Cultural and Linguistic Capital of Second-Generation Migrants in Cyprus and Sweden

Introduction

Parents tend to make conscious decisions regarding language use at home and outside it. As defined by King et al. (907), family language policy (FLP) refers to the “explicit and overt planning in relation to language use within the home among family members” (Fogle and King). Spolsky proposed the tripartite model for FLP, which focuses on language ideology, language practice, and language management. Previous research on FLP has discussed the importance of parental agency and decision-making regarding language management (King et al.; Kang). It has been found that parents and caregivers serve as models for their children in terms of heritage language (HL) use and maintenance (Chatzidaki and Maligkoudi; Park and Sarkar; Zhu and Wei). However, surprisingly, little is known about the linguistic and cultural value attached to the HL by the grown-up children. Parental decisions regarding HL maintenance depend on their attitudes, cultural dispositions, language practices, and strategies (Park and Sarkar; Shen and Jiang; Szecsi and Szilagyi). Yet, we still have limited knowledge about how young adults themselves perceive the transmission of the HL to their own children.

Recent research has included child agency as a focus, recognising that children play an active role in shaping FLP through negotiation, contestation, and resistance to parental decisions and language management practices (Fogle and King; Revis; Said and Zhu; Smith-Christmas; Wilson). According to Curdt-Christiansen and Huang, children play an active role in making decisions about patterns of family language use. The socio-emotional well-being of children and their affective domain should be taken into consideration (Curdt-Christiansen and La Morgia; Wilson; Sun). Both internal and external factors should be incorporated in the FLP research. Important internal factors include emotions, identity, family culture and tradition, parental impact beliefs, and child agency (Curdt-Christiansen and Huang).

This study aims to investigate the views of second-generation migrants in Cyprus and Sweden in relation to their HL, linguistic and cultural capital, factors affecting HL use, maintenance, and development, as well as their future plans and aspirations regarding HL transmission. First, the article addresses the theoretical background of the notion of linguistic and cultural capital and its relationship to the HL. Then, it presents the methodology and results in Methodology and Findings sections, respectively, including qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with young Russian-speaking immigrants in Cyprus and Sweden. In the last section, the results are discussed, interpreted, and compared between the two countries, drawing conclusions regarding the differences and similarities in HL use, maintenance, and transmission in each respective country.

In this study, the researchers aim to examine the linguistic and cultural capital of Russian heritage speakers who are second-generation migrants. The focus is on HL use, maintenance, and transmission. The significance of this study lies in its comparative nature and its contribution to the areas of research on FLP and HL. It provides an in-depth investigation of the views, reflections, attitudes, and beliefs of second-generation migrants who are young adults. The study also explores their agency, socialisation, and role in both HL and heritage culture development through the lens of linguistic and cultural capital.

HL Use, Maintenance, and Transmission in Migrant Contexts

Previous research has highlighted several factors that affect the motivation of children, second-generation migrants, to maintain their HL. Among these factors are community services and heritage schools (Park and Sarkar; Tingvold et al.) and the necessity of language brokering and assisting their parents in operation in the host country via translating, interpreting, and facilitating everyday interactions of their parents with the outside world (García Valdivia). The local context and the policies of the countries of destinations cannot be ignored (Park and Sarkar).

The emotional aspect and the close relations with the family members and identification with the HL and culture should not be forgotten either. Thus, several research studies (Kayam and Hirsch; Said and Zhu; Sun, to name just a few) have approached FLP from a language socialisation perspective (Schieffelin and Ochs). Said and Zhu showed a very important role of children in language use and socialisation within their families. The researchers found the family attachment to HL to be extremely important and identified three factors of successful HL transmission: a family language policy with a positive multilingual outlook; family relationship dynamics that connect the family members; and the children should have a highly developed ability to understand their parent’s linguistic preferences.

HL, linguistic, and cultural identities assist migrant and refugee families to feel safe and confident in the new society and to adapt to a new foreign cultural environment taking into account special circumstances and needs in specific contexts (Nguyen).

According to Hartley, the linguistic and cultural values of migrants as well as their attitudes and behaviours differ from the linguistic cultural patterns of the host society. As suggested by Erel, these resources and values can be characterised as cultural capital, which can allow migrants to have some advantages in their place of settlement in a new country. An HL is an important part of this linguistic and cultural capital. Very often migrant parents are key agents in the process of the HL use, maintenance, and transmission. Although many parents put a lot of effort into supporting the HL, their children, who are born and raised in the host context, might not be willing to develop their HL as it might not be their priority in comparison to the majority language (ML) (Alba et al.; Donghui and Slaughter-Defoe; Nesteruk; Park and Sarkar). Various researchers have addressed the issue of intergenerational gaps and different views of the first and subsequent generations of migrants regarding the process of preserving and passing the HL (Tingvold et al.; Zhou).

According to Bourdieu (284), “Cultural capital can exist in three forms: in the embodied state, i.e., in the form of long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body; in the objectified state, in the form of cultural goods… and in the institutionalised state.” The linguistic and cultural capital of migrants is related to their knowledge, language(s), behaviour, values, attitudes, and beliefs. Knowledge of the HL can add to the social power that migrants have in their new country of residence (Smala et al.). Migrants must have the possibility to accumulate, exchange, convert, evaluate, re-evaluate, and devalue their linguistic and cultural capital in their new lives in the target society (Bin; Erel; Tran). The benefits of their linguistic and cultural resources can be developed, negotiated, and preserved by migrants taking into consideration socio-political conditions and the context of the country (Kelly and Lusis). Thus, more comparative studies are needed in the field.

Application of the embodied cultural capital concept is essential in the investigation of migrant families and their linguistic and cultural capital and practices (Bin; Franceschelli and O’Brien). It is important to take into consideration their FLP, willingness, and efforts they put into supporting the HL and developing it in linguistic and cultural capital in line with the sociopolitical conditions of the receiving country.

Russian language, which is the HL of the participants in this study who are young adults in Cyprus and Sweden, can be seen as an important form of the linguistic and cultural capital of the children of the first-generation migrants. This capital can be exchanged within multilingual and multicultural societies of Cyprus and Sweden. The objective of this study is to find out how and why the Russian language is maintained by parents and children in Cyprus and Sweden, southern and northern parts of the European Union. The aim of this study is to answer the following research questions:

Research questions:

1. Is Russian as an HL considered linguistic and cultural capital by second-generation migrants in Cyprus and Sweden?

2. What are the future plans of second-generation migrants regarding the transmission of their HL?

Methodology

A qualitative methodological approach was employed to gain a greater understanding of migrants’ life trajectories, their attitudes, and beliefs regarding the HL use, maintenance, and transmission (Waller et al.). The researchers implemented storytelling as a narrative inquiry method. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with second-generation Russian HL speakers in Cyprus and Sweden, with ten participants in each country. The interviews allowed the researchers to explore individual’s experiences, beliefs, and constructions related to their linguistic and cultural practices, HL use, maintenance, and transmission (Braun and Clarke; Rolland et al.). Interviews serve as a tool to gather factual information while also contributing to the “social construction of knowledge” (Kvale 22).

The researchers chose the language that the participants found more convenient for them to speak, as this can impact their autobiographical narratives, memory, emotional perception, and expression (Dewaele; Resnik), taking into account affiliative and empathic, emotional aspects (Prior). They also attended to body language and paralinguistic cues, creating a safe and comfortable environment for the participants (Rolland et al.), in line with ethical considerations (De Costa et al.).

According to Dwyer and Emerald, telling stories is an important qualitative approach in language research, providing rich sources of data and enabling detailed, in-depth analysis. Participants’ stories are constructed based on their experiences, as well as their interpretation, reflections, analysis, beliefs, and attitudes related to significant events and actions (Clandinin and Rosiek; Merriam and Tisdell; Nasheeda et al.). An ethnographic approach was adopted for in-depth and multi-dimensional data collection in migrant families, with an emphasis on “emic or insider’s point of view” (Mills et al.).

The participants in Cyprus were ten second-generation immigrants in Cyprus with an L1 Russian background. There were five males and five females, and their ages ranged from 18 to 27 years (mean = 22.6; SD = 2.82). Six of the respondents were born in Cyprus, while the remainder had been exposed to Greek between the ages of 2 and 8 years. The participants in Cyprus represented various urban and rural geographical areas. The participants had an opportunity to be interviewed in Russian or Greek depending on their preferences and the level of proficiency in each language; thus, six interviews were conducted in Russian and four in Greek.

The Swedish participants consisted of ten second-generation immigrants, with seven of them being born in Sweden and three arriving in the country as young children (between the ages 2 and 8 years). Six participants were females and four were males. Their ages ranged from 18 to 28 years (mean = 22.8; SD = 3.55). Seven interviews were conducted in Russian, while three were conducted in Swedish.

The participants in both countries were university students at the time of data collection and interviews, allowing the researchers to have comparable groups in terms of level of education and professional status.

The selection of Cyprus and Sweden as the two national contexts was based on specific reasons. First, both countries have Russian migrant communities. However, these two contexts differ in terms of their geographical location and size, migration waves, migration policies, size of migrant communities, type and composition of migrant families, attitudes of the local population, politics, and ideologies.

While nowadays Russian is becoming more and more prestigious in Cyprus, Russian immigrants have never been a large minority (Karpava et al.). In Cyprus, there are around 11,000 Russian-speaking people permanently residing on the island: members of immigrant (both spouses Russian) and mixed-marriage families (Greek Cypriot husbands and Russian wives). Their dominant language constellation comprises Russian, Greek, and English to various degrees (Karpava).

In Sweden, there are 29,000 Russian-speaking people, and their number is increasing. They are the members of immigrant and mixed-marriage families (mostly Swedish husbands and Russian wives). Russian people live all over the country and are not concentrated in specific districts/cities, even though the majority of them live in large cities like Stockholm, Malmö, and Gothenburg.

The participants were recruited by snowball sampling and word-of-mouth techniques. This approach is new in investigating the issues, as our previous studies (Karpava et al.) mainly focused on the views of parents. In this study, children of migrants, young adults, were given an active voice to express their views on their HL use, maintenance, and transmission experiences. They were also encouraged to reflect on their FLPs, home literacy environments, as well as their own agency and motivation to preserve the HL and develop the ML. All semistructured interviews with second-generation migrants were conducted online, either via Microsoft Teams or Zoom. The interviews were conducted in Russian, and if necessary, in the local language, Greek in Cyprus and Swedish in Sweden. The duration of each interview was 30–60 min. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. On the basis of the previous research by Nasheeda et al. and Obojska and Purkarthofer, researchers implemented the narrative analysis of the data. The process involved four phases: (1) transcribing the interviews, (2) constructing narratives based on the transcripts, (3) collaboratively co-creating narratives between the researcher and the participant, and (4) extracting meaning from the narratives. This approach allowed for the creation of a holistic story representing the lived experience of each participant. The analysis of the data, the employment, was conducted through negotiation with the participants.

Findings

Discussion

The aim of this study was to investigate the life experiences of second-generation migrants with respect to their HL use, maintenance and transmission, their linguistic and cultural capital based on narrative analysis of their stories, reflections, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs. The significance of this study lies in the in-depth qualitative analysis of participants’ views and its focus on second-generation migrants and their perspectives on the past, present, and future regarding their HL. The authors adopted Bourdieu’s notion of cultural and linguistic capital (Bin; Erel) as a prism through which to view the experiences of second-generation migrants related to the HL use, maintenance, and transmission in the host countries, Cyprus and Sweden.

The results of the study showed that the HL is viewed as a positive form of capital to support the Russian families in the two countries, which is in line with previous research (Tran).

Four important forms of capital have been identified from this study:

1. Monetary capital

2. A better understanding of other cultures and individuals belonging to those cultures, as well as the ability to communicate with them effectively.

3. Development of a richer personality through active exposure to another culture via music and films.

4. Enhanced ability to express one’s thoughts and emotions effectively.

Each family is unique regarding its family language policy and language management practices.

There are various factors that affect the use, maintenance, and transmission of the HL. Among them are instrumental motivation, the ability to use the HL to communicate with relatives and extended families in the homeland and the host countries. HL has a cultural value in migrant families, which should be shared with the next generation. Preservation of the HL allows family members to be multilingual and have more opportunities for study and work in multicultural, multilingual countries.

However, the participants reported different experiences regarding the complex process of maintaining and sharing cultural values and HL in migrant families due to tensions, cultural clashes, and intergenerational gaps between parents and children. Our findings are in line with the previous research studies (Tingvold et al.; Zhou). Not all second-generation migrants have the same motivation to use the HL as their parents who are first-generation immigrants. Consequently, this leads to the language shift and even loss over time and over generations, as it was previously noted by Alba et al., Donghui and Slaughter-Defoe. However, several informants in our study wished that their parents were more consistent in speaking Russian to them or that they themselves were less lazy. The parents should provide more opportunities for speaking Russian and expose the children to the situations when they can only be understood with the help of Russian so that Russian would become a natural way of communication for them.

Personal reflections of the participants showed that parental agency, their explicit efforts, and FLP are key factors in the HL maintenance and transmission. Similar results were reported by Chatzidaki and Maligkoudi, Curdt-Christiansen and La Morgia, Kang, and Shen and Jiang. The participants commented that their parents had strong beliefs about the value of the Russian language and were models for their children by keeping close ties with their homeland, relatives, and friends; cultivating a positive stance towards the Russian culture, customs, and traditions; developing HL literacy skills; and building a home literacy environment. Parental motivation, determination, and persistence are decisive in terms of building HL habits and routines for their children.

This is in line with the previous research by Kang as parents that language ideology was found to be among the strong predictors of perceptive and productive skills in the HL. Successful HL maintenance is possible only in case of family inculcation into the heritage culture, family support, and encouragement for HL learning and use (Mu and Dooley; Shen and Jiang). In addition, as was noted by respondents, the quality and quantity of HL input and HL literacy experiences, and socio-emotional well-being are crucial to transfer HL resources into linguistic and cultural capital of second-generation migrants (Shen and Jiang; Sun et al.).

At the same time, child agency cannot be ignored. Narrative analysis of the interviews revealed that the participants had an active voice in their families and were able to contest and resist parents’ efforts and undermine their parents’ FLP, especially at an older age, being teenagers, when they have a higher level of socialisation, metalinguistic awareness, creativity, and more initiatives in ML or HL use and learning, which is in line with the previous research studies (Curdt-Christiansen and Huang; Mu and Dooley; Revis; Smith-Christmas). No shift was noticed in the families where the language choice was not negotiable, and the parents would not compromise under any circumstances and would speak Russian to their children.

Intergenerational differences can lead to conflicts of identities and cultural values between the generations. Maintaining harmony within the (extended) family via effective FLP and transferring the HL resources into linguistic and cultural capital are essential for HL use, maintenance, and transmission (Curdt-Christiansen and Huang; Zhu and Wei).

The local context should be considered, as the multilingual language policy of the host country can positively impact the use of the HL and the transformation of migrants’ cultural and linguistic resources into cultural and linguistic capital. Cyprus, being an ethnically diverse society that is tolerant towards multilingualism and multiculturalism, offers a favourable environment for the maintenance of the HL.

In Cyprus, the availability of social media and ethnic-religious services in Russian plays an important role in retaining the HL among the second-generation migrants. They also have the opportunity to choose Russian as a foreign language at school, in lyceum. In addition, the labour market supports bilingual and multilingual candidates; thus, even the local population is eager to learn English and other foreign languages such as Russian. Overall, the socio-political environment of the country supports and promotes diversity. As far as Sweden is concerned, the country has also become an ethnically diverse society with a positive attitude towards multilingualism. However, the role of Russian in the society is not as important as in Cyprus, and the function of Russian in public space is reduced to signs in tourist places, graffiti, menu at the restaurants visited by many Russian tourists, and so on.

When it comes to transmitting Russian to the third generation, the difference was noticed between the young adults with an active and a more passive knowledge of Russian. While active users of Russian saw their parents as role models and knew the way they could transmit their cultural capital to their children, by replicating the parental models, the young adults with a more passive knowledge of Russian also wanted to transmit Russian to their children but saw other ways of doing it by suggesting to give the children a Russian book or sending them to mother tongue instruction classes at school.^[1] One participant also mentioned sending the child to the Russian grandmothers who would take care of teaching him/her Russian. They all saw the process of HL transmission more as learning rather than a natural acquisition, while the informants with a strong command of Russian were talking more about naturalistic exposure to the HL by actually speaking it to the children. Even the active speakers were concerned that it would be a very difficult task since they were the “worse version” of the Russian speaker and that their children would probably be exposed to a lot of code-mixing.

Russian as an HL is perceived as a potential form of capital. However, its transmission to the next generation is not automatic but requires parental support. Therefore, parents are viewed as the primary mediators of HL capital, and it is their responsibility to expose their children to the opportunities that can be gained through this capital. For the cultural and linguistic capital to be effective, it needs to be actively utilised. Some participants who did not use Russian in their daily lives did not perceive it as a form of a capital or an asset.

Conclusion

The current study is based on a small sample from two countries, Cyprus and Sweden. It is important to continue this research by including a larger sample of the participants and considering a wider range of familial contexts. This would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the strategies used by parents, children, and adolescents to preserve an HL within their families. However, even with this limited sample, the study highlights the primary importance of the family and the emotional domain in HL transmission. It also demonstrates the influence of the HL’s status and its use outside the home domain, which is a notable distinction between Cyprus and Sweden. In Sweden, the use of Russian in society is not widespread, and children with a more majority-language oriented approach may not perceive a need to maintain Russian, especially when they do not receive enough support from their parents regarding HL maintenance.