Language profile of Iranian immigrants in Montréal
compared to Toronto
Mémoire
Simin Shafiefar
Maîtrise en sociologie - avec mémoire
Maître ès arts (M.A.)
Language profile of Iranian immigrants in
Montréal compared to Toronto
Mémoire
Simin Shafiefar
Sous la direction de :
RÉSUMÉ
Comme le nombre d'immigrants Iraniens a augmenté au Canada au cours des dernières décennies, les nouvelles recherches sont nécessaires sur cette population. Étant donné que la transmission des langues immigrantes est une composante du processus d'établissement des immigrants et que les immigrants iraniens ont rarement fait l'objet d'études canadiennes, le but de cette recherche est d'étudier le profil linguistique des immigrants Iraniens à Montréal par rapport à Toronto.
En utilisant les données du questionnaire long du recensement canadien de 2001, 2006 et 2011, nous avons étudié l'influence des facteurs sociodémographiques, familiaux et migratoires sur la langue que les immigrants Iraniens parlent le plus souvent à la maison à Montréal et à Toronto. Pour ce faire, nous avons procédé à différentes analyses descriptives pour déterminer si les immigrants Iraniens sont plus susceptibles de parler en langue non officielle (langue ancestrale) à la maison ou en langues officielles. Dans le but d'approfondir le profil linguistique des immigrants Iraniens à la maison, j'étends mes recherches en effectuant des régressions logistiques. Les résultats montrent que les immigrantes iraniennes par rapport à leurs homologues masculins, immigrants légalement mariés, les iraniens qui ont immigré au Canada à l'âge de 15 ans et plus ainsi que les immigrants iraniens arrivés au Canada après 1980 parlaient dans une langue non officielle à la maison plus que les langues officielles à Montréal ainsi qu’à Toronto.
Mots-clés: Langue parlée à la maison, immigrants Iraniens, maintien de la langue
d'origine, Toronto, Montréal, régression logistique, Recensement canadien de 2001, 2006 et 2011.
ABSTRACT
As the number of Iranian immigrants has increased in Canada in recent decades, more research is necessary on this population. Given that immigrant-language transmission is one component of immigrant settlement process and also, Iranian immigrants have rarely been the subject of Canadian studies, thus, the purpose of this research is to study the home language profile of Iranian immigrants in Montreal compared to Toronto.
Using the data of long form census questionnaire 2001, 2006 and 2011, we have studied the influence of socio-demographic, familial and migratory factors on language Iranian immigrants spoke most often at home in Montreal and Toronto. In doing so, we have carried out various descriptive analyzes to discover if Iranian immigrants are more likely to speak in non-official language (heritage language) at home or in non-official languages. For the purpose of further investigation of home language profile of Iranian immigrants I expand my research by running logistic regressions. The results show that Iranian female immigrants compared to their male counterparts, legally married immigrants, those Iranians who have immigrated to Canada at the age of 15 years old and over as well as Iranian immigrants who have arrived in Canada after 1980 spoke in non-official language at home more than official languages in both Montreal and Toronto.
Keyword: Language spoken at home, Iranian immigrants, heritage language
Table of contents
RÉSUMÉ ... iii
ABSTRACT ... iv
List of figures ... viii
List of tables ... ix
Acknowledgment ... x
Introduction ... 1
i. Purpose of study ... 4
ii. Research questions ... 4
Chapter 1 ... 6
1.1. Language as a part of cultural identity ... 6
1.2. Immigrants language maintenance in Canadian multicultural environment ... 7
1.3. Heritage language maintenance in Quebec ... 10
1.4. Factors which promote the use of heritage language at home ... 12
1.5. Factors which reinforce heritage language transmission ... 14
1.6. Bilingualism as a social capital in Canadian context ... 17
1.7. Factors which cause the use of official language at home and heritage language loss ... 20
1.8. Literature review ... 24
1.9. Conclusion and Model of study ... 27
Chapter 2 ... 29
2.1. Introduction ... 29
2.2. Iranian immigrants in Canada ... 30
2.3. Toronto and Montreal as major destinations of immigrants ... 32
2.4. Methodology of study ... 34 2.5. Database of study ... 35 2.6. Population of study ... 36 2.7. Definition of concepts ... 37 2.7.1. Home language ... 37 2.8. Dependent variable ... 38
2.9. Independent variables ... 38
2.9.1. Socio-demographic factors include: ... 39
2.9.1.1. Sex ... 39
2.9.1.2. Age ... 39
2.9.1.3. Marital status ... 40
2.9.1.4. Education ... 40
2.9.1.5. Official language proficiency ... 40
2.9.2. Familial factors include: ... 41
2.9.2.1. Family structure ... 41
2.9.2.2. Size of family ... 42
2.9.3. Migratory factors include:... 42
2.9.3.1. Age at immigration ... 42
2.9.3.2. Period of immigration ... 43
2.10. Choice and description of methods ... 43
2.10.1. Descriptive analysis ... 43
2.10.2. Explanatory analysis ... 44
2.11. Conclusion ... 46
Chapter 3 ... 49
3.1. Introduction ... 49
3.2. Characteristic of Iranian immigrants in Montreal and Toronto based on census 2001, 2006 and NHS ... 50
3.3. The influence of socio-demographic factors on language spoken at home within Iranian immigrants in Montreal and Toronto in 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 51
3.4. The influence of familial factors on home language of Iranian immigrants in Montreal and Toronto in 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 63
3.5. The influence of migratory factors on home language of Iranian immigrants in Montreal and Toronto in 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 67
3.6. Conclusion ... 71
Chapter 4 ... 72
4.1. Introduction ... 72
4.2. Logistic regression of spoken language of Iranian immigrants at home in Montreal and Toronto in 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 72
Conclusion ... 81 Bibliography ... 84 Appendix ... 90
List of figures
Figure 1.1. Factors influence spoken language at home within immigrants ... 28 Figure 3.3. 1.Distribution of home language of immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on sex, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 52 Figure 3.3. 2. Distribution of home language of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on sex, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 54 Figure 3.3. 3. Distribution of home language of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on age, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 56 Figure 3.3. 4. Distribution of home language of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on marital status, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 58 Figure 3.3. 5. Distribution of home language of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on education of respondent, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 60 Figure 3.3. 6. Distribution of official language proficiency of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on home language, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 62 Figure 3.4. 1. Distribution of home language of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on family structure, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 64 Figure 3.4. 2. Distribution of home language of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on size of family, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 66 Figure 3.5. 1. Distribution of home language of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on age at immigration in a family, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 68 Figure 3.5. 2. Distribution of home language of Iranian immigrants in (a) Montreal and (b) Toronto based on period of immigration, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 70
List of tables
Table 2. 1. Metropolitan area distribution of immigrant families by ethnic origin: 2011 (reprinted from (Edmonston, 2016) ... 33 Table 2. 2. Total weighted sample size of Iranian and the rest of immigrants in Montreal in 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 36 Table 2. 3. Total weighted sample size of Iranian and the rest of immigrants in Toronto in 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 37 Table 2. 4. Major variables chosen from the census datasets ... 46 Table 4.2. 1. Regression analysis of ‘non-Official’ and ‘both official and non-official language’ as a home language of Iranian immigrants in Montreal and Toronto, 2001, 2006 and 2011 ... 77 Table 4.2. 2. Regression analysis of French as a home language of Iranian immigrants in Montreal and English as a home language of Iranian immigrants in Toronto, 2001, 2006 and 2011... 80
Acknowledgment
First, I would like express my utmost gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Richard Marcoux whose support, advice, understanding have been invaluable throughout this thesis journey. I am also grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to have this amazing academic experience.
The project would not have been achievable without the support and partnership of the Quebec Interuniversity Center for Social Statistics (QICSS) and Canadian Research Data Center Network (CRDCN) and statistical analyst Angela Prencipe. I am very grateful for the warm and welcoming environment provided for me at Toronto RDC.
I am also very grateful to my committee members, Drs.: Charles Fleury and Sylvie Lacombe, for their valuable comments.
I am also thankful to the staff from the Department of Sociology, especially Manon Deschenes for her help in solving administrative issues.
Finally, my deepest thanks go to my husband for his unwavering emotional and financial supports.
Introduction
All normal offspring in normal environments learn language. This fact clearly reflects inherent capacities of the human groups that make language acquisition both possible and practically unavoidable, but it may also display globally available environmental supports for language acquisition. Another point about language acquisition is its variability. At each point in advancement, children vary in the range of the vocabularies they command, the complication of the structures they create, and the skill with which they communicate. Behavior genetic studies of language acquisition evaluate the heritability of language to range between 1 and 82%. These values imply that the environment has a significant role in clarifying individual differences (Hoff, 2006).
About language acquisition there are two different approaches. First approach relies on conceptualization of language acquisition as the result of mental processes that take as their input data from the context and produce as their output the competence to create and understand language. It makes essential to the field the exploration of the nature of the mental mechanisms that carry out this function. The second approach focuses attention more on the framing role of the social environment in which children live. The social contexts are characterized as a nested group of systems surrounding the child. The systems most distinct from the child include culture, socioeconomic situation, and ethnicity. These surrounding systems construct the proximal systems, which include schools, peer groups and friends. The proximal systems are then the source of the child’s direct communications with the world. Environmental support is essential for children to acquire the language that can be used for interactive purposes (Hoff, 2006).
The process of learning language involves regular interaction. Children learn language by listening to speech in the world around them. Spending time with children, playing and talking with then will help encourage and facilitate their language development. Parents are a primary
source of language acquisition for most children. By speaking to children, parents are modeling language and the rule system that makes up their language. Children acquire these rules and learn to apply them as they make their own speech. Parents depending on their ethnicity, culture and socioeconomic status vary in the experiences they produce for children. In cultures and families in which mothers are caregiver of their children at home, they provide different environment for children. Some mothers communicate by being responsive to their offspring’s prelinguistic vocalizations and to their conversation more than do other mothers. Mothers who frequently respond literally to their children’s play and vocalizations provide their children with more language input than mothers who react infrequently (Hoff, 2006).
Children acquire language under broadly various circumstances. In some cultures, children are spoken to a lot and in others, very little. In some cultures children normally can witness adults’ conversations and in others children are less frequently observe the communications among adults. Also of note, children acquiring more than one language differ in their language learning. Approximately half the children in the world live in multilingual contexts. One observation frequently made about the outcomes of multilingual exposure is that naturally overhearing a language in the dialogues of others is not sufficient for language learning. Even being exposed in multiple languages does not guarantee that multiple languages will be learned. Children for whom a second language forms less than 25% of their input, based on parental report, tend not to learn that language. In bilingual homes, children exposure to two languages may be fairly balanced, or one language may dominate (Hoff, 2006).
It is believed that language is a significant realm for assessing acculturation because it is a socially noticeable indicator of cultural dissimilarity and a sign of ethnic boundaries (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002). Children in immigrant families whose heritage language, defines as all languages except for aboriginal languages brought to host societies by immigrants, is different from the language of host country experience bilingualism. Immigrant-language transmission is one component of immigrant settlement process. Language of origin, like religion, can be a sign of ethnicity and can supply socio-economic advantages such as an access
multiculturalism act and the preface of the official languages act mention that Canada should
promote the maintenance of foreign languages and maximize their status and use. The survival of immigrant languages, synonymous terms in North America include “ethnic language, minority language, ancestral language, third language, nonofficial language, community language, and mother-tongue” (Park, 2013), and their intergenerational transmission in Canada are related to Canadian multiculturalism (Houle, 2015).
Since 1970s while Canada has accepted new immigrants from all over the world; the various cultures and languages were brought to this new land; therefore, Canada has become multilingual country. Additionally, the fact that most immigrants who migrated to Canada since the end of the Second World War were family immigrants has certainly have a significant influence on the persistence of immigrant language (Houle, 2015). Immigrants prefer to use their heritage language especially at home. Furthermore, they try to transfer their home language to their children in a new country. In all cases, in fact, it is basically through adults particularly mothers that heritage language passes on to next generation. Therefore, immigrant children usually grow up as bilingual people (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002). It is noteworthy to mention that since linguistic integration is a part of integration process in a host country but use of host language in at home is not guaranteed.
As Canada is the land of millions immigrants from all over the globe thus, preservation and transmission of immigrant languages in Canada is important. In doing so, social integration and ancestral language preservation of Iranian immigrants in Canada is an area that has not been well researched. Given the large number of Iranian immigrants in Canada especially in Toronto, more research needs to be done to discover the social integration and home language profile of Iranian immigrants in Canada. Learning about home language profile of Iranian immigrants can contribute to the small, yet developing, body of literature on this population. This study would demonstrate one small aspect of social life of Iranian immigrants in Canada. For this purpose, in the following chapters, we will explain preservation of immigrant language in multicultural and intercultural context of Canada. Subsequently, we express factors which reinforce heritage language preservation and transmission. The advantageous of bilingualism and consequences of
ancestral language loss will then be mentioned. Finally, we will review the literatures on home language of immigrants in Canada and North America. In the second chapter, given that the Iranian immigrants in Toronto and Montreal are our target we will try to draw a portrait of this population in Canada; then, we will discuss about methodology, our databases and variables. Then, in the third chapter we will compare the home language profile of Iranian immigrants in Toronto and Montreal. Eventually, in the final chapter we will model the results.
i. Purpose of study
Given the aforementioned importance of research and the lack of research on home language profile of Iranian immigrants in Canada, the objective of this study is to find out the home language profile of Iranian immigrants in Toronto compare to Montreal. In doing so, we will clarify socio-demographic, familial and migratory factors which influence home language profile of Iranian immigrants compare to the rest of immigrants in Toronto and Montreal in which there are two different policies including multiculturalism and interculturalism respectively.
ii. Research questions
Linguistic integration has long been recognized as a significant element in the overall immigration process. In a word, linguistic integration has been achieved when immigrants have the ability to speak in one of the languages that is current in the new country for public communication, against personal communication (e.g., at home). Furthermore, proficiency of host languages is a key factor in integration and settlement process of immigrants in a new country. This does not signify mastery of the language, comparable to a native speaker, but it means having sufficient capacity to use the language to participate fully in the new society. It goes without saying that the inability to communicate in the host language could make daily life difficult and meanwhile hinder social, economic and political integration.
In consistent with above lines, Iranian immigrants as a part of immigrants of Canada are relatively new generation of immigrants to Canada compared to other immigrants and they have been rarely studied in Canada. Iran (before known as Persia) is a country rich in history, literature, art and traditions and Iranians have a great tendency to preserve their traditions, customs and languages even out of their borders. Therefore, this history has led author of this thesis who is Iranian to focus on Iranian immigrants in Canada. To our knowledge, the spoken languages of Iranian immigrants at home in Canada have not been studied yet. Moreover, since Canadian censuses have provided a significant source of data of spoken language of immigrants at home in Canada; thus, we have decided to use census data in order to discover the spoken language of Iranian immigrants at home in two metropolitan areas including Toronto and Montreal. Therefore, this dissertation aims to answer to the following research questions:
1. What language do Iranian immigrants speak most often at home in Toronto and Montreal?
2. Which factors (socio-demographic, familial and migratory) would best explain the home language profile of Iranian immigrants?
Chapter 1
1.1. Language as a part of cultural identity
Many scholars have studied the relationship between language and identity. They assert that language is one of the many systems of symbols that humans use to communicate with one another. Scholars believe that, however, language, religion, culture, history, gender and etc. build one’s identity but language represents the most important aspect of identity. Oyserman, Elmore, & Smith (2012) define identity as “traits and characteristics, social relations, roles, and social group memberships that define who one is”. Additionally, language expresses the means by which we feel our own identity; in fact, language is an important symbol of identity. More precisely, mother tongue is connected to one’s ethnicity which is the foundation of one’s identity (Demont-Heinrich, 2005; Khatib & Ghamari, 2011).
As language is a significant part of the advancement and expression of identity; therefore, ancestral language preservation is closely related to one’s ethnic identity on the one hand. Phinney, Romero, Nava, & Huang (2001) define an ethnic identity as “an identity as a member of an ethnic group within the larger society” (p.135). On the other hand, once immigrant children enter the school in a host country they need to learn the dominant language as the primary means for social integration. Some scholars believe that immigrant children develop a bicultural identity in a host country such that ancestral language proficiency and host language acquisition are related to strength of bicultural identification. Consequently, it is important to realize how heavy the communicative loads young children conduct are and the level of proficiency they need to perform in each language to develop their identity. Furthermore, it is vital to reform language instruction and to understand the importance of young immigrant children’s ability in their heritage language and dominant-language acquisition. In this way, children establish their positive bicultural identity, increase self-esteem, and nurture feelings of being accepted as who they are (Lee, 2013).
1.2. Immigrants language maintenance in Canadian multicultural environment
Canada, like the other dominated British culture societies (the US, Australia and New Zealand), previously had an assimilationist policy to immigration. Immigrants were encouraged and expected to assimilate to the established British mainstream culture, with the hope that by the passage of time they would become similar to native-born British Canadians in their conversation, dress, behaviors and generally lifestyle. In fact, the assimilation policy has encouraged immigrants to give up their traditions and customs and accept new cultural values and way of life. In doing so, any ethnic that were considered as incapable of this kind of cultural assimilation (such as Asians and Africans) were hindered from immigrating to Canada, or from becoming citizen. This racially discriminatory and culturally assimilationist approach to ethnic groups was slowly questioned in the postwar era. Two significant changes have led to officially rejection of this approach in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Banting & Kymlicka, 2010).
In doing so, first, the adoption of points system which is race-neutral admissions process meant that acceptance of immigrants increasingly from non-European (and often non-Christian) countries to Canada. This change was performed by 1967. Second, acceptance of a more multicultural notion of integration which considers that many immigrants will evidently and proudly exhibit and maintain their ethnic identity, customs, values, language and even religious beliefs. Integration policy aims to give the immigrants an opportunity to participate in the political, social, economic and cultural life of their new country. Ability to speak the language(s) of the host country usually plays a vital part in the process of integration because it is a precondition for participation. Furthermore, at meantime, public institutions (like the police, schools, media, museums and so on) have been forced to accommodate these ethnic identities and values. This second change was authorized in 1971, with the adoption of the multiculturalism policy by the federal government. Accordingly, the official Canadian Multiculturalism Act was established in 1988. This policy has been variously changed since 1971 but its key ideas have persisted fairly stable including: the recognition and adjustment of cultural diversity; eliminating barriers to full participation into the mainstream culture; encouraging interchange between ethnic groups; and encouraging the learning of at least one
Canadian official language (Banting & Kymlicka, 2010). Canada as a multicultural country supports programs which encourage various immigrant groups to preserve their language, culture and traditions in Canada.
Each year, about 250,000 immigrants choose Canada as their new land. Immigrants have made up the growing share of Canadian population. New immigrants are relatively young, healthy and economically active owing to self-selection, on the one hand, and the Canadian point system that chooses skilled immigrants base on their education, age, host language proficiency, job market experiences, arranged job and adaptability, on the other hand (Subedi & Rosenberg, 2014). Canada has been favoring skilled immigrants over family-class immigrants and refugees because of its knowledge-based economy. It is believed that economic immigrants bring significant human capital than family-class immigrants and refugees, and are thus more valuable and beneficial. Consequently, Canada has tried to attract the most talented, skillful and resourceful laborers to improve its job market shortages and influence its ageing population (Guo, 2015). Over the centuries immigrants have had different incentives for migrating to Canada, but they have mainly come in the hope of better future for themselves and their children in terms of social, political, cultural or even sometimes religious and specifically economic situations. Additionally, some individuals migrated because of the weather (Beyer, 2005).
The post-1970s immigrants were immigrants from non-European origins; they are young, highly educated and skilled immigrants whose “cultural norms, beliefs and values” predominantly differ from Canadian ones. They have brought new languages, customs, cultural values and religions to the North American context. Indeed, the increasing immigrant population and changes in source countries of immigrants over the past decades have resulted in greater diversity of the Canadian population and its ethnocultural traits (Statistique Canada, 2016). In doing so the number of individuals who come from homes in which a non-English ancestral language is spoken is rapidly increasing. It is noteworthy to mention that the ancestral language maintenance and proficiency is increasingly valued in multicultural societies and the globalized job market where bilingualism is a significant asset (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012). Additionally,
ancestral language; Moreover, host country may have some strategies that reinforce and promote language maintenance among immigrants communities (Winter & Pauwels, 2005).
In multicultural society the families are encouraged to preserve and pass on their ancestral language to their children. Therefore, children in immigrant families expose the ethnic languages. Language exposure during early childhood can present a rich base and perhaps a unique benefit for achieving and preserving mother tongue proficiency. Recent research display that those young adult who expose mother tongue during their childhood exhibit more native-like accents, better speech construction, and superior competence to discover and distinguish heritage language sounds from other language sounds compared to beginner learners. Children who are fluent in both mother tongue and host language are able to act as a family resource by performing as ‘language brokers’, which can present bicultural capacity and a sense of familial role fulfillment. Indeed, children from immigrant families assist build bridges between adult immigrants who have lived in Canada and the rest of the population. Indeed, owing to the proficiency of immigrant children in host language and their heritage language they would connect their parents to native people and other ethnic immigrants. In other word, they promote inter-ethnic connections in the form of friendships and acquaintanceships (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012).
In consistent with above lines, in 2016, 29.2% of the total Canadian-born children had at least one foreign-born parent (Statistique Canada, 2016). Based on 2011 Census of population, more than 200 languages were declared as a home language or mother tongue in Canada. In 2011, not only 20.6% of Canadians declared an immigrant language as a mother tongue but also 11.5% of Canadian population announced speaking in both English and a language other than French at home. In the same year, 80% of population who declared speaking an ethnic language (other than English, French or an Aboriginal language) usually at home settled in one of Canada's six largest census metropolitan areas. Some groups more likely than others to pass on their heritage language. For instance, in Canada, the number of individuals who declared speaking Tagalog, a Philippine-based language, usually at home enhanced the most (more than
64%) between 2006 and 2011. Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi, Creoles, Bengali, Persian and Spanish were the most speaking languages at home respectively (Statistique Canada, 2011a).
Second generation who were Canadian-born or immigrated to the country at a young age, grow up between two cultures including origin and host cultures. They adopt the values, social norms and official languages of the host country through their surrounding environments including school, peer group and neighborhood. On the other hand, they are aware of the language, religion, music, food, dress, and customs and specific cultural practices of their parents’ home country through their family, ethnic community and their own experience in their parents’ home country (Statistique Canada, 2016). Indeed, second generation immigrants learn their mother tongue through socialization in Canadian multicultural context. Given they are less socialized into home country and less learned norms and values of homeland’s culture therefore they adopt host’s culture and norms quicker and they learn the language of receiving society faster; consequently they prefer to use host language at home (Beyer & Ramji, 2013; Moghissi, Rahnema, & Goodman, 2009).
1.3. Heritage language maintenance in Quebec
Apart from multicultural policy in the rest of Canada, there is an intercultural policy in province of Quebec which tries to integrate immigrants into the French language. Given that the government encourages full participation of immigrants to social, political and economic life of society and insists that immigrants must make the necessary effort to participate in public life; thus, learning French is necessary for a successful social and economic integration in province of Quebec. Quebeckers who had attempted to preserve the French language and culture alive in Quebec since Quebec City was established in 1608 by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain. Then, Quebec’s controversial new language laws of 1977 – the Charter of the French Language, known as Bill 101– established an essentially monolingual society which enforced French as the language of public administration, education, work and business (Shapiro, 2012). Furthermore, Quebec, with majority of francophone, has a point-based system to receive
immigrants in which given an important weight to the knowledge of French. However integration in French language compared to English is more complicated but the ability to speak French will assist immigrants to develop social networks and expand their job opportunities.
As Houle, (2015) has documented, in Canada, there have also been particular regional effects that do not seem to be linked to the geographic concentration of language groups. It is found that the greatest transmission of ethnic-languages is in Quebec, whereas majority of immigrants have concentrated in Ontario and British Columbia, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver. This demonstrates the greatest use of non-official languages as a home language of immigrant in Quebec compare to other provinces. The declared reasons to clarify this situation in Quebec are generally linked to Quebec’s unique linguistic complexity (French as the official language of Quebec). The situation in Montreal, the largest city in Quebec province, is a bit different from the rest of Quebec. Montreal as a bilingual city is the second largest French city in the world. In doing so, whereas Francophones make up about 80% of the province's total population but they only account approximately 60% population of Montreal. The very concept of a homogeneous Francophone population was complicated to maintained, particularly in Montreal, but, as in many other international contexts, the reality of multiple identities among immigrants and their children was becoming more evident (McAndrew, 2007).
As aforementioned, host language proficiency plays a significant role in the integration process of immigrants within a new land especially in an intercultural society. It is evident that people who first learn a language in adulthood such as many first-generation immigrant parents who start speaking or learning host language upon arrival in the new country hardly acquire native-like competences in the target language. Indeed, immigrant parents are more likely to learn host language slower and to preserve and use ethnic language at home (Oh & Fuligni, 2010). Majority of first-generation immigrant parents cannot communicate effectively with their descendants thanks to language barriers. Immigrant parents, using host language, may thus feel unable to convey their thoughts and emotions fully to their children, leading to an imperfect parent–child relationship; consequently, it is possible that parents who are less fluent in host
language, use their heritage language in communication with their children (Oh & Fuligni, 2010). Considering the fact that integration of first-generation in French language is more complicated than English thus immigrant parents in Quebec are more likely to use ancestral language in communication with their children than others in English provinces.
1.4. Factors which promote the use of heritage language at home
The vital key to maintain the ancestral languages between generations is speaking them in everyday life. Using these languages at home is specifically significant, since passing them on to descendants depends, mostly, on home use. It is noteworthy to mention that home language is closely tied to the composition of families or households. One of the most significant components is the presence of a spouse who speaks the same ancestral language. When a spouse does not speak the ancestral language, the couple switches to host language (Turcotte, 2006). Indeed, marriage structure including endogamous or exogamous family influences home language and transmission the ancestral languages to the children. Indeed, those people whose parents both had the same mother tongue were more likely to learn this language as their own mother tongue than persons whose parents had different mother tongues. This second group was more likely to speak English or French with their parents (Houle, 2015; Turcotte, 2006). Moreover, individuals who live in the same household as their parents are much more likely to use their ancestral language regularly at home than those who do not live with their parents.
Along with the living with parents, the presence of persons within the family who know neither English nor French enhances the use of the ancestral language. This effect is also seen within a language community when many members are not proficient in the host language. When close relatives including grandparents, aunts, uncles and a nanny from ethnic community who speak a heritage language live in the home, the frequency of dialogues in the ethnic language enhances, and, depending on their English proficiency, the child may be encouraged or required to talk to them in the heritage language (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002; Houle, 2015). Additionally, the presence of pre-school aged children reinforces the use of heritage
language. Parents tend to use their heritage language when there are preschool-aged children at home (Turcotte, 2006).
The ancestral language in common-law families is less likely to use at home than married families. Common-law families are a less classical union framework than marriage, and ethnic-language use might thus be less widespread in them. Some scholars believe that marriage is a kind of pairing that is more favorable than common-law union to the engagement of the partners’ extended families. Given common-law unions might be discouraged in some cultures where traditional family esteems and its values are very strong and in which intergenerational ties and warm climate are mainly found (Houle, 2015). Familial communications are naturally interactive, and parents and children influence each other. On the one hand, supportive household climate may facilitate the use of ancestral language as a home language. On the other hand, in supportive climate, parents may modify their behaviors based on children’s trajectories of heritage language development. Consequently, children’s earlier ancestral language use and proficiency may potentially make later parental behaviors (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012).
Indeed, constant influx of new immigrants had a positive influence on the preservation of immigrant ancestral language. These new immigrants generally do not have a good knowledge of the official languages and tend to concentrate in ethnic neighborhoods where the use of host languages is less pervasive and may be considered as less essential in daily life (Houle, 2015). Likewise, communication with ethnic friends, and access to heritage language schools strengthen ancestral language maintenance (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). In addition to abovementioned factors which influence heritage language preservation, some factors reinforce the heritage language retention including a) families’ positive perspective towards the ancestral language, b) families’ attempts to sustain and use the heritage language, c) regular visits to the home country and/or enhanced visits from relatives, d) proximity to ethnic community, religious places, and schools, and e) regular contact with institutions that encourage the ancestral language (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012).
In summary, immigrant heritage language is considered as non-majority language that is spoken and used by people who are regarded to be a linguistic minority. In other word, it is vital to identify that mother tongue input is not typically provided in mainstream host society; thus ancestral language preservation occur mainly at home and may occur in ethnic neighborhood and/or community if exist (Hoff, 2006; Winter & Pauwels, 2005). The use of the ancestral language is usually limited to interactions with the older member of family including parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Furthermore, exposure to one's immigrant language can also happen outside the home, including through contact with other co-ethnic children who know those languages and newly arrived migrants with restricted knowledge of host language and participation in various activities organized by other people with the same mother tongue (Harrison, 1997).
1.5. Factors which reinforce heritage language transmission
Whereas immigrants learn English but they mainly prefer to speak their heritage language, particularly at home. Indeed, international immigrants often introduce home country to their children, thus trying to give the children a motivation to master the parental language to be able to interact there. Additionally, learning of host language for immigrants who live in a neighbor with large concentrations of their co-ethnics may appear less necessary; therefore, it may cause the increase of immigrant languages use. Consequently, immigrant children usually acquire ethnic language and grow up as bilinguals but many of them prefer to use host language at home (Turcotte, 2006). In this regard, some factors reinforce heritage language acquisition and use by immigrant children in a host country.
The age and sex of children influence heritage language acquisition. The younger children, the more acquired of parental language (Houle, 2015). Cognitive scientists believe that languages are acquired more easily at very young ages. Therefore, language proficiency should be rather stable by this period. Additionally, not only gender roles play a considerable role in language maintenance but also male child is less likely to use mother tongue at home (Oh &
Fuligni, 2010). Female child due to the more communication with mothers are more likely to learn and use the parental language than male child. Masculine and feminine subjects are not static, unique and discreet. Various femininities and masculinities are socially shaped and negotiated in context. Language choices, maintenance or alteration patterns are moderated and changed through speakers’ multiple identities including their gender and the more universal socio-cultural prescriptions, symbols, values and ideologies (Winter & Pauwels, 2005).
The number of children in the family influences heritage language transmission. The first born offspring may encounter a different social and linguistic environment than do later born children as well. First born children, who are the only children for a long time, have greater possibilities for communicative relationships with adults and much more exposure to adults’ child-directed conversation than later-borns ever do. Given that communicative opportunities rely on mutual participation thus presence of sibling restricts the amount of interacting with parents; consequently, each child receives less conversation directed exclusively at him or her because mothers make the same amount of dialogue whether communicating with one or two children. In other word, the functions of mothers’ conversation vary depending on whether they are communicating with one or two children. The language environments of first and later born children differ because the older siblings play an important role as a source of input to the youngest siblings. Older siblings differ from mothers in the conversation they address to young children: their conversation is structurally less complicated, and uses a smaller vocabulary (Hoff, 2006).
It goes without saying that the unique challenge in ancestral language proficiency is restricted access to a rich linguistic environment of ancestral language in the host society (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012). Therefore, parents’ positive view and families’ attempts to provide opportunities for children to acquire the mother tongue and use it at home appear to be of paramount importance. Immigrant families try to reinforce the children’s heritage language skills comprised reading children’s books and folk anecdote from the home culture, reading the religious books in the home language. Furthermore, immigrant parents try to participate in ethnic association, events and places including religious places, educational institutions and have
relationships with peer groups. Moreover, the different use of technology including television, videos or DVDs, and audiobooks in the heritage language, deemed to positively impact children’s mother tongue skills (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). Language acquisition via some technologies such as television, internet, social media differ from language exposure through social communication because watching television is not a mutual activity and the child has a passive role (Hoff, 2006).
Szecsi and Szilagyi (2012) have documented technology as a bridge to ancestral language. During the past decade, technology has caused various changes in different domains and has transformed our lives. The development and availability of varied media technologies have changed the way people live, work, and communicate. Media sources have also been found beneficial for communication with distant relatives and mother tongue development. Using technology not only enriches children linguistic competences but also it causes strong ties with distant relatives and provides an understanding of the home country history and culture including holidays and customs. As children learn the heritage language, they not only acquire vocabulary and grammatical structure, but also promote their sociolinguistic skills. Many scholars have reported that contemporary immigrants have achieved regularity through contact with and travel to homelands. Regular travels to home country connect immigrant children to its language, culture and tradition.
Szecsi & Szilagyi (2012) have found that children’s use of new technologies in the heritage language improves their speaking and listening skills. They show the role of books, movies, television programmes, and cartoons on video or DVD from the heritage culture as well as internet, social media, interactive games, online chat, Facebook massages and texting with cell phone in enriching children’s listening and speaking skills in mother tongue. Furthermore, the importance of adults’ active engagement in this process should be noted. Additionally, social networking websites, email and some software like Skype, which provide a telephone and video calling service over the World, produce new opportunities to connect immigrants with their relatives in the heritage country. Consequently, through these technologies and virtual lives,
(Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). However, once children grow up and leave their parents’ home and make their own family their use of the mother tongue shows an evident decline (Turcotte, 2006). Once immigrant children make their own family and have their own children they use the official language at home.
1.6. Bilingualism as a social capital in Canadian context
Language is considered as a means for transmitting the cultural legacy among generations. Immigrant parents may consider ancestral language learning as a factor that influences ethnic culture transmission and preservation. Furthermore, research has also proved a link between parental cultural preservation values and children’s mother tongue. Immigrant parents, in order to support cultural maintenance, can involve in a variety of behaviors that ease the transmission of values to their children. Therefore, parents who value cultural preservation may strongly pass on their ancestral language to the next generation, especially by using the ethnic language at home. Nevertheless, there is variability in the degree to which immigrant parents positively facilitate children’s development of mother tongue. It seems that even when parents keep opinions committed to cultural and linguistic preservation, there are different levels of success in nurturing bilingual children (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012).
In consistent with above lines, those parents who desire to maintain their cultural values and customs are doubtless more likely to preserve language of origin across generations. For instance, parents may encourage their children to follow culture-specific educational ideals or aims that do not have equivalents in the host country’s culture; such that, these ideals or aims cannot be translated into the host language. As a result, children may find it easier to conceive and adopt parental expectations or aspirations that are connected via language of origin. This aspect is even more common if parents have restricted proficiency in the host language. In this case, parents may more easily connect their expectations or other popular resources to the children via ancestral language. Lastly, the effects of language of origin should be more
announced in immigrant groups that are identified by strong ethnic identities that oppose to mainstream culture (Strobel, 2016).
Immigrant children through socialization learn mother tongue. In doing so, knowledge of parental language facilitates the communication with the family members including relatives and grandparents in the home country and it, in fact, causes transnational relationships. In other word, heritage language preservation keeps immigrant children in touch with the parental homeland. Additionally, ancestral language enables individuals to declare their feelings in the easiest way. Likewise, the mother tongue is a means to transmit values, customs and traditions from generation to generation. This enables immigrants to keep their own culture alive, feel part of an ethnic community, and identify in it. The preservation of the mother tongue is deemed an individual choice and it can be made easy by settling in a neighborhood with a large concentration of native speakers (Caneva & Pozzi, 2014).
Some scholars consider ancestral language as a social capital and an ethnic resource. Immigrant parents disputably prefer to express particular emotional feels and sentiments in their language of origin. Therefore, the use of mother tongue at home leads to more intimate relationship and increasing social control. Tseng & Fuligni (2000) have explored those adolescents who use the same language as their parents experience more cohesion and emotional closeness with parents than those who use different language (host language) in communication with their parents. In other word, second generation who use mother tongue at home may benefit from close relationship with their parents. Longitudinal research demonstrates that relationship quality predicts shift in family language use, but family language use does not predict later relationship quality. Likewise, the use of language origin may be significant for the development of parent-child communications even when the offspring is very young. Meanwhile, the relationship between family cohesion and language use may be interdependent. When children have developed close bonds with their parents, they are more likely to use their mother tongue to respect their parents’ desires. If adolescents continue speaking the ancestral language at home, they display a gratefulness of their membership in an ethnic community and assert ethnic
solidarity. Consequently, within language origin-speaking families, enhanced communications and eased mobilization of parental resources can be expected (Strobel, 2016).
Strong intergenerational relationship in the family and the ethnic group is not the unique benefit of bilingualism and biculturalism that have been documented. Research uncovers that bilingual people are likely to establish a well-balanced cultural identity because ethnic language can be a means or an aim in the maintenance of cultural identity. In other word, due to cultural identity and awareness are linked to language, the heritage language is considered as a significant factor in shaping strong cultural identities; therefore, linguistic identity provides cultural subject. Bilingual children’s second language learning can be developed by using the strong underpinnings of their ethnic language, and skills in the heritage language can be passed on to a second language (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012).
Given that educational success is a significant sign of immigrants’ social and linguistic integration, thus; whether the maintenance of the ancestral language within immigrant families influence descendant’s achievements is highly discussed. Some scholars are concerned whether bilingualism restrict or facilitate children’s achievements in host society. Some believe that immigrant students who communicate with their parents in their language of origin are at a disadvantage because they may have fewer opportunities to participate in host society because they may have lower host language proficiency. By contrast, some researchers referring to the theory of segmented assimilation suggest that maintaining one’s language of origin can be advantageous because it reinforces ethnic solidarities and develops the transmission of social capital. According to this perspective, students who acquire host language proficiency but use their mother tongue at home could benefit from additional supports that are not available to immigrants who speak only the host language (Strobel, 2016). Indeed, they believe that knowledge of an official and a non-official language as well as a strong ethnic identity, can play somehow a role in children’s educational success. Studies show bilingual adolescents have higher educational achievement than their co-ethnic monolingual peers (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012).
In accordance with above lines, some scholars and policy makers believe that full linguistic integration in a host country is essential to achieve opportunities for socioeconomic mobility in a host country, normally related to entry into the mainstream. However, some scholars respond that bilingualism is not in contrast with full linguistic integration and they believe that bilingualism can bring equal, if not larger, advantages (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002). Bilingual and bicultural individuals enjoy the economic benefits of being more marketable owing to their unique skills, and society makes use of their ability when they are hired in diplomacy, business, education, and national security (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). Research demonstrate that learning mother tongue may equip children with some socio-economic advantageous (Turcotte, 2006). For example, an socio-economic motivation to maintain a parental language is identified into the ethnic economic enclave such as participation in family business. Involvement in such sub-business needs fluency in the ethnic language and culture and encourages the retention of ethnic language across the generations (Alba et al., 2002). Likewise, in neighborhoods with a high share of co-ethnics, fluency in an ancestral language can cause participation in ethnic businesses and social life (Turcotte, 2006).
1.7. Factors which cause the use of official language at home and heritage language loss
It is noteworthy to mention that not all immigrant parents and even not all language communities are equally tend to pass on their ancestral language to the next generation (Turcotte, 2006). Community’s encouragement or rejection and lack of family and community facilities for developing ancestral language and culture skills also influence heritage language loss and use of official language at home (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). Some immigrant parents may feel forced to discourage their children’s use of ancestral language at home owing to concerns that their children will be at an educational or economic disadvantage if they are not fluent in a host language. Indeed, they try to assist their children to learn the new language by neglecting the ethnic language. Therefore, in spite of strong desire of some immigrant families to maintain the heritage language, the host language has become dominant in their communications at home (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). Also of note, scholars, policy-makers and teachers often assert concerns that the linguistic challenges linked to immigrant-background children’s bilingual
status might prevent their progress somehow. In doing so, some scholars are concerned that the proficiency of immigrant children in a host language may be hindered because of exposure a monolingual ancestral language environment in the parental home. These scholars are concerned by the effects of host language deficiencies onthe labour market outcomes of immigrant children (Casey & Dustmann, 2008). These researchers emphasize on use of official language at home.
Whereas some scholars, for instance Fillmore (1991), believe that mother tongue loss resulted in serious interruptions in the parent–child relationship; others have, in fact, suggested that mother tongue loss may not inevitably deteriorate relationship or weaken familial ties. Some scholars believe that children’s heritage language loss has been a cause of worsening immigrant family relationship quality. Usita & Blieszner (2002) affirmed that immigrant families are able to constitute policies for coping with relationship barriers. They have explored that immigrant families, using official language at home, accommodate to communication difficulties in ways that diminish struggles and increase emotional closeness. Parents and children who feel closer and who involve in more conversation tend to switch to use the same language, and this shift in language use usually indicates parents switching from ancestral language to official language use. Therefore, children’s levels of mother tongue ability may form linguistic behaviors of their parents (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012).It is perceivable that dissonant language integration presents difficulties but also poses occasions for positive adaptation.
Moreover, English or French is an official or national language in a number of countries. These languages are more likely to be adopted as home language by immigrants who are from these countries or those who might have a very good knowledge of these languages. Some scholars believe that the anglophone tradition of parents' home country may diminish the tendency to use the ancestral language at home. Additionally, immigrants who arrived at younger ages integrate economically and linguistically into the receiving society more easily than their parents. Their knowledge of the official languages is better than that of their parents, and it seems likely some of them choose the official language as a home language (Houle, 2015). Unfortunately, some children may lose or fail to promote proficiency in their ancestral language because of use of host language at home. It is troubling that children from immigrant family lose
or fail to develop fluency in their heritage language because young children enable to acquire multiple languages and develop bilingual proficiency (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012).
In spite of the assumption that the cultural resources in high-status families may cause fluent bilingual descendants, the probability that a child will communicate only in host language enhances with the parents' average educational achievement. Indeed, some studies suggest that persons with a higher level of education have a greater tendency to use the host language at home. In result, it seems that parents’ education also influence passing on an ancestral language to their children. For instance, the higher level of education the mothers, the lower the learned parents’ mother tongue as their first language (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002; Houle, 2015; Turcotte, 2006). Such an outcome is possibly linked to the concerns that the most educated parents try to increase their children’s chances for success in Canada by adopting English or French as a home language. It has been demonstrated that the children of first-generation immigrant professionals who live away from ethnic communities are predicted to lose their heritage language and integrate into host language (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). Also of note, children from low-income families expose to mother tongue attrition compared to their middle-class counterparts (Park, Tsai, Liu, & Lau, 2012).
Furthermore, as immigrant children begin to use largely host language at home many parents are obliged to speak host language to their children, even though they may have restricted knowledge in that language (Oh & Fuligni, 2010). Immigrant children prefer to use English even in speaking with their immigrant parents whereas they may grow up as bilinguals. Furthermore, some studies show parents diminish their use of ethnic language as their children start to speak host language at home. Therefore, second generation mainly speaks English at home when its members establish their own family. In result, by the third generation, the general pattern is official language monolingualism, and knowledge of the heritage language for most ethnics is partial at best (Alba, Logan, Lutz, & Stults, 2002). Even more alarming, some scholars believe that heritage language within the third generations in most immigrant families is totally lost. Indeed, this classical pattern in which one’s own cultural characteristics and heritage
language are lost as an outcome of assimilation to host culture may result in negative outcomes for some immigrant groups (Oh & Fuligni, 2010).
Therefore, these concerns have influenced many to support monolingual official language uses, from parents who prefer to speak only official language at home to teachers and policy-makers who support an official language concentration model in the education institutions. Furthermore, educational policies that require instruction in the official language with little or no attention to the heritage language as well as some teachers’ limited knowledge- or shortage of knowledge– of the positive influences of bilingualism, have been explored to maximize the harmful effects on heritage language maintenance (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). It has been documented that in well-organized bilingual education programs that preserve support in both languages, children exhibit important advances in both official and the ethnic language. Despite proficiency in host language is clearly significant for success in a host country but it does not essentially have to come at the loss of the ancestral language (Oh & Fuligni, 2010). Although, some scholars believe use of official language at home leads to ancestral language loss.
The consequences of ancestral language loss are often negative, affecting immigrant children’s cultural identity, their relation with parents and grandparents and their educational achievements. When ancestral language loss happens, the individual, family, community, and society all suffer from the outcomes. In relation to family, in fact, the experiences of adults who have grown up in immigrant-background families manifest that interruption in family communications do happen as a consequence of children’s shift to official language monolingualism. Generally, even regular relationship with parents is interrupted by language barriers, resulting in unnecessary disputes with parents. Children’s refusal to use the ancestral language can also be a perpetual source of arguments between parents and children. Moreover, in many cases, language barriers can prevent parents and children from communicating about their aims and achievements. Interruptions related to a lack of proficiency in the heritage language extend also beyond the family (Oh & Fuligni, 2010).
Moreover, the negative outcomes of restricted heritage language proficiencies are not limited to family relationship but heritage language loss comprises an inability to communicate with relatives, the shunning of contact with speakers of the ethnic language, feelings of alienation from the ethnic community, separation from the immediate family, and an inability in transmitting family cultural values and customs that express intergenerational wisdom (Szecsi & Szilagyi, 2012). Children and adults who have limited proficiency in their parental language announce feeling isolated from their ethnic groups, and this incapacity to involve in these communities can have significant outcomes for the development of ethnic identity. Heritage language not only allows people to engage more in their ethnic communities, but also the ancestral language can be used (or not used) by the speaker to signify identification (or lack thereof) with their ethnic group. In addition, language itself is a vital factor influence cultural identity, particularly for language minority individuals (Oh & Fuligni, 2010). Consequently, ethnic language loss often provokes the loss of cultural identity and a sense of belonging to their ethnic. Since language is likely one dimension of a sense of belonging, individuals who have a greater sense of belonging to their ethnic group are more likely to use the ancestral language at home. However, using an ancestral language may, in turn, reinforce one’s sense of belonging (Turcotte, 2006).
1.8.Literature review
Immigrant language preservation in Canada is not considerably different from the situation in the United States. Majority of studies concentrate mostly on heritage language transmission to the subsequent generations. In the United States, research demonstrate that the knowledge and use of ethnic languages have almost faded to the benefit of English among, if not the second, third generation. In Canada, research show somewhat more balanced consequences. Whereas European immigrants have had more difficulty maintaining their language among generations, more recent immigrant groups, for example those who speak Arabic, Spanish, Chinese or Punjabi, are mainly more likely to preserve theirs (Houle, 2015). It is the ‘marriage market,’ more than any other factor, which influences heritage language maintenance over time. As many researches have cited, shaping an exogamous unity notably diminishes
immigrant-language preservation. Canadian-born daughters of immigrant mothers are presented a marriage market dominated by a large potential partners with English or French as their parental language who do not know the immigrant languages (Houle, 2015).
Research shows that ethnic groups have different tendency in sustaining their ancestral languages. For instance, Turcotte (2006) found that immigrants whose ancestral language was Punjabi, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean or Greek were most likely to learn these languages as their mother tongues. Individuals with Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Semitic, Niger-Congo and Creole ancestral languages were least likely to do so. Likewise, Houle, (2015) report that, in 2006 in Canada, the four ethnic languages transmitted most often were Armenian, Punjabi, Bengali and Urdu. He concludes that the transmission of some languages such as Dutch, Italian, Creole, Tagalog as a mother tongue do not exceed 20%. In doing so, it is mentioned that language transmission for the Armenian, Punjabi, Chinese, Persian, Turkish, Bengali and Urdu groups exceed 70%. In doing so, Kargar & Rezai (2014), in the studying a group of Iranian immigrants in Canada, have found that the majority of participants have preserved native like heritage language proficiency in Canadian context. They have discovered that participants used the heritage language frequently in different circumstances.
Houle (2015) has also asserted that immigrant languages were transmitted to 41% of Canadian-born children in 1981 while it increases to 55% in 2006. In mentioned study, it is displayed that whereas 41% of mothers transmitted their language to their children in 1981, the corresponding number for their daughters 25 years later, in 2006, was only 23%. It should be noted that, between 1981 and 2006, characteristics of women have changed. In 2006, 28% of mothers had university degree whereas it is 7% in 1981. Additionally, in 1981, immigrants mainly came from European countries to Canada whereas in 2006 majority of immigrants came from Asian and Latin American countries. Moreover, in 2006, 53% of mothers came from a country where English or French had a special status whereas in 1981 it was only 13%. In addition, whereas the majority of immigrant women (79%) in 2006 had a co-ethnic spouse, more than half of their daughters (55%) in 2006 were living in an exogamous union. It is noteworthy to mention that second-generation who had become mothers in 2006 had spent their whole
