This article provides an overview of immigrant/host majority relations from an intergroup perspective using the interactive acculturation model. Whereas previous research assumed that immigrants must adapt to a single dominant host majority, receiving societies are often made up of host communities whose ethnic and linguistic backgrounds vary, thus offering immigrants the option of adapting to one or more host communities. Two such settings are examined in North America: bilingual Montreal made up of French-and English-speaking host communities; and bilingual Los Angeles with its English-speaking European and African American host communities and its Spanish-and Asian-speaking immigrant communities. The Montreal and Los Angeles studies highlight how integration policies adopted at the national and institutional levels are related to the acculturation orientations endorsed by contrasting immigrant and host community undergraduates living in multilingual and multicultural settings.Based on 19th century myth founding concepts of the unitary nation-state, the term host majority is still popular as a way of referring to the ancestral "core founding members" of a given country or region. The term host majority implies an "us -them" categorization which situates immigrants as out-groups who may be temporary or permanent "visitors" within the receiving society. Traditionally, host majority members expected immigrants to assimilate as individuals to the culture, language, and values of the receiving society. Host majorities have found it easier to absorb immigrants when their cultural differences were reduced to exotic manifestations such as ethnic restaurants, music, and dance. However, immigrants by virtue of their demographic weight and staying power may also act as group members to maintain and assert their distinctive culture, language, and religion.
This article reviews key elements of the model of multilingual communication (MMC) Bourhis 2001, 2005) as they pertain to the case of the ''two solitudes'' in the province of Quebec: the Francophone majority and the Anglophone minority. The first part of the article provides an intergroup analysis of how language laws in Quebec succeeded in changing the respective ethnolinguistic vitality of the Francophone majority and the Anglophone minority in the province. Along with the MMC, communication accommodation theory is used to review the intergroup, normative, and social psychological determinants of bilingual switching behaviors, as well as specific social psychological studies of bilingual communication conducted in Quebec. The second part of the article describes empirical field studies of language accommodation in Montreal conducted in 1977(Bourhis 1984bMoïse and Bourhis 1994). As a follow-up to our earlier studies, the goal of the 1997 experiment (N ¼ 482) was to monitor the language strategies adopted by pedestrians who were randomly accosted by a white or black female confederate who voiced a plea for directions in either English or French. Results of the 1997 study showed that both Francophone and Anglophone pedestrians overwhelmingly converged to the linguistic needs of the white and black confederate.
This study surveyed 2446 undergraduates from five Bilingual Autonomous Communities (BAC) of Spain. We propose that the creation of the BAC of Spain in 1978 allowed the development of differing prototypic identities ranging from Spanish only identity, Autonomous only identity, and various permutations of dual Spanish/Autonomous identities. Based on their linguistic and ethnic self-identifications, the percentage of participants endorsing each prototypic identity was monitored along with their key sociopsychological correlates. Six prototypic identity profiles were obtained. Results indicate that individuals endorsing the Autonomous only (11%) and Spanish only (13%) identities were more likely to engage in problematic intergroup relations. Strong Dual identifiers (9%) are the most likely to act as cultural and linguistic brokers and to foster intergroup harmony. ProSpanish (15%) and Moderate Dual (7%) identifiers are more likely to benefit from language learning in the Autonomous language and emerge as cultural brokers. Esta investigación sondeó 2446 estudiantes de pregrado de cinco Comunidades Autónomas Bilingües (CAB) de España. Proponemos que la creación de las CAB de España en 1978 permitió el desarrollo de diferentes identidades prototípicas que van desde identidades solamente españolas, identidades solamente autónomas hasta varias permutaciones de identidades dobles españolas/autónomas. Basado en sus auto-identificaciones lingüística yétnica, se observó el porcentaje de participantes que corresponden a cada identidad prototípica y sus correlacionados socio-psicológicos claves. Se obtuvieron seis perfiles de identidad prototípicos.Los resultados indican que los individuos que asumen una identidad solamente autónoma (11%) y solamente española (13%) tienen más probabilidades de entablar relaciones intergrupales problemáticas. Los que tienen más probabilidades de comportarse como conciliador cultural y lingüístico, y de fomentar armonía intergrupal son los que asumen una fuerte identidad doble (9%). Los que asumen una identidad pro-española (15%) o una identidad doble moderada (7%) tienen más probabilidades de beneficiar del aprendizaje de la lengua autónoma y se revelaron como conciliador cultural.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.