Language maintenance in friendships: second-generation German, Greek, and Vietnamese migrants
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Jo Winter
Abstract
Our contribution explores the language maintenance (LM) patterns of children of migrants (second-generation) to Australia from three ethnolinguistic groups — German, Greek, and Vietnamese — in their same-age peer friendships. Focusing on the affective social relationship of “friendship” imagined as a dynamic fluid site of independence and a locale for identity formation, we scrutinize it as a pressure point for LM. The macro survey trends indicate that languages other than English (LOTE) are used in the friendship domain but with differing participations. Follow-up in-depth interviews reveal subtleties and complexities for LM practices. Co-presence of bilingual others in friendships proves to be a minimum but not sufficient condition for LM, particularly for German men and Greek women. Hyphenated belongings — for example, Vietnamese-, Greek-, German-Australians — construct varying LM alignments that reflect shared histories and authenticities (the migration experience) and the localizing of settlement (Australia).
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- Introduction
- Australia's community languages
- Intergenerational language transmission in an established Australian migrant community: what makes the difference?
- Parent and child perspectives on Greek language education in Australia
- A language community from a historical perspective: homogeneity and variation
- Linguistic practices and language attitudes of second-generation Italo-Australians
- “It's something that's just faded away”: how a Melbourne family of Swiss-German background makes sense of language shift
- Language maintenance and shift in the Danish community in Melbourne
- Language maintenance in friendships: second-generation German, Greek, and Vietnamese migrants
- Language and Orthodox churches in Australia
- The Southern Saami Language in Svahken Sijte
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- Introduction
- Australia's community languages
- Intergenerational language transmission in an established Australian migrant community: what makes the difference?
- Parent and child perspectives on Greek language education in Australia
- A language community from a historical perspective: homogeneity and variation
- Linguistic practices and language attitudes of second-generation Italo-Australians
- “It's something that's just faded away”: how a Melbourne family of Swiss-German background makes sense of language shift
- Language maintenance and shift in the Danish community in Melbourne
- Language maintenance in friendships: second-generation German, Greek, and Vietnamese migrants
- Language and Orthodox churches in Australia
- The Southern Saami Language in Svahken Sijte
