Re: Bilingualism in 'migrant' children

From: Lee Sau Dan (danlee_at_informatik.uni-freiburg.de)
Date: 01/05/05 

Date: 05 Jan 2005 23:26:18 +0800

>>>>> "mb" == mb <azythos2@hotmail.com> writes:

    mb> Jarosciak is also right in that highly educated, privileged
    mb> groups, not only among the host country aristocracy but also
    mb> educated migrants, have totally different value judgments
    mb> here. They are also much more aware of the dangers of mixing
    mb> languages with children and are more likely to stick to the
    mb> principle of having each reference adult use his own mother
    mb> tongue, in order to encourage competent multilingualism in the
    mb> child. And, of course, educated migrants are much more likely
    mb> to provide education in the written / standard imported
    mb> language.

In some families with well educated parents in Hong Kong, the
situation is quite opposite. Although the parents are both native
Cantonese speakers and both grew up in HK, they speak English at home.
Their rationale: have the children exposed to English -- the
"prestigious" language -- as early and as frequently as possible, so
that their children can speak English well. But these parents do not
do it well. They don't speak English that well, and they do have an
accent. So, how can the children pick up good English pronunciations?
Worse still, being not native speakers, these parents often lack
expressions that they want. So, they occasionally switch back to
Cantonese to say certain things for convenience. Even worse, many of
them often uses a mix of languages. A family conversation can switch
between English and Cantonese without any predictable patterns.
Result? The children suffer. They can't speak either language
competently. 

-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     §õ¦u´°                          ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

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