Effects of Language Shift on Families and Young Children

This personal reflective narrative seeks to investigate what effects there are on children from non-English families when these families make decisions about the language use in their homes. These decisions may be intentional or be a result of situations that evolve over time. Nevertheless young children in the home will be impacted. Some factors that affect patents’ decisions are community language use, family make up, parental employment, perception of patriotism, and parents’ past experiences. The paper will also review the effects on fluency and cultural identification of young children as they learn to navigate the world through two languages. Additionally, two examples of the long-term implications of a family’s decision to maintain native language or switch to English will be presented. In conclusion, what does this mean for educators and an unexpected question about how resiliency theory may be involved in a child’s language success?

Author dc:creator

• Fitzgerald, Amanda Marie

• Bilingual education
• language shift
• home language loss
• acculturation
• dual langauge
• bilingual children
• bilingual families
• language attrition
• second language acquisition

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2346/108425

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ttu-ir.tdl.org:2346/108425