Reconstructing heritage language
Resolving dilemmas in language maintenance for Sri Lankan Tamil migrants
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4178578 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Suresh Canagarajah (0000-0002-1292-2366, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 2013 |
| Issue | 222 |
| Publication date | 2013-01-16 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of the Sociology of Language (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0165-2516 • E-ISSN: 1613-3668 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/ijsl-2013-0035 |
| OpenAlex | W2322951636 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 26 |
In recent years, Sri Lankan Tamils have fled their homeland as refugees as a result of the ethnic conflict in the country. Despite their heightened linguistic consciousness, community elders claim that Tamil youth are turning their backs on their heritage language. My data from Lancaster (California, US), East London (UK) and Toronto (Canada) shows a more complex attitude towards language maintenance by Tamil youth. Though a majority of the youth declared that English was their dominant language of proficiency, they insisted that it did not affect their positive orientation to ethnic identity and community affiliation. They adopted diverse language practices to enjoy in-group identity: namely, code switching into Tamil; emblematic uses of Tamil; switches into Tamilized versions of English; receptive competence in Tamil which enabled them to respond in English; and ritualized practices of communication where they could participate in communicative events with the aid of multimodal resources. These practices suggest that migrant Tamils are treating languages as fluid resources for identity and community construction. The hybrid and multilingual construction of heritage language and identity enables Tamils to shuttle between different languages and communities in migrant settings to resolve the dilemmas of mobility and identity
Aesthetics · Art · Ethnic group · Heritage language · Homeland · Language planning · Language policy · Linguistics · Pedagogy · Pidgin · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Tamil · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy
Imagining the homeland
Korean-speaking spaces
A comparison of heritage language ideologies in interaction
Ethnicity is in the blood, not in the language
Sri Lankan Tamil experiences of the home-land and host-land
Re)Constructing and (Re)Locating Guam
Multilingual Practices and Identity Negotiation among Multilingual Heritage Language Learners in New Zealand
Interactions for Equity
On Space, On Place
Unpacking complex language ideologies toward heritage language maintenance
Clarifying the relationship between translingual practice and L2 writing
Heritage language maintenance through digital tools in young Macedonian children - an exploratory study
Maintenance of Telugu as an ancestral language in multilingual Mauritius; language planning through education
Understanding networked family language policy
Migration linguistics
Navigating raciolinguistic ideologies
Transnational students' experiences of EMI in Myanmar's borderlands
Language, Mobility and Belonging
The role of language use and attitudes on language maintenance and heritage identity
Bilingualism in minority settings in Canada
The construction of linguistic identities in talk about food among Tibetan heritage language learners
Talk in Tamil!” – Does Sri Lankan Tamil onward migration from Europe influence Tamil language maintenance in the UK
Linguistic (in)security perceptions and family language policy among Pomak speakers in Western Türkiye
I am a ‘|’ not a
The dynamics of Hawaiian speakerhood in the family
German is the holy grail
| Citations per year | 2.36 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Highly cited | No |