New Speakers in the Irish Context: Heritage Language Maintenance Among Multilingual Migrants in Dublin, Ireland

Introduction

The traditional focus of second language acquisition (SLA) and learning is the foreign language or L2 learner within a formal classroom situation (Forsberg Lundell and Bartning, 2015, p. 1). However, the reality is that the majority of SLA now takes place in naturalistic environments. In the developed world, our worlds are becoming increasingly superdiverse (Vertovec, 2006), with migration no longer consisting of a permanent, one-way settlement of people, but sustained movement into increasingly diversified spaces, resulting in a multilayering of different cultures, communities, and languages. Many first, second or third generation migrants may live or grow up with a language within the home which is different to the language of the community they now live in. These heritage languages (HLs) may be learned from birth, or later in life, and vary in terms of the official and institutional recognition and support they are accorded.

This paper provides a case study of the maintenance (the effort to maintain, practice, learn, or relearn one's heritage language) and transmission (the transfer of knowledge of the heritage language from one generation to the next) of Polish and Chinese by first, second and “1.5 generation” migrants in Dublin, Republic of Ireland (RoI). The paper will focus on (1) the strategies for HL maintenance employed by these migrant individuals and families and (2) the attitudes and beliefs that motivate them to make HL maintenance a central part of their lives and an essential component of their “ethnic,” “national,” or “migrant” identities. In so doing, this study replicates a number of more large-scale and expansive studies of HL maintenance (e.g., Montrul, 2016; Polinsky, 2018a,b; see also He, 2010 for a review) but applies it to the previously understudied context of RoI. Since migration is a very recent phenomenon in RoI, a country which until the 1990s was known as an emigrant, rather than an immigrant, country, the present study provides a timely examination of the opportunities and experiences of HL maintenance among two different migrant communities in its capital and largest city, Dublin.

What are Heritage Languages?

The term “heritage language” has been used as a cover term for a variety of languages, including indigenous and migrant languages. The terms “home language,” “native language,” “foreign language,” and “ethnic language” have also been employed in official, academic and everyday contexts, along with “community language” (in Australia) and allochthonous language or “language of origin” in South Africa and parts of Europe (Van Deusen-Scholl, 2003, p. 216–18). These terms typically refer to non-dominant languages spoken in a language minority context by people who are, by extension, “heritage language speakers.” In the present paper, an HL is understood as “an immigrant, indigenous, or ancestral language that a speaker has a personal relevance and desire to (re) connect with” (He, 2010, p. 66), constituting “the language associated with one's cultural background” (Cho et al., 1997, p. 106). For the first generation migrants in this study, the HL is in fact their dominant language and the language in which they received their schooling in Poland and China; however, in Ireland, and for their children and extended network of family and friends (the 1.5 and second generations), Polish and Chinese has become the non-dominant language with regards the to the majority societal language of English. Polish and Chinese will thus be regarded as an HL for the purposes of the present paper.

Polish and Chinese Migration to Ireland

Due to an economic boom in the late 1990s and concurrent expansion of the European Union, RoI witnessed a 143% increase in the number of “non-Irish nationals” (the term used in the census) between 2006 and 2011 (Central Statistics Office, 2012, p. 7). This included a 94% increase in the number of Polish nationals, making them now the largest non-Irish group (in terms of nationality) in the country, with a population of 122,515 or close to 3% of the population (Central Statistics Office, 2016, p. 50). The Chinese in RoI constitute a much smaller population of ~10,000 with Chinese nationality/citizenship (Central Statistics Office, 2016, p. 50), although ~20,000 report Chinese heritage (Central Statistics Office, 2016, p. 60). The discrepancy in these figures may be explained by the fact that China does not recognize dual nationality and there was a recorded increase in the number of people acquiring Irish citizenship between 2011 and 2016 (Central Statistics Office, 2016, p. 50). Polish is currently the most common “foreign language” spoken in the home in RoI, with Chinese ranked ninth (Central Statistics Office, 2016, p. 54). Since migration to Ireland is so recent, it can be estimated that for many speakers, these documented “foreign languages” in the home are in fact the first or native languages of migrants.

Method and Analysis

The data for the present study comes from a corpus of audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews conducted by the author with 45 migrants (23 Polish and 22 Chinese), as part of a broader, sociolinguistic study on language, migration and identity by migrants in Ireland (see Diskin, 2017; Diskin and Regan, 2017). Four of these migrants were second generation (born in Ireland to either Polish or Chinese parents); two were Generation 1.5 (see Ryu, 1991) and had moved to Ireland as children from Poland or China; and the remaining 39 migrants were first generation, who had moved to Ireland as adults, with lengths of residence ranging from 1 to 20 years (the majority were in Ireland 10 years or less). The sample is representative, in the sense that due to the recency of migration as a widespread phenomenon in Ireland, second generation migrants are by far in the minority in RoI as compared to the first generation. Participants ranged in age from 19 to 49, with the majority in their early twenties and thirties (mean age = 29.7; SD = 6). In all cases, Polish or Chinese was their first, or one of their first, languages. They were all residing in the capital, Dublin, at the time of interview.

The semi-structured interview was originally designed as a sociolinguistic interview, which aims to elicit naturalistic, spontaneous speech (“the vernacular”), whereby the interviewer asks respondents about their daily lives and interests, and aims to encourage respondents to engage in long stretches of uninterrupted speech through the elicitation of e.g., narratives or recollections of personal experiences (see Labov, 1972; Tagliamonte, 2006). A number of the questions, however, were specifically designed to directly or indirectly ask respondents about HL maintenance and transmission, e.g., “Do you ever feel like you're forgetting your Polish/Chinese?,” “What do you do to keep up your language skills? Read/watch movies/go online?” and “What do you do to keep your language alive for your children?” These questions tended to prompt more lengthy discussions and follow-up questions. The primary method of data analysis is a content analysis (see Silverman, 2011) and the recorded interviews are the primary data source, although the author did establish an ongoing rapport with some of the respondents, resulting in some ethnographic insights into both migrant communities. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and then the transcripts were examined in detail for recurring themes relating to motivations for HL maintenance and identity, such as “investment for the future” or “maintaining familial ties.” These are themes that emerged from the data and thus the process was primarily bottom-up; nonetheless it cannot be said that a wholly grounded theory approach was adopted (see Charmaz and Bryant, 2011, p. 292), in the sense that the author had a pre-determined “sense” or “hunch” of what to look for in the interview data.

Results: Perceptions and Practices of Heritage Language Maintenance and Transmission

A finding that immediately emerged from the interview data was that for almost all participants, speaking “one's own” language is a given; it is central to ethnic/national identity and it is of paramount importance that the HL be maintained and transmitted to the next generation. As such, the focus here is not on the presence or absence of HL maintenance per se, or whether or not it is successful, but on the specific strategies and motivations for maintenance and transmission, what this can tell us about the migrant identity, and what the orientations and experiences reported on here can indicate for the future of HLs for subsequent generations.

Weekend Schools and the Polish Community

Polish weekend schools in RoI teach primary school children aged 6–12 Polish language, and other school subjects and extracurricular activities, normally on Saturdays, through the medium of Polish. Most recent figures report that there are 38 such schools in the whole of the RoI, comprising 4,700 pupils and 300 teachers, with a continuing demand for more schools (Hayes, 2016). These schools receive either full or substantial support from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the result that tuition fees can be set at affordable levels (Hayes, 2016). One of the participants in the present study was a teacher in a weekend school, and over a quarter of the participants sent their children to these schools. The majority reported literacy in Polish to be the main motivation, along with encouraging their children to make friends with other Polish heritage speakers. Others felt that while literacy and educational attainment are important, it is the cultural aspects of instruction, such as learning about Polish history, that provide a vital link with the homeland, especially since Polish history does not feature with any great prominence in the Irish school curriculum:

“She's [my daughter] going to Polish school as well, on Saturday. Every single Saturday she is going to Polish school […] Uh she's learn about her country, for example she has Math, uh, Polish language uh Geographic, History. For me is the most important History.” (Weronika/Polish/29/1st Gen)

For many, however, rather than literacy in Polish in itself, it was the prospect of return migration that motivated them, as they believed their children would be at a disadvantage within the local school system if they chose to return to Poland. This is also indicative of the sense of mobility that underpins this community, in that migration to Ireland is not always viewed as permanent:

“If you move to Ireland and you want to move back to Poland, you have to have the Polish schools which is accredited with the Polish uh Ministry of Education, uh because if not your child will be put, I dunno, a few classes down in a primary school or will never pass the-the [Polish] Leaving Cert.” (Aleksander/Polish/36/1st Gen).

Weekend Schools and the Chinese Community

The situation for the Chinese community in RoI differs considerably, in the sense that there are no known weekend schools that specifically target heritage speakers of Chinese (of any variety). This also differs vastly from the context in e.g., the UK, where “complementary schools” for Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) as an HL are relatively common (see Li, 1994). The closest equivalent in RoI is the opportunity for children “from native Chinese-speaking families” to enroll in an “immersion class” run by the Dublin Confucius Class for Children¹. This immersion stream is offered alongside a “bilingual class” for children from “non-native Chinese speaking families.” Both “immersion” and “bilingual” classes run for 2 h on Saturday afternoons. There are no known immersion type Chinese classes for heritage speakers with some knowledge of the language specifically for adults in RoI.

None of the Chinese participants in the present study had children of school-going age (although one had two children at university); and thus, none were availing themselves of immersion classes. However, a number of them voiced the desire to have attended such classes in their youth, or to send their own children when they were old enough. The excerpt below is from a second-generation migrant, who was born in the smaller city of Limerick in the south-west of Ireland in the 1980s to migrant parents from Hong Kong. It illustrates the resourcefulness among migrants to maintain their language, even when materials are not readily available, as well as the regret felt by children of migrants who do not get the opportunity to develop literacy skills in their HL. It also points to issues for migrants who settle outside of major urban areas, where access to other speakers of the HL, or community groups or associations that promote the HL, may be more limited:

“I grew up with the rest of the community […] down in Limerick […] I always thought that I'm the only Chinese kid in the whole of Ireland! […] When I grew up I was always just watching a lot of Chinese videotapes that gets recorded. They get brought over, sent over and we got to watch the cartoons and the news… okay they might be 6 months out of date but […] The only problem for me growing up was that I was unable to learn to write Chinese like the other uh privileged kids up in in Dublin” (Valerie/Hong Kong/33/2nd Gen)².

Pearl, who moved to Ireland from Hong Kong aged four, reports that Cantonese was the language spoken exclusively at home. As is the case with many migrants, a “family language policy” (see King, 2016; Montrul, 2016) was adopted and in this case the policy was to have a Cantonese-only environment. As a consequence, Pearl's parents had never expressed any concern for attrition of Cantonese as an HL among their children (although this is a serious issue—see Polinsky, 2018a,b). However, they did not promote the learning of literacy skills in Chinese and instead directed their efforts toward encouraging Pearl and her brother to learn the majority language, English:

“It wasn't a like question that they really thought of. They wouldn't- cause like growing up it [Cantonese] was just the main language that I spoke. So I wouldn't have really lost it? […] And it wasn't really like a concern for them, that I'd lose the language. Because their main priority for me was to learn English. Like I can't even read or write Cantonese. […] It wasn't really their concern. Just- they just wanted me to learn English” (Pearl/Hong Kong/19/Gen 1.5).

Interviews with the second and 1.5 generation Chinese/Hong Kong migrants indicated that HL attrition was a risk, although all four of them had made efforts to (re)learn Chinese later in life as adults, with self-reported reasonably high proficiency levels attained. However, both Pearl and Valerie had foregone the opportunity to attain literacy skills in their respective heritage varieties of Chinese (Cantonese and Hakka–although they both reported speaking ability in these varieties) in favor of Mandarin, which was the closest equivalent. Indeed, Mandarin is currently the only variety of Chinese currently taught at the Confucius Institute in Dublin, although neither Pearl nor Valerie had attended classes there. Pearl had enrolled in Mandarin classes as part of an elective at university and Valerie had taught herself to read and write in Mandarin, thus making up for the inadequacy she felt in being illiterate in Chinese as a child.

The replacement of instruction in one's HL (or heritage variety) with the closest available related language is just one of the challenges facing HL maintenance for future generations. Migrants may face a contradiction between risking the loss of identity that is linked to the heritage variety and benefitting from the pedagogical advantage of the typological similarity between the more widely-spoken language (Mandarin) and the heritage variety. While Valerie lamented the fact that she had not had an opportunity to improve her skills in Hakka, the majority indicated that a shift to learning Mandarin as an HL was not a cause for major concern. Mandarin was viewed as being of “more value” than other varieties of Chinese, constituting a “market” in its own right, with the potential to yield a quantifiable (monetary) result. It was also viewed as being the “obvious” HL to learn due to its standardized, official status in mainland China:

“The reason why my son is learning Mandarin [at university] because uh the official language is Mandarin. You know so it's- everybody should learn Mandarin […] And that's why I'm promoting now in all primary and secondary schools […] The result will come back and I will sit back and enjoy the result. “Cause Chinese they big market, we'll be the biggest market” (Peter/Chinese/49/1st Gen).

Pearl also spoke of the opportunities that bilingualism in both English and Mandarin offered her, such as the chance to live and work in Hong Kong or China in the future. Her descriptions resonated with the notion of “symbolic capital” (Bourdieu, 1991) that would be afforded by this bilingualism. She explained that large corporations often displayed a preference for bilingual candidates, even if both languages were not used on a regular basis, and accorded prestige to university degrees from English-speaking countries:

“English is very important in Hong Kong cause like most of the big companies and stuff, like all the bosses are like American or Australian, […] so they like that. Like to speak English and like if they see on your CV that you've like [lived] abroad like for a long period of time and got your degree there. Like a degree in Ireland, like no matter what college you're in will be a better degree than you got in like the top university in Hong Kong because […] it shows that you're fluent in English” (Pearl/Hong Kong/19/Gen 1.5).

After she finished her university degree in Dublin (a year after the interview), Pearl had worked for 2 years in a company in Hong Kong; and at the time of writing was working as a teacher in Japan.

Literacy and Digital Literacy in the Polish Community

Among the Polish participants, literacy, and in particular print literacy, was found to be a highly important aspect of HL maintenance. Participants reported overt and explicit strategies for maintenance of HL literacy, such as strictly switching between books in different languages. This shows an acknowledgment of the fact that multilingual literacy must be monitored and maintained throughout the lifespan (see Durgunoglu and Verhoeven, 1998):

“I think it's very important to read in your native language as well. If I have the time, which is usually in the summer, I try to read one book in Polish, one book in English” (Irena/Polish/25/1st Gen).

A number of Polish migrants reported frequenting the Polish language bookshop (Polska Ksiegarnia) in Dublin and were regular users of the Polish language library in Dublin (Biblary—Polska Biblioteka w Dublinie), as well as of the Polish sections of the Dublin city libraries, all seven branches of which stock books in Polish³. They also engaged extensively with Polish language media sources. These findings are echoed in a study of media transnationalism among Polish migrants by Titley and Kerr (2011, p. 199):

“[Polish migrants] could be held to live highly mediated lives, cultivating social networks, and media habits across Ireland and Poland, the wider Polish “diaspora,” and of course, through infinite pathways of taste in a globalized media environment.”

One of the participants in this study had worked as a journalist for the Polish migrant-led newspaper in RoI, Gazeta Polska, and she later founded her own online media platform targeted at a young, urban, professional “differentiated readership,” where life as a Polish migrant is represented as an open and fluid experience, motivated by mobility and transnationalism, and engaged with “[…] the politics of migration and mobility in Ireland and Poland” (Titley and Kerr, 2011, p. 197). The fluid nature of Polish migration to RoI is also reported upon by Moriarty et al. (2016), who attribute this new style of migration to such simple factors as the availability of low-cost air travel to Poland from RoI. Furthermore, advancements in digital media and the wide availability of affordable broadband and smart phones mean that staying in touch with loved ones in Poland is easy, accessible and relatively instantaneous, with applications such as Skype enabling someone to be permanently logged on, visible and available:

“So, I have one brother, one sister. And uh, I Skype them every day. Like well maybe not every day but we're online all the time, like my father, he's using his laptop all the time, and same as my sister, so they're always online” (Paweł/Polish/27/1st Gen).

Indeed, the impact of the social media revolution cannot be ignored when looking at language maintenance and transmission. In Komito (2011) study of social media use among migrants of various backgrounds in Ireland, he found that the ability to not only instantly contact others, but also to “passively monitor others” contributed to “bonding capital.” In other words, social media can strengthen the ties between individuals, even if they are not in face-to-face contact, creating a new kind of “digital mobility.”

This ease of mobility has implications not only for HL maintenance among the Polish community in Ireland, but also for transmission. Many of the parents send their children back to extended family in the school holidays, allowing them to maintain family and friendship connections, including, crucially, with grandparents. These ties are strengthened through the sustained use of social media on a day-to-day basis while in Ireland and reinforced through these regular visits. In terms of HL maintenance, this use of social media can act as a “digital classroom” for migrants and their children, allowing rapid and instantaneous communication with speakers of the HL to be sustained:

“My daughter goes to Poland for 2 months in the summer […] She can go there for some difference […] She can have different point of view for different topics, and she has very good friends there as well. So she's in contact just in uh Facebook […] My mum is alone in Poland you know so it's very important for her as well to be with her uh granddaughter, yeah” (Eliza/Polish/32/1st gen).

Literacy and Digital Literacy in the Chinese Community

The Chinese first generation cohort in particular reported extensive engagement with digital media and participants reported that they relied heavily on these sources for practical information, particularly those related to finance. Furthermore, they were far more likely to connect with Chinese or Hong-Kong based digital media outlets, rather than migrant-led ones based in Ireland or elsewhere:

“I like the Chinese newspaper Xinmin Wanbao […] there's things about relationship and family you know, and career start, education, and then finances. What's the currency exchange rate […] because the European currency is getting down a lot, which means lots of lost for my finance. “Cause I need to change it to Chinese currency to spend if I go home and for my parents” (Mei Hua/Chinese/30/1st Gen).

None of the participants reported accessing Chinese language books or print media. Their engagement with Chinese digital media was seen as a way to stay up to date with financial matters, such as currency exchange rates, sales and deals on flights, and property prices in China and Hong Kong. The time spent on these matters was seen as an “investment” for the future, much like the way HL maintenance was perceived as an “investment” for future generations. Staying up to date on financial matters was also often seen as tied to a responsibility to one's family, including being financially responsible for the welfare of one's parents once they reached old age. The participants also used social media sites to maintain connections with family and friends, such as Chinese-owned RenRen (similar to Facebook) or WeChat for instant messaging. The Chinese participants reported less “passive monitoring” of others via these sites and more direct contact with friends and loved ones via instant messaging. In contrast with the Polish community, Chinese participants reported less frequent travel to China and were less likely to directly link the benefits of HL maintenance with the maintenance of face-to-face familial ties. However, these familial links were still made, albeit more indirectly, by translating the benefits of bilingualism and Mandarin proficiency into an “investment,” which would then “pay off” for family members both in Ireland and China, who could be supported financially.

Discussion

This paper has provided insights into practices of HL maintenance among two migrant communities, focusing in particular on two strategies: attendance at weekend schools and engagement with print and digital media. The attitudes and motivations for engaging in these HL maintenance strategies can be summarized into four main themes: mobility, family ties/heritage, education and economic factors (Table 1). While both groups drew on the concept of mobility, Poles were more likely to talk about maintaining Polish (through literacy and weekend schools) as the language of return migration, with English representing the language of mobility, whereas the Chinese spoke about maintenance, primarily of Mandarin, as a global language, in order to participate in the international job market. Indeed, Chinese, and Chinese-English bilingualism, were viewed as a vital asset and quantifiable, marketable skill with real outcomes, whereas the maintenance of Polish was more concretely associated with heritage, culture and history, and the nurturing of familial ties. These findings give important insights into how we may conceptualize a “migrant” or “migrant heritage” identity in the digital age. Given the increased availability of affordable air travel (Moriarty et al., 2016) and of communication technology (Komito, 2011), migrants and their children no longer have to make a permanent choice to affiliate with one particular ethnic/national identity. They can comfortably occupy a “third space” and language is paramount to how this space is constructed and maintained.

Table 1. Summary of motivations for heritage language maintenance and transmission.

Overall, a sense of global interconnectedness was undeniable among the participants, as was a sense that bi/multilingualism was an intrinsic part of their day-to-day lives, and their identities. As such, they tended to view their linguistic competence(s) not as bilingualism per se, but as a repertoire of “mobile resources” (Blommaert, 2010), whereby the HL, English, and in some cases other languages (including Mandarin) are exploited to achieve various aims, be it navigating a new life in Ireland, planning a career in Asia or elsewhere, learning about Polish history, or engaging in a group chat or video call on Skype. This significantly widens the scope of what could be termed a “digital classroom”, whereby languages, varieties, and repertoires become important tools in both a physical and a digital space. Participants were very attuned to the affordances of these mobile resources and were highly engaged in transmitting these resources to the next generation.

Conclusion

This investigation has found HL maintenance to be alive and well among Polish and Chinese migrants in Ireland and a comparative approach found marked differences across both communities, and to a certain extent, between the first, second and 1.5 generations. This shows that experiences with HL maintenance and transmission are dependent on a range of factors, including, as is shown here, the motivations for maintenance and how this interacts with identity. While issues of concern for migrant communities in other contexts, such as language attrition, lack of resources, incomplete acquisition, or identity loss (see Montrul, 2010), were less apparent here due to the majority of the sample being first generation migrants, the findings point nonetheless to noteworthy patterns and trends in two very different migrant communities. These differences are predicted to increase and diversify as the world becomes increasingly globalized. For example, in the future, the shift toward Mandarin as an attractive global lingua franca by the second generation may be a cause for concern for other Chinese languages and varieties, particularly in the diaspora. This may be indicative of an overall shift toward the world's “big” languages (see Noack and Gamio, 2015). However, when issues of identity are at stake, there will always be a push back, and the context of Polish, now the second most widely-spoken language in RoI, is a case-in-point. Future work examining HL maintenance across generations in RoI could be revealing in whether or not it mirrors pathways of HL maintenance in countries where migration has a longer history.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets for this manuscript are not publicly available because the participants did not give such permission at the time of interview. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to CD, chloe.diskin@unimelb.edu.au.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Human Research Ethics Commitee—Humanities at University College Dublin, Ireland. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable data included in this article.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Funding

This work was supported by an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship (2011–2014) awarded to the author.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Vera Regan, Paola Escudero, Ewa Kobiałka, Mingfen Zhang, Valerie Norton, the Humanities Institute at University College Dublin, Ireland, and the audience at the 2017 International Symposium of Bilingualism, University of Limerick, Ireland.

Footnotes

References