American/Russian, Israeli or Both: Language, Identity, and Attitudes among HeritageEnglish and Russian Speaking Preschool Children,

Israel

Susan JoffeHadar Abutbol Oz

Joel Walters Sharon Armon-Lotem

Bar Ilan UniversitySixth Heritage Language Research Institute

June 18 - 22, 2012University of California, Los Angeles

We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Heritage Language Research Institute and the Lechter Foundation.

Social Factors and Motivation in Heritage Language Maintenance and Second

Language Acquisition

• Ethnolinguisitic Vitality theory: there is more chance of maintenance when a minority language has high ethnolinguistic vitality, as defined by demographic, economic, political and cultural capital (Landry & Allard 1994).

• In a study of students of heritage languages at universities in the United States, survey respondents expressed positive attitudes toward their heritage languages, even as their use of Heritage Languages decreased dramatically upon reaching school age (Carreira & Kagan 2011).

• Heritage language learners need strong motivation to maintain their heritage languages (Montrul 2010).

Background

• 20% of children in the Israeli schools come from immigrant families (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 2004).

• Immigrant childrens’ encounter with a new language and culture may result in changes to their identities as well.

L2/Hebrew language

proficiency

Social Preferences

Ethnolinguistic Identity

Exposure to L2/Hebrew

Ethnolinguistic Identity

Social Preference

s

L2/Language proficiency

Research Hypotheses: LOE

• Length of Exposure (LOE) was expected to correlate with higher performance on Hebrew standardized tests for both groups.

• Measures of English and Russian syntactic structures were expected to correlate negatively with LOE, i.e. more L2 exposure would lead to lower performance in L1 syntax.

Research Hypotheses: Identity

• Higher Hebrew proficiency was expected to correlate with stronger Israeli identity and weaker English/American and Russian ethnolinguistic identities.

Research Hypotheses: Attitudes and Social Preferences

• Higher Hebrew proficiency was expected to correlate with positive attitudes toward the Hebrew language and Hebrew speakers.

• Higher Hebrew proficiency was expected to correlate with preferences for Hebrew speakers.

Participants

21 L1 English speaking children• 9 boys, 12 girls• Mean age – 61 mo• Mean length of exposure to

Hebrew – 30 mo• Age of initial exposure to

Hebrew – 26.74 months• First born - 5• Average level of parents’

education – post-high school

78 L1 Russian speaking children• 35 boys, 43 girls• Mean age – 70 mo• Mean length of exposure to

Hebrew – 36.85 mo• Age of initial exposure to

Hebrew – 34.79 months• First born – 39 participants• Average level of parents’

education – post-high school

Methods

Language Assessment

• English: CELF-Preschool 2 (Wiig, Secord & Semel 1992)

• Russian: no standardized instrument

• Hebrew: Goralnik Language Screening Test (1995)

Social Identity Assessment

Oral interview including:• Ethnolinguistic labels• Rating of current and future

ethnic and ethnolinguistic identities

• Attitudes to languages and speakers

• Ethnolinguistic social preferences

Social Identity Assessment

• “How much do you agree? Show me on the Magic Ladder.”– “I am American/Russian/Israeli/Both”– “I like to be American/Russian/Israeli/Both”– “When I grow up I want to be…”– “At your birthday party, how much do you want to invite

friends who speak only Russian/only Hebrew/both?”

Social Identity Procedures

Magic Ladder• ☺

• _• _• _• _• _• _• _• _• _• _

•

Procedure• 10 point, 3D vertical rating

scale, 12” • Numbers hidden from view• Warm-up/practice placing a

magnetic disk on the ladder in response to questions about likes/dislikes, feelings

• Use of ladder to assess identity, attitudes, social preferences

Results:LanguageHebrew Language Proficiency

(Goralnik (1995) Scores)

English-Hebrew Bilinguals:21% at norm or above79% below norm

6

15

0

4

8

12

16

20

1

Num

ber

of P

artic

ipan

ts

At Norm Below Norm

Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals:62 % at norm or above38% below norm

48

30

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1

Num

ber

of P

artic

ipan

ts

At Norm Below Norm

Length of Exposure (LOE)

English-Hebrew Bilinguals• LOE did not correlate with

Hebrew language proficiency. Contrary to expectations, children with more exposure to Hebrew did not have higher proficiency in Hebrew.

Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals• LOE did correlate with

Hebrew language proficiency. As expected, children with more exposure to Hebrew had higher proficiency in Hebrew.

-2.03

-0.94

-0.52

-2.5

-2

-1.5

-1

-0.5

0Low (n=19) Mid (n=25) High (n=11)

Exposure to the Hebrew Language

Mean Z scores of Sum Results

Least exposure (10-25 months)

Medium exposure (26-46 months)

Most exposure (47-75 months)

Results: Identity

English-Hebrew Bilinguals• Hebrew language

proficiency did not correlate with positive attitudes toward Hebrew and Hebrew speakers.

• English-Hebrew bilinguals preferred Israeli or bicultural identities (regardless of LOE or Hebrew proficiency).

Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals• "Below Norm" children

presented a consistent preference for Russian ethnolinguistic identity in both present and future.

• “At Norm” children presented less consistent but stronger preferences for Israeli identity, which was statistically significant for future oriented identity.

Russian-Hebrew BilingualsLOE and Ethnic Identity: “Who are you?”

Israeli identity correlated with higher proficiency in Hebrew.

0102030405060708090

100

Low (n=19) Mid (n=25) High (n=11)

Exposure to the Hebrew Language

Israeli

Both R-I

Russian

English-Hebrew Bilinguals: Ethnolinguistic Identity

EH bilinguals saw themselves becoming less American (and more Israeli/bicultural) in the future.

0.00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

8.00

9.00

10.00

I am I like to be When I grow up I want to be

American Israeli Both

English-Hebrew Bilinguals: Future Identity Most English-Hebrew bilinguals want to be

Israeli when they grow up.

10 point scale Future Individual Identity ‘Total Population’(n=21)

When I grow up I want to be…

Response Percentage (Freq.)

American 0.29 (6)

Israeli 0.57 (12)

Both 0.05 (1)

No response 0.10 (2)

Total 21

Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals: Ethnolinguistic IdentityBelow norm children preferred Russian identities.

At norm children preferred Israeli and Russian identities.

Results: Social PreferencesEnglish-Hebrew bilinguals preferred to invite other English speakers or other bilinguals to their birthday parties. Russian-Hebrew bilinguals with lower Hebrew proficiency preferred to invite Russian speakers; those with higher Hebrew proficiency did not prefer Russian or Hebrew speakers.

English-Hebrew Bilinguals

8.48

5.86

6.48

5.76

8.95

0.00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

8.00

9.00

10.00

1

Only English

Only Hebrew

English Dominant

Hebrew Dominant

Both English andHebrew

Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals

1. Hebrew language proficiency interacted with ethnolinguistic identity.

2. Higher Hebrew proficiency lead to preferences of Hebrew dominant friends.

Hebrew language proficiency

Social Preferences

Ethnolinguistic Identity

Hebrew language did not influence ethnolinguistic identity nor social preferences.

Hebrew language proficiency

Social Preferences

Ethnolinguistic Identity

Length of exposure influenced Hebrew language proficiency, social preferences, and ethnolinguistic identity.

Exposure to Hebrew

Ethnolinguistic Identity

Social Preferences

Hebrew Language Proficiency

Length of exposure to Hebrew did not influence Hebrew proficiency, ethnolinguistic identity, or social preferences.

Exposure to Hebrew

Ethnolinguistic Identity

Social Preferences

Hebrew Language Proficiency

ConclusionsEnglish-Hebrew Bilinguals• Language

– LOE did not lead to greater Hebrew proficiency.

• Identity– Children preferred Israeli identity

regardless of Hebrew proficiency.

• Social Preferences– Hebrew proficiency was not

related to social preferences. Children preferred to socialize with other English speakers and with other bilinguals.

Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals• Language

– LOE led to greater Hebrew proficiency.

• Identity– Hebrew proficiency was related to

identity. Children with higher proficiency had stronger Israeli identities.

• Social Preferences– Hebrew proficiency was related to

social preferences. Children with lower Hebrew proficiency preferred to socialize with other Russian speakers. Children with higher proficiency preferred to socialize with both Russian speakers and Hebrew speakers.

Acknowledgement

• The Hebrew-Russian data collection for this paper was supported by the

BMBF funded Consortium “Migration and societal Integration”. Grant No.

01UW0702B.

спасибо