Public Lecture: Tell me where you are from, and I will tell you what language you will speak: cultural heritage and language maintenance in immigrants

During the week 03-07 December 2018 Dr. Olga Ivanova, Assistant Professor from University of Salamanca (Spain) will be visiting Communication Management department at Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School.

Lecture title: "Tell me where you are from, and I will tell you what language you will speak: cultural heritage and language maintenance in immigrants”

Abstract: The culture of origin is directly relevant to the maintenance of heritage languages in immigrants. Whilst some cultures of origin foster a strong loyalty to native language, others lead to immediate, even first-generation native language replacement and loss. Although sociolinguistic factors like attitudes, motivation or self-esteem are highly responsible for the outcome, the receiving settings are also of key importance for our understanding of how the culture of origin predicts language maintenance in immigrants. This lecture discusses several real cases, which illustrate the differences in attitudes towards heritage language maintenance in immigrant families in accordance with their culture of origin, and addresses the key sociolinguistic variables responsible for the course chosen.

More information available from:
Dr. Anastassia Zabrodskaja
Visiting Professor of Intercultural Communication
Head of Communication Management program at Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School (Tallinn, Estonia)
e-mail: anastassia.zabrodskaja@tlu.ee