Mila Schwartz

Exploring the Relationship between Family Language Policy and Heritage Language Knowledge Among Second Generation Russian–Jewish Immigrants in Israel

Abstract The family unit and home domain have been and remain important in heritage language maintenance efforts. There are complex relationships between parental language attitudes, their application in everyday language management activities and the childrens knowledge of home language vocabulary. The present large-scale study examined the family policy factors affecting first language (L1) maintenance among second generation Russian–Jewish immigrants in Israel in light of Spolskys (2004) model of language policy. Participants in the study were 70 Russian–Hebrew-speaking children with a mean age of 7,2 (years, months). After investigating the factors that influence Russian vocabulary knowledge, I constructed a composite measure of Russian lexical knowledge. In addition, structured questionnaires for parents and children were developed to collect data on language policy at home. The results attest to the crucial role of teaching literate L1 in both family and non-formal educational settings and to the childrens positive approach toward home language acquisition. A range of non-linguistic factors (demographic, social and cultural) creates a favourable background for the survival of the heritage language among emigrants. At the same time, the data reveal inconsistencies in language policy at home and a tendency toward the co-existence of the first and second languages.

Immigrant Parents' Choice of a Bilingual Versus Monolingual Kindergarten for Second-Generation Children: Motives, Attitudes, and Factors

This study investigated how immigrant parents describe and explain their family language policy concerning their childs preschool bilingual development, and also explored the factors linked to the parents choice of bilingual or monolingual kindergarten for their child. The study design was based on a comparison of 2 groups of parents: those who chose bilingual versus monolingual kindergartens. The research model consisted of 3 groups of variables: the sociocultural and linguistic profile of these groups of parents, their language policy (language ideology, practice, and management), and the parents representations about their childs proficiency in the both languages. The article presents results of a self-administered questionnaire. The sample (n = 111) included bilingual (Russian–Hebrew) young adult immigrants in Israel from the former Soviet Union. Three factors were found to be most significantly related to the parents choice of kindergarten and their general attitudes toward their childs bilingual development: the number of children in the family, the parents identification with Russian culture, and the childs well-being as a motivating factor in the choice of kindergarten. The results also show that, for both groups, the FLP was vaguely defined and unplanned, and it varied considerably within 1 immigrant language community.

Parents' Discourses About Language Strategies for Their Children's Preschool Bilingual Development

The study focused on immigrant parents discourses about strategies for their childrens preschool bilingual development and education. The article investigated how immigrant parents described and explained these strategies. The study was based on semi-structured interviews with 4 families. The 8 parents were Russian-speaking immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Analysis of the data showed that all the parents desired their children to maintain the heritage language and to acquire the host language. At the same time, they were realistically skeptical of achieving balanced bilingualism in their childrens language development. Nevertheless, most reported clearly elaborated intervention plans to support the childrens balanced bilingualism. The regulation of language interaction with the child at home occupied a central place in parents strategies for their childrens bilingual development; however, some chose bilingual kindergarten for their children, whereas others chose monolingual programs. To explain and justify this choice, parents adduced different motives and representations about trajectories of childrens bilingual development.

Delayed acquisition of irregular inflectional morphology in Hebrew in early sequential bilingualism

Acquisition of the irregular forms of inflectional morphology may be a challenge for bilingual students because of the possible effect of infrequent input. Focusing on irregular plural forms of languages such as Hebrew can contribute to better understanding how bilingual children cope with anomalous morphological forms. The present study compares Russian— Hebrew-speaking sequential bilingual children with Hebrew-speaking monolingual children in their command on four measures of irregular forms of Hebrew plural nouns at two data collection points: the beginning of the second grade and the beginning of the third grade, at a time when the acquisition of these forms is still going on. Although results show that the bilingual children continued to be less accurate than their monolingual peers in producing the irregular forms at the second point of data collection, the medium-size effect (Cohen, 1992) was obtained only on one of four measures. Furthermore, the finding attests to the significant improvement of both groups in the course of one school year on all categories of irregular plural forms. It was also found that both groups acquire the irregular forms of the Hebrew plural noun system in a similar way and exhibit related patterns of developmental errors.

Parents' assessment of their preschool children's bilingual development in the context of family language policy

Abstract Parents assessment of childrens development in the first and the second language is an essential part of their family language policy (FLP) and an important component of parent–child communication. This paper presents a pilot study focused on Russian-speaking immigrant parents assessment of their childrens language knowledge in Russian as a first language and Hebrew as the second language in the context of their FLP. The research questions were as follows: How is parents assessment of their childrens bilingual language development linked to their choice of bilingual versus monolingual preschool education? To what degree are parents reports of their childrens language knowledge similar or different to their childrens actual language knowledge? Which domains of language knowledge do parents relate to or ignore when assessing their childrens language development? The sample consisted of 27 children (14 from bilingual and 13 from monolingual kindergartens), and their parents. Two sets of measurements were used, one to obtain parents reports on childs knowledge of Russian and Hebrew and the other to assess children. The finding points out parents insensitiveness to the length of the childrens utterances and their tendency to rationalise FLP by overestimating their childrens general language knowledge.

Socio-linguistic factors in second language lexical knowledge: the case of second-generation children of Russian-Jewish immigrants in Israel

The factors affecting the mastery of the host countrys language by the children of immigrants are important in the study of immigration-related issues. This exploratory study analyses the possible link between parental socio-linguistic background factors (parent–child language choice, parental proficiency in L2, educational level, socio-economic status, and the length of residence in the host country) and the childrens social milieu on the one hand and childrens lexical knowledge of L2 on the other among Russian-Jewish immigrants to Israel. Participants in the study were 70 Russian–Hebrew speaking children with a mean age of 7 years 2 months and their parents, all Russian-Jewish immigrants in Israel. After investigating the factors that influence Hebrew (L2) vocabulary knowledge, we constructed a composite measure of Hebrew lexical knowledge. In addition, structured questionnaires for parents and children were developed to collect data on target socio-linguistic factors. The findings showed that variability in childrens L2 lexical knowledge can be understood, to some extent, by three background factors: parents educational level, parents educational experience in the host country, and the length of family residence in the host country. At the same time, the role of parent–child language choice, parental L2 proficiency, and childrens social milieu was found to be insignificant. These data are discussed in the context of the distinctive socio-cultural characteristics of the Russian-Jewish immigrant community in Israel.

Toward a Better Understanding of First Language Vocabulary Knowledge: The Case of Second-Generation Russian-Jewish Immigrants in Israel.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the first language (L1) vocabulary knowledge in a large-scale sample (n = 70) of second-generation Russian-Jewish immigrants in Israel. The interest in this research population follows from the unique demographic, sociocultural, linguistic, and psychological distinctiveness of RJ immigration in Israel. The study focused on the question of whether the L1 vocabulary knowledge of second-generation children is restrictive compared with their second language (L2) vocabulary and, if so, in what way. A within-subjects design was used to compare the participants performance on lexical knowledge tests in Russian (L1) and Hebrew (L2). The comparison of expressive lexical knowledge in L1 and L2 of Russian–Hebrew speaking children on an array of measures clearly shows L2 dominance. The researchers conclude, therefore, that second-generation children who receive their educational instruction in a non-additive L2 context do not perform better in L1 than in L2 in tasks requiring deep lexical knowledge.

Orthographic learning and self-teaching in a bilingual and biliterate context.

The aim of this study was to examine self-teaching in the context of English as a foreign language literacy acquisition. Three groups comprising 88 sixth-grade children participated. The first group consisted of Russian-Hebrew-speaking bilinguals who had acquired basic reading skills in Russian as their first language (L1) and literacy and who were literate in Hebrew as a second language. The second group consisted of Russian-Hebrew-speaking bilinguals who had not learned to read in their native Russian but had acquired Hebrew as their first literate language. The third group consisted of Hebrew-speaking monolingual children who were literate in Hebrew. This design facilitated examining the effect of biliteracy and bilingualism on basic English reading skills. We hypothesized that due to the proximity between the Russian and English orthographies as opposed to the Hebrew-English distance, the Russian-Hebrew-speaking biliterate group who acquired basic reading and spelling skills in L1 Russian would have superior self-teaching in English as opposed to the two other groups. The standard two-session self-teaching paradigm was employed with naming (speed and accuracy) and orthographic choice as posttest measures of orthographic learning. Results showed that after 4 years of English instruction, all three groups showed evidence of self-teaching on naming speed and orthographic recognition. The Russian-Hebrew-speaking biliterate group, moreover, showed a partial advantage over the comparison groups for initial decoding of target pseudowords and clear-cut superiority for measures of later orthographic learning, thereby showing self-teaching while supporting the script dependence hypothesis.

Current Issues in Bilingualism: A Complex Approach to a Multidimensional Phenomenon

The past 20 years have seen an unprecedented upsurge of interest in bilingualism and multilingualism. A major reason for this is no doubt the acknowledgement by a growing number of researchers that the use of two or more languages is far more common than was previously thought, and may perhaps even be the norm. There are no exact data on the number of bilinguals throughout the world.1 However, some researchers claim that over 50% of the world’s population is bilingual (Fabbro, 1999). Bilingualism prevails at the societal level as well. With an estimated 6000 languages at this time being spoken in the world (Grimes, 2000), and with only some 200 countries, simple mathematics demonstrates that many countries must, in one way or another, be bi- or multilingual (Dewaele, Housen, & Wei, 2003). An investigation of the phenomenon of bilingualism and second language acquisition, therefore, has not only great theoretical significance, but will also be of great practical importance.

Second Generation Immigrants: A Socio-Linguistic Approach of Linguistic Development Within the Framework of Family Language Policy

This paper presents data on factors influencing vocabulary acquisition in the first and second language among second generation immigrants from families emigrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel. The obtained data are presented in light of existing evidence on the role of socio-cultural background of immigrant parents in countries traditionally involved in immigrants’ absorption such as the United States, Canada and Israel. Regarding L1 vocabulary knowledge, the paper attests to the crucial role of family language practice and management (teaching literacy L1 in both family and informal educational settings) and child language ideology (the children’s positive approach toward home language acquisition). As for L2 acquisition, other socio-cultural and acculturation factors have been found relevant. The findings show that variability in children’s L2 vocabulary can be understood, to some extent, by three background factors: parents’ educational level, parents’ educational experience in the host country, and the length of family residence in the host country. At the same time, family language practice (parent-child language choice), parental L2 proficiency, and children’s social milieu were found to be insignificant. In addition, the findings provide evidence for the role of immigrant parents’ education as a separate variable from socio-economic status factor. Finally, the importance of addressing specific characteristics of the immigrant community while studying vocabulary in L1/L2 among the second generation is discussed.