Language: Diversity and Resilience
Chapter 6 of Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait. 4th ed. University of California Press, 2014.
42 Pages Posted: 21 May 2016
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
The process of language acquisition and language shift among non-English-speaking immigrants to the United States parallels in many ways the story of immigrant economic and political adaptations. Yet the process is not simply a reflection of the immigrant experience in these other realms, for language in the United States has a meaning that transcends its purely instrumental value as means of communication. In a country lacking centuries-old traditions and receiving millions of foreigners from the most diverse lands, language homogeneity came to be seen as the bedrock of national identity. Immigrants were not only expected to speak English, but to speak English only as the prerequisite of social acceptance and integration. Unlike many European nations, which are tolerant of linguistic diversity, in the United States the acquisition of non-accented English and the dropping of foreign languages came to represent the litmus test of Americanization. Other aspects of immigrant culture (such as cuisine, community celebrations, and religion, which we will examine in a later chapter) often last for several generations, but the home language seldom survives. Linguistic transition, its forms and its implications, are the subject of this chapter. We examine recent data on language loyalty and change in the United States, sketching a national profile of foreign and English language patterns over time and generation, and consider the role of fluent bilingualism on inter-generational relations within immigrant families, school achievement and economic outcomes. We also look to the historical record to place present concerns in a broader comparative context.
Keywords: Immigration, language acquisition, language shift, language maintenance and loyalty, bilingualism, generation, acculturation, assimilation, integration, language homogeneity, language death, Americanization, inter-generational relations, school achievement, economic outcomes
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