Reversing Language Shift in the Immigrant Family

Your family heritage is something that you §lack, but it is really there deep inside says a §14-year-old bilingual adolescent. This book gives an §insight into the controversial processes involved in §the intergenerational transmission of a heritage §language at the family and community levels. It is §based on ethnographic observations of a Russian-§speaking community in Israel and on individual tape-§recorded interviews with seven siblings and their §parents. The children report their rebellion against §the home language, periods of enthusiastic §linguistic rebirth, or detached appreciation of §Russian. Their parents analyze painful arguments §about family language management. The book proposes §a detailed typology of Hebrew-induced changes, §including codeswitching and grammatical convergence, §in the Russian contact variety sustained by the §second generation, and their distribution in §individual speech samples. The research deals with §current theories, such as Reversing Language Shift §(Fishman, 2001); Language Management (Spolsky, §2009); Community of Practice (Wenger, 1998), Contact §Linguistics (Myers-Scotton, 2002).