Doctoral Dissertation Research: The linguistic ecology of mobile childhoods: peer socialization and multilingualism

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Global linguistic diversity is decreasing. One contributing factor is that children of immigrants to host countries such as the United States are encouraged to abandon their heritage languages in favor of learning the dominant language. This is understood to facilitate social integration and educational success. However, as a child moves on to higher education and eventually to the workplace, multi-linguistic facility may be considered an asset rather than a handicap. This raises the question of to what extent are children capable of speaking multiple languages without compromising their early academic success as well as a sense of unity within communities and nations. In the research supported by this award, University of California, Los Angeles, linguistic anthropology doctoral student, Teruko V. Mitsuhara, supervised by Dr. Marjorie H. Goodwin, will travel to an unusual site where children are peer-socialized into being speakers of multiple languages. The unique features of the place provide an ideal opportunity to pursue these important questions of children's multi-linguistic capacity. The research will be carried out in a transnational village located in the state of West Bengal, India, that has attracted immigrants from around the world. The children of these immigrants learn a wide range of range of languages from each other. The researcher will focus her investigation on children ages 8 through 11. She will collect data on children's peer group interactions and language behaviors through participant observation in classrooms, teacher meetings, and play groups. She will interview community leaders, parents, and teachers; collect migration and language histories; map children's interaction networks; administer vocabulary tests at regular intervals; and carry out focal follows of children, which she will audio-video record for later technical analysis. Findings from this research will help educators encourage constructive multi-linguistic competence, while also contributing to linguistic anthropological theory of the relationship between culture, language socialization, and community.