 adults with Vietnamese heritage living across Australia. The majority were first-generation immigrants (76.6%), spoke Vietnamese as their first language (94.3%), and indicated Vietnamese was their most proficient language (78.5%). The majority were more likely to use Vietnamese (than English) with their mother, father, older siblings, Vietnamese-speaking grandparents, relatives in Vietnam, and Vietnamese friends. They used English and Vietnamese with their partners, children, younger siblings and English-speaking grandparents. They were more likely to speak English when working, studying and watching TV, but used English and Vietnamese equally on social media. The most important reasons for maintaining Vietnamese were: maintaining bonds with relatives, maintaining Vietnamese cultural identity, and building friendships.
References
ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics). (2016). Census of population and housing: General community profile. Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/productsbyCatalogue/B7AD1DB8CB27192ECA2570D90018BFB2
ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics). (2017). Census reveals: we’re a fast changing nation. Retrieved from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/BA4418859C270D68CA2581BF001E65B3?OpenDocument
Adesope, O. O., Lavin, T., Thompson, T., & Ungerleider, C. (2010). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the cognitive correlates of bilingualism. Review of Educational Research, 80, 207–45. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310368803
Bankston, C. L., & Zhou, M. (1995). Effects of minority-language literacy on the academic achievement of Vietnamese youths in New Orleans. Sociology of Education, 68, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/2112760
Bernat, E. (2004). Investigating Vietnamese ESL learners’ beliefs about language learning. English Australia Journal, 21(2), 40–54.
Bialystok, E. (2011). Reshaping the mind: The benefits of bilingualism. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(4), 229–235. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025406
Blake, H. L., Bennetts Kneebone, L., & McLeod, S. (2017, in press). The impact of oral English proficiency on humanitarian migrants’ experiences of settling in Australia. International Journal of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism. Advance online publication https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2017.1294557
Blake, H. L., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & Fuller, G. (2018). The relationship between spoken English proficiency and participation in higher education, employment and income from two Australian censuses. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(2), 202–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2016.1229031
Blake, H. L., Verdon, S., & McLeod, S. (2019). Exploring multilingual speakers’ perspectives on their intelligibility in English. Speech, Language and Hearing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/2050571X.2019.1585681
Bracey, J. R., Bámaca, M. Y., & Umaña-Taylor, A. J. (2004). Examining ethnic identity and self-esteem among biracial and monoracial adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adoles¬cence, 33(2), 123–32. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:Joyo.0000013424.93635.68
Camarota, S. A., & Zeigler, K. (2014). One in five U.S. residents speaks foreign language at home, record 61.8 million: Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic speakers grew most since 2010. Retrieved from https://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/camarota-language.pdf.
Cavallaro, F. (2005). Language maintenance revisited: An Australian perspective. Bilingual Research Journal, 29, 561–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2005.10162852
Cho, G. (2000). The role of heritage language in social interactions and relationships: Reflections from a language minority group. Bilingual Research Journal, 24, 369–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2000.10162773
Clarkson, P. C. (2007). Australian Vietnamese students learning mathematics: High ability bilinguals and their use of their languages. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 64(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-006-4696-5
Clyne, M. (2008). The monolingual mindset as an impediment to the development of plurilingual potential in Australia. Sociolinguistic Studies, 2, 347–65. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v2i3.347
Cook, V. (2016). Premises of multi-competence. In V. Cook & Li Wei (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic multi-competence (pp. 1–25). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Department of Immigration and Border Protection. (2014). The place of migrants in contemporary Australia: A summary report.
Eberhard, D. M., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.). (2019). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (22nd Edition). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Retrieved from https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size
General Statistics Office of Viet Nam. (2016). Area, population, and population density by province. Retrieved from https://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=774.
Goldfeld, S., O’Connor, M., Mithen, J., Sayers, M., & Brinkman, S. (2014). Early development of emerging and English-proficient bilingual children at school entry in an Australian population cohort. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 38, 42–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025413505945
Hambleton, R. K., & Kanjee, A. (1995). Increasing the validity of cross-cultural assessments: Use of improved methods for test adaptations. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 11(3), 147–57. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.11.3.147
Ho, J., & Birman, D. (2010). Acculturation gaps in Vietnamese immigrant families: Impact on family relationships. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 34(1), 22–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2009.10.002
Kang, H. S. (2015). Korean families in America: Their family language policies and home-language maintenance. Bilingual Research Journal, 38, 275–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2015.1092002
Karidakis, M., & Arunachalam, D. (2016). Shift in the use of migrant community languages in Australia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2015.1023808
Lam. H. (2011). Raising children bilingually in mixed marriages: Stories of four Vietnamese-Caucasian families. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University, Phoe¬nix, AZ.
Luo, S. H., & Wiseman, R. L. (2000). Ethnic language maintenance among Chinese immigrant children in the United States. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24, 307–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0147-1767(00)00003-1
MacIntyre, P. D., Noels, K. A. & Clément, R. (1997). Biases in self‐ratings of second language proficiency: The role of language anxiety. Language Learning, 47, 265–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/0023-8333.81997008
McLeod, S., Harrison, L. J., Whiteford, C., & Walker, S. (2016). Multilingualism and speech-language competence in early childhood: Impact on academic and social-emotional outcomes at school. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 34, 53–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2015.08.005
McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Bowen, C., & International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech. (2013). International aspirations for speech-language pathologists’ practice with multilingual children with speech sound disorders: Development of a position paper. Journal of Communication Disorders, 46, 375–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2013.04.003
Migration Council Australia. (2015). The economic impact of migration. Retrieved from https://migrationcouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2015_EIOM.pdf
Munro, M., & Derwing, T. M. (2015). Intelligibility in research and practice: Teaching priorities. In M. Reed & J. Levis (Eds.), The handbook of English pronunciation (pp. 377–96). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Nguyen, A., Shin, F., & Krashen, S. (2001). Development of the first language is not a barrier to second-language acquisition: Evidence from Vietnamese immigrants to the United States. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 4, 159–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050108667725
Park, C. Y. (2007). Maintaining Korean as a heritage language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ.
Park, S. M., & Sarkar, M. (2007). Parents’ attitudes toward heritage language maintenance for their children and their efforts to help their children maintain the heritage language. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 20, 223–35. https://doi.org/10.2167/lcc337.0
Phạm, B., & McLeod, S., (2016). Consonants, vowels, and tones across Vietnamese dialects. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18, 122–34. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2015.1101162
Ruben, R. J. (2000). Redefining the survival of the fittest: Communication disorders in the 21st century. Laryngoscope, 110, 241–5. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005537-200002010-00010
Ryan, C. (2013). Language use in the United States: 2011. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2013/acs/acs-22.html
Sims, M., & Ellis, E. M. (2014). Raising children bilingually is hard: Why bother? Babel, 49, 28–35.
Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spolsky, B. (2007). Towards a theory of language policy. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 22(1), 1–14. Tang, G. (2007). Cross-linguistic analysis of Vietnamese and English with implications for Vietnamese language acquisition and maintenance in the United States. Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, 2, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.7771/2153-8999.1085
Tannenbaum, M. (2003). The multifaceted aspects of language maintenance: A new measure for its assessment in immigrant families. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 6, 374–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050308667792
Veltman, C. (1983). Language shift in the United States. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Winsler, A. (2014). Language maintenance and loss in a population study of young Australian children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29, 168–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.12.003
Verdon, S., Wong, S., & McLeod, S., (2016). Shared knowledge and mutual respect: Enhancing culturally competent practice through collaboration with families and communities. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 32, 205–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265659015620254
Willoughby, L. (2018). Language maintenance and shift. In J.-O. Östman & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: 21st annual installment (pp. 125–40). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Wong Fillmore, L. (1991). When learning a second language means losing the first. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 6, 323–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2006(05)80059-6
World Bank. (2019). GDP growth. Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
Young, R., & Tran, M. (1999). Language maintenance and shift among Vietnamese in America. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 140, 77–82. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl.1999.140.77
