Preliminary communication
The Language of Yugoslav Children Living in Sweden: (Preliminary Results of a Sociolinguistic Study)
Andrina Pavlinić-Wolf
; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Josip Anić
; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Zdenko Ivezić
; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Presented are some preliminary results of a socio-linguistic survey performed on fifty children of Yugoslav origin, speakers of the Croato-Serbian language aged 10–18 years, who have been living and receiving their education in Lund and Malmö. The purpose of the survey was to examine the children's competence in their mother tongue (in writing), to identify the language problems of the children living outside their home country, and to ascertain their causes. In addition to some linguistic methods of data collection (i.e. testing L1 at the levels of phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, and orthography, and a composition), some sociological (socio-linguistic) parameters were also applied to ascertain (or, to reconfirm) which factors, linguistic and extralinguistic, affect the maintenance or the loss of a mother tongue.
The preliminary results obtained already make some conclusions possible, i.e. (1) all the children have mastered the Swedish language; they attend Swedish school regularly and are very successful pupils; (2) the communication range of their mother tongue is poor and their L1 usage restricted to a few individuals (i.e. the parents) and a few situations (i.e. in the home circle), reflecting its marginality; (3) the children's recognition of the language norms of the mother tongue prevails over an active application of their skills in writing. Their mother-tongue writing skill is, on average, deficient, with a very limited vocabulary and a highly stereotypic sentence structure.
Keywords
mother tongue; children of migrants; Yugoslavs; Sweden
Hrčak ID:
128780
URI
Publication date:
28.11.1986.
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