| Description |
Although many immigrants are living thousands of miles away from their original country, most are able to maintain transnational ties with their country of origin due to globalization and digital technologies. However, the neoliberal economy that globalization has promoted has resulted in the commodification of English as the language of communication, privilege, and social capital within the global context. This, combined with assimilationist ideologies toward youths' heritage languages, often hinder the continued development of transnational youths' non-English heritage language. In fact, researchers have found that transnational immigrant youth are likely to lose their heritage language within two generations. Among immigrant families, Korean families have experienced an even more rapid language shift than other immigrant families, often within one generation. In this qualitative study, I drew on critical sociocultural theory to situate the phenomenon of language learning within social, cultural, historical, and political influences while recognizing the role of power when these transnational youth and their families enter discourse communities in the United States. Analyzing parent and youth interviews, participant observations, student produced media, and documents, I specifically focused on six Utah Korean transnational youth and their families to explore how these transnational youths' language ideologies, language use, and identities reflected their families' language ideologies and family language planning goals as well iv as ultimately, their influence on youths' heritage language maintenance. Descriptive interpretation and within- and cross-case analysis was used to build holistic cases. Key findings were the identifying of three levels of Korean youths' participation in transnational family language planning experiences (interactively participating, passively participating, rarely participating), the positive role these transnational family language planning activities played in the fostering of youths' Korean cultural and linguistic identities, and the dynamic family language planning negotiation process between Korean parents and youth that reflected the tensions between parental authority and youth agency. Particularly noteworthy was the way Korean families' language planning was co-constructed by all family members and was always evolving as they lived their daily lives within socially and culturally situated discourse communities in the United States. Implications for parents, educators, and policymakers working to maintain heritage languages and identities are discussed. |
