Do the languages migrants use in private and emotional domains define their cultural belonging more than the passport they have?

Abstract

This study focuses on migrants' sense of belonging to the heritage and the host culture and adopts an innovative approach to the topic by placing biographical and linguistic factors side by side. Statistical results from 468 migrants, supported by 5 follow-up interviews, revealed that the age of migration, the length of stay and the status in the host country were unrelated to participants' heritage and host culture acculturation levels. Conversely, migrants' heritage language (L1) and host language (LX) frequency of use, especially for expressing emotions, as well as their L1/LX reported dominance and emotionality, were linked to their attachment to the heritage and host culture. In other words, the cognitive and emotional embracement of the language contributed to enforcing participants' sense of belonging to the relevant culture, explaining a variance of 12.2% and 13.5% respectively in their heritage and host acculturation levels. The findings thus highlighted the crucial role of languages in shaping individuals' cultural identity.

Finding One’s Place in a Host Space: A Small-Scale Study of Cultural Integration and Language Maintenance Among Croatian Immigrants in Canada

“…The close relationship between attachment to heritage and host culture and heritage language and host language frequency of use, including emotion expression, has been attested by Panicacci (2019). The study conducted for the purpose of this paper also points to an inextricable bond between culture and language.…”

The Role of Atmosphere in Negotiations of Groupness: A Study of a Meeting Place for Older Russian-speaking Migrants

“…Language reflects a culture and culture is influenced and shaped by language (Jiang 2000: 328). Language is also linked to group recognition in that language can be used to create boundaries and to demonstrate group identity (Hammer 2017: 44; see also Panicacci 2019). However, I argue that a shared language is not enough to automatically build groupness.…”

Mobilising the potential held by one’s entire linguistic repertoire for positive youth development

“…On the other hand, studies investigating the impact of bicultural identity, bilingualism and social context found beneficial psychological outcomes of bilingualism (Chen et al, 2008). Panicacci (2019) combined psychological and linguistic variables in her study on the link between the languages migrants use in private and emotional domains and their sense of belonging to the heritage and the host culture. Supported by an extensive overview of previous research of acculturation processes, emotion expression, and language perception, the results show that it is not the portion of life spent in the country that helps boost migrants' acculturation level to the host country but their emotional, affective, mental and linguistic engagement with the local community.…”

“…Since interdisciplinary studies of multilingualism shed light on different (micro and macro) social contexts of language use (e.g., Cenoz 2013b; Comanaru & Dewaele, 2015;Kramsch, 2010) as well as empirically investigate multilingualism's positive impact on individuals' social activation, emotionality, and personal development (e.g., Dewaele & Pavlenko 2002-2003Panicacci, 2019;Resnik & Dewaele, 2020), the study of their connection to the external and internal assets might reveal the impact of the individual's (multi)language competence on their overall experience with the resources for positive development and also give better insight into the availability of contextual resources to young people. For instance, school environments that successfully incorporate translanguaging and plurilingual practices in their inclusive approaches (e.g., Beacco et al, 2016;Garcia, 2009) might be recognised by youth as institutions that offer more support and empowerment.…”

“…The self-perceived multi-competence of youth as one of the elements of greater confidence (Dewaele, 2016) could be linked with their experience of commitment to learning and positive values. Different aspects of language anxiety (i.e., heritage, majority, foreign-language anxiety) might be linked to young people's experience with boundaries and expectations as well as positive identity with a special focus on migrant (Sevinç & Backus, 2017;Sevinç & Dewaele, 2016), school (Dewaele et al, 2017), family and community contexts (Panicacci, 2019). Similarly, within the 5Cs, research on the cognitive outcomes of multilingualism (Barac & Bialystock, 2011;Kharkhurin, 2008Kharkhurin, , 2010, the role of positive emotions in language anxiety (e.g., Dewaele et al, 2019;Dewaele & MacIntyre 2014;Resnik & Dewaele 2020), the effect on individuals' personality in terms of open-mindedness, cultural empathy, and emotional stability (Dewaele 2016;Dewaele & Wei 2012) and the value of individuals' multilingual/multicultural identity for the community (Wei et al, 2002) may point to several indicators of positive development.…”