Immigrant parents' perspectives on being Greek and speaking Greek

  • Yvonne Lam
    University of Alberta, USA
  • Evangelia Daskalaki
    University of Alberta, USA

This study examines the perspectives of Greek immigrant parents on the importance of heritage language knowledge for ethnic identity. In general, immigrant parents consider the heritage language to be essential for their children's identity (Liang 2018). However, this belief is often at odds with the practical difficulties of maintaining a minority language in a majority language context (Nesteruk 2010), thereby raising questions about whether one can identify with an ethnic community without being proficient in the language (Edwards & Chisholm 1987).

We interviewed first- and second-generation Greek parents in western Canada about whether they consider Greek language proficiency to be an integral part of Greek identity, and what level of proficiency they expect from their children. The findings confirmed the symbolic link between language and identity; however, the expectations for proficiency varied between generations (cf. Lao 2004; Guglani 2016). First-generation parents encountered few difficulties with maintaining
Greek and thus expected a high level of proficiency from their children. In contrast, secondgeneration parents struggled with language transmission and placed more weight on knowledge of family history and cultural traditions. These findings suggest that immigrant parents may redefine their notion of identity due to the context in which they live (Canagarajah 2006).

References

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  • Guglani, L. (2016). American, Hispanic, Spanish-speaking? Hispanic immigrants and the question of identity. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 15(6), 344-360.
  • Lao, C. (2004). Parents' attitudes toward Chinese-English bilingual education and Chineselanguage use. Bilingual Research Journal, 28(1), 99-121.
  • Liang, F. (2018). Parental perceptions toward and practices of heritage language maintenance: Focusing on the United States and Canada. International Journal of Language Studies, 12(2), 65-86.
  • Nesteruk, O. (2010). Heritage language maintenance and loss among the children of Eastern European immigrants in the USA. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 31(3), 271-286.