Exploring the Relationship betweenFamily Language Policy and HeritageLanguage Knowledge Among SecondGeneration Russian�Jewish Immigrantsin Israel

Mila SchwartzBen-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

The family unit and home domain have been and remain important in heritagelanguage maintenance efforts. There are complex relationships between parentallanguage attitudes, their application in everyday language management activitiesand the children’s knowledge of home language vocabulary. The present large-scalestudy examined the family policy factors affecting first language (L1) maintenanceamong second generation Russian�Jewish immigrants in Israel in light of Spolsky’s(2004) model of language policy. Participants in the study were 70 Russian�Hebrew-speaking children with a mean age of 7,2 (years, months). After investigating thefactors that influence Russian vocabulary knowledge, I constructed a compositemeasure of Russian lexical knowledge. In addition, structured questionnaires forparents and children were developed to collect data on language policy at home. Theresults attest to the crucial role of teaching literate L1 in both family and non-formaleducational settings and to the children’s positive approach toward home languageacquisition. A range of non-linguistic factors (demographic, social and cultural)creates a favourable background for the survival of the heritage language amongemigrants. At the same time, the data reveal inconsistencies in language policy athome and a tendency toward the co-existence of the first and second languages.

doi: 10.1080/01434630802147916

Keywords: family language policy, heritage language maintenance, second generationof immigrants, Russian�Jewish immigrants in Israel, lexical knowledge in L1

IntroductionWidespread migration of populations across national and continental

boundaries is one of the defining characteristics of the 20th century. The topicof immigration must focus inevitably, among other things, on home language(L1) maintenance and loss and on the models and strategies used to retain anddevelop it among future generations born in the host country. These issuescontinue to arouse increasing interest because of the dynamic nature of thecontextual factors affecting L1 maintenance in different socio-cultural,linguistic, political and economic situations (Baker, 2001; Fishman, 1991, 2001).

The present study investigated the socio-linguistic factors favouringvocabulary knowledge in L1 among second generation immigrants. I exploredthese factors by adapting Spolsky’s (2004) language policy model to the family

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level. Spolsky (2004: 5) distinguished three components in the language policyof a speech community: ‘‘its language practices � the habitual pattern ofselecting among the varieties that make up its linguistic repertoire; itslanguage beliefs or ideology � the beliefs about language and language use;and any specific efforts to modify or influence that practice by any kind oflanguage intervention, planning or management’’. Spolsky (2004) maintainedthat as in any other social unit, language policy at the family level maybe analysed with reference to language ideology, practice and management.The family is considered as an extremely important domain for studyinglanguage policy because of its critical role in forming the child’s linguisticenvironment. Therefore, the present study is aimed at exploring the nature ofrelationships between the three components of the family language policy �ideology, management and practice � and the children’s knowledge of homelanguage vocabulary.

The following general features have emerged from the study of familypolicy factors affecting heritage language development among secondgeneration immigrants. First, for children born in the host country acquisitionof the native language is unstable and incomplete. Nevertheless, withlinguistic input, even if limited, it continues to develop. Second, simulta-neously with these processes, enhanced input of L2 as a socially dominantlanguage usually ‘‘defeats’’ the child’s home language even in families andcommunities that are strongly motivated to preserve it (Kaufman, 2004;Seville-Troike, 2000). Finally, the acquisition, development and maintenance ofL1 across generations are encouraged and stimulated by family efforts totransmit its written form (Baker, 1993; Cummins, 2000; Seville-Troike, 2000).

Despite these common characteristics, it is necessary to investigate whichcomponents of the family language policy may, as sociolinguistic factors,accelerate or arrest home language maintenance. These components tend tovary from one language community to another. In most situations, the extent ofknowledge of the heritage language is likely to be related to a complexinteraction of many factors, and the same family-related factors that promoteintergenerational language transmission in one group may lead to languageshift in other ethnolinguistic groups (Kaufman, 2004; Kloss, 1966; Spolsky,2004). It is important, therefore, to examine each ethnolinguistic groupindividually. In this context, the focus on the last wave of Russian�Jewish(RJ) immigration from the former Soviet Union (FSU) to Israel provides aunique and intriguing case study of how family policy can enhance homelanguage transmission. The demographic, sociocultural, linguistic andpsychological distinctiveness of this immigration (Ben-Rafael et al., 1997;Donitsa-Schmidt, 1999; Leshem & Lissak, 1999) makes it an ideal subject ofstudy. Until now, the quantitative research on language family policy amongthe RJ community has focused mostly on adult and adolescent immigrants(Donitsa-Schmidt, 1999; Olshtain & Kotik, 2000). No empirical data exist onlanguage family determinants of L1 vocabulary mastery among the secondgeneration. The present study attempts to begin filling this void.

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Prerequisites of home language knowledge among second generationRJ immigrants in Israel

One of the main non-linguistic factors that affect home language survivalamong second generation immigrants is the demographic profile of theimmigrant community, namely, the absolute number of immigrants speakingthe language and their geographic distribution in the host country (Giles et al.,1977). The last wave of RJ immigration to Israel (since 1998 to the present) hasbeen distinguished from previous flows mainly by its massive and intensivecharacter. According to government sources, over 835,000 immigrants,approximately one-sixth of the total population of Israel, arrived in thecountry between 1989 and 1999 (Yelenevskaya & Fialkova, 2003). In addition, arelatively high concentration of the immigrant population in certain neigh-bourhoods provides demographically a Russian-speaking socio-linguisticmilieu (The Central Bureau of Statistics, 1998).

The large-scale character of this immigration may explain the avowedpolicy of this community to retain its language of origin, Russian. This strongcommitment to the heritage language can be regarded as an application ofFishman’s Reversing Language Shift theory (RLS) (1991, 2001), which seeks toserve as a directive for worldwide attempts to support minority languages(such as Russian in Israel). The Russian language has attained the status of oneof Israel’s main languages (Olstein, 1995), after Hebrew (the official language)and English. A state-sponsored Russian-language radio network and TVchannel, and the publication of some 50 Russian-language newspapers andmagazines attest to its importance.

Another factor strongly associated with Fishman’s (1991, 2001) RLS theoryis the RJ immigrants’ tendency to appreciate their original culture, which canapparently encourage them to maintain their language of origin and promoteits acquisition by their children, including those who were born in Israel(Ben-Rafael et al., 1997; Donitsa-Schmidt, 1999; Leshem & Lissak, 1999). Theassertion of RJ immigrants’ original cultural identity underlies one of thestated aims of language policy at the community level: the promotion of asupplementary private Russian-language education system (non-formal edu-cation) designed to preserve the cultural heritage and the mother tongue in itsliterate form among Israeli-born Russian�Hebrew speaking (RHS) children(see Epstein & Kheimets, 2000), which is the target population of our study. Insum, to verify empirically the relationship between the immigrants’ declaredcommitment to Russian intergenerational transmission and actual languagemanagement and practice in the home, it is necessary to conduct a large-scalequantitative research.

The unique characteristics of the RJ community, as mentioned above, have asubstantial effect on the construction of the immigrants’ attitudes toward theacquisition of the Russian language by the younger generation. As shown in aprevious study by Kopeliovich (2006), family language ideology can affectparental language practice and result in promoting specific educational goalswith a definite orientation, for example, using only Russian in familycommunication and imposing a penalty on the use of Hebrew. At the same

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time, earlier research focusing on adult and adolescent populations of RJimmigrants has shown a greater tendency toward the co-existence of bothlanguages at home than toward using only Russian in the family (Olshtain etal., 2000). This orientation may be attributed to the fact that together with astrong identification with Russian culture this immigration is also determinedto integrate within Israeli society and to contribute to its economic progress(Ben-Rafael et al., 1997).

Note, however, that the declared family language ideology does notnecessarily coincide with covert or less consciously held family languageapproaches (De Houwer, 1999; Fishman, 1985; Goodz, 1994; Kopeliovich, 2006;Kouzmin, 1988; Spolsky, 2004). Therefore, to explore whether parentallanguage ideology indeed guides the family’s language management strate-gies and contributes to the children’s L1 lexical knowledge, I examined therelationship between the former and the latter. In addition, I investigated thelink between parental reports on language ideology and their children’s actualgains in L1 vocabulary by means of the children’s self-reports about theirattitudes toward the intergenerational transmission of the home language (i.e.children’s language ideology). Although some caution is apparently necessarywith regard to the validity of children’s reports (Mackey & Gass, 2005), I foundit important to incorporate the children’s inputs to create a more comprehen-sive and broader picture of family language policy. When considering thestrengths and limitations of the data emerging from children’s reports, weshould take into account that (1) even if it is not safe to assume that children’sviews were fully reflected in what they say, we expect children not to try toplease the researcher by providing expected answers during interviewsessions (i.e. a halo effect); and (2) children’s language ideology seems to beconsiderably affected both by parental language ideology and by the actualimplementation of the language policy at home, and therefore it was essentialfor the present study to examine both.

In addition to the factors favouring the survival of the heritage languageamong RHS children, there are several sociocultural and linguistic aspects thatmay hamper the intergenerational transmission of Russian as a home languageand consequently affect the implementation of the family language policy. TheIsraeli linguistic situation is more complicated than that in other countriesestablished and built largely by immigrants, such as the USA and Canada. InIsrael language is a loaded concept, closely linked to ideological, political andsocial issues (Shohamy, 1994). Hebrew was revived as a spoken language onlya century ago, and it occupies a central role in Israeli society. As animmigration absorbing country, Israel expects all new immigrants to acquireHebrew as part of their adaptation and assimilation within the current society.Consequently, bilingual children born in Israel are brought up in a non-additive Hebrew environment within the framework of official preschool andschool education. Although in recent years there has been a more liberal policytoward maintenance of the immigrants’ languages of origin, it seems that forIsraeli-born RHS children Hebrew becomes a language of high value and asymbol of national identity, inevitably replacing their home language.

Although Russian is a powerful language within Israeli society, it is far frombeing perceived as a Language of Wider Communication (LWC), unlike

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English, which has gained a special status in Israel as an important means ofadvancement in society (Olshtain et al., 2000). One would expect, therefore,parental efforts toward developing the Russian language in their children to beweakened by powerful social and economic factors.

The present study is aimed at extending our knowledge about socioculturaland linguistic input factors that affect the lexical knowledge of the heritagelanguage among second generation immigrants. Based on Spolsky’s (2004)model described above, the present research is guided by the question of howfamily language policy (language ideology, management and practice)influences bilingual children’s L1 vocabulary skills.

The independent variables included in the research were parents’ andchildren’s language ideology (i.e. attitudes), parents’ language practice (i.e.language choice with children) and parents’ language management (i.e.teaching L1 literacy to their children). The dependent variable was Russian(L1) lexical knowledge.

MethodParticipants

The sample consisted of 70 Russian�Hebrew speaking children. Their agesranged from 6,11 to 7,5 (years, months) with a mean age of 7,2 (years, months).Participants were selected from 12 elementary schools (24 classrooms) situatedin the northern region of Israel, including the city of Haifa and its neighbouringmunicipal councils, where the population is predominantly of middle�lowsocio-economic status. The sample was part of a wide-scale research projectaimed at investigating determinants of success in L1/L2 vocabulary mastery.All participants attended kindergartens and schools in which Hebrew (L2) wasthe language of formal instruction and communication.

Parental consent of approximately 70% of the students was obtained bycommunicating directly with RHS parents during parent�teacher conferencesat the beginning of the school year. Seventy bilingual children were selected onthe basis of the following inclusion criteria: (1) speaking Russian as the firstand dominant language at home; (2) Israeli-born (n�65) or immigrated toIsrael at least 5 years before the start of schooling, that is before the age of twoyears (n�5) (Israeli children begin school at age 6); (3) being free of severehearing, visual or neurological impairments. The immigrant families’ resi-dence in Israel was relatively long (M�11.6; SD�3.93). The parents werebetween 30 and 50 years of age, and had one to three children. Ten of thefamilies that consented to participate in the study reported single parentstatus.

I also collected data on the socio-economic index of each school involved inthe study. This index is calculated based on the parents’ reports regarding theirincome, vocation and occupation, and a ranking of the families’ residentialarea. In Israeli schools, the socio-economic index (SE index) is measured on a10-point scale ranging from 1 to 10, with higher scores indicating lower SES. Inthe present study, the SE index for the schools ranged from 4.25 to 7.40 (M�5.3; SD�0.93). Nevertheless, the level of education reported by the parents

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was relatively high (M�14.0; SD�1.53 in years): all parents had a minimumof a high school diploma (10 years of education in the FSU); and 43% of thewomen and 47% of the men had earned a university degree (a minimum 5years of education). These data are consistent with the fact that the last wave ofRJ immigration to Israel was characterised by a high level of education andincluded an array of academic and white-collar professions. Despite highproficiency in Hebrew, the immigrants were not assured of appropriatepositions because of the excessive supply of highly skilled individuals amongthem (Menahem & Gajst, 2000). Thus, one of the most distinguishing featuresof this immigration is the mismatch between the relatively low socio-economicstatus of the community and its rather high educational level.

Measures

Parents’ questionnaire (Moin, Schwartz, Kozminsky & Leikin, 2006)The questionnaire was based in part on an existing questionnaire

(Donitsa-Schmidt, 1999) and was developed in part specifically for this study.The questionnaire took approximately 30 minutes to complete and includedthe following five parts (numbered A to E):

A. Demographic and background information. Seven items requestinginformation about the year of immigration, marital status, educational levelof both parents, profession of both parents, schooling in Israel, number of closefriends, number of Russian-speaking friends and parents’ assessment of theamount of time they and their parents spend with the child on a given day.

B. Language practice. Parents were asked to state which language theyused: only Russian (1), only Hebrew (2) or both Russian and Hebrew (3), withspouse, parents and offspring, and in various leisure-time situations thatnecessitate the use of language (e.g. reading books for pleasure, readingnewspapers, listening to radio programmes and watching TV). Seven itemswere included. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.69.

C. Language management. Four items asking parents about the presence inthe home of children’s literature in the target language, whether they used toread to their child in Russian only, Hebrew only or in both Russian andHebrew, whether their child has learned to read Russian and who exposed thechild to Russian literacy (parents, grandparents, caregiver or teacher withinthe framework of a community school).

D. Language ideology. Eight items concerning attitudes toward L1 main-tenance and two items regarding myths about language, formulated asstatements. Responses were provided on a five-point Likert-scale, rangingfrom ‘completely agree’ to ‘completely disagree’. Higher scores representedgreater agreement with the statement. Negative statements were reversed forscoring purposes. To increase statistical power and for the purpose of datareduction, I used principal component analysis to extract three factors. Thefirst, ‘‘positive attitude toward development of L1 and L2 at home and L1 literacyacquisition at school’’ (Parents’ attitudes L1�L2) (M�4.3; SD�0.29), wascreated by extracting the first principal component from the set of items: (7),(8) and (9) (see description of the items in Table 3). The first principalcomponent accounted for a majority of the variance in this set (53%), with

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similar weights for each of the three variables (0.607, 0.840 and 0.722). Thesecond, ‘‘attitudes toward developing only L1 at home’’ (Parents’ attitudes L1)(M�2.9; SD�0.84), was created in the same manner, using the scores of twoitems: (1) and (2). The first principal component also explained most of thevariance in this set (59%), with identical weights for each of the individualvariables (0.760 and 0.760). A final factor, ‘‘attitudes toward L1�L2 shifting’’(Parents’ attitudes L2) (M�2.2; SD�1.05), was based on scores of two items:(4) and (5). The first principal component again accounted for a majority of thevariance in this set (63%), with the same weights for each of the individualvariables (0.790 and 0.790).

E. Opinion on the importance of the children’s knowledge of differentlanguages. In this section I investigated the parents’ opinion about the degreeof importance of their children’s mastery of Russian, Hebrew, English or anyother language. For each language, responses were provided on a scaleranging from 1 (a low degree of importance) to 5 (high degree of importance).

Children’s questionnaire (Moin et al., 2006)The questionnaire was developed specifically for the present study. The

questionnaire took approximately 20 minutes to complete and included thefollowing three parts (numbered A to C).

A. Demographic and background information. Six items requesting informa-tion about the number of siblings and the participant’s position in the family,care provided by grandparents, number of close friends and number ofRussian-speaking friends.

B. Language management and practice. Nine items requesting informationabout the children’s linguistic choice and use: (1) Russian only, (2) Hebrewonly or (3) both Russian and Hebrew, with father, mother, grandparents andsiblings in various leisure-time situations that necessitate the use of language(e.g. reading books for pleasure, listening to books read by caregivers andwatching TV). Internal Cronbach’s alpha was 0.68. This section also enabled usto obtain information about the children’s active practice of reading inRussian, that is, whether the children read frequently in Russian. Finally,two additional items provided data about the children’s best-known andfavourite language.

C. Language ideology. Eight yes�no questions were asked to determine theattitudes of the children toward L1 maintenance and L1�L2 shifting. Becauseof the children’s young age, I used a three-point scale to score responses, withthe highest score (3) representing a positive answer and the lowest score (1) anegative one. Point 2 signified a neutral attitude. I used principal componentanalysis to construct the factor ‘‘positive attitude toward development of L1 and L2at home and L1 literacy acquisition at school’’ (Children’s attitudes L1�L2) (M�2.5; SD�0.61), by extracting the first principal component from the followingset of four items: (2), (5), (7) and (8) (see description of the items in Table 4).The first principal component accounted for 52% of the variance in this set,with similar weights for each of the four variables (.602, .788, .735 and .730). Inaddition, the children’s support for ‘pure’ L1 in the family was examined byasking whether they wanted ‘‘to speak only Russian at home’’ (Children’sattitudes L1) (M�2.2; SD�0.95). A positive attitude toward Hebrew shifting

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was explored by asking whether they wished to speak ‘‘only Hebrew at home’’(Children’s attitudes L2) (M�1.7; SD�0.91).

I present here a composite measure of Russian lexical knowledge created byextracting the first principal component from a set of five Russian lexicalknowledge measures (semantic categories, word descriptions with and with-out stimulus questions, antonyms and receptive vocabulary). The firstcomponent accounted for a majority of the variance in this set (60%), withsimilar weights for each of the individual variables (0.845, 0.905, 0.601, 0.685and 0.787). The following tests were used to produce the composite measure ofRussian lexical knowledge.

1. Semantic categories knowledge (adopted from Rom & Moreg, 1999).Participants were required to name three items for each of 10 semanticcategories (e.g. musical instruments, electric tools). Cronbach’s alphawas 0.82.

2. Antonym knowledge (Schwartz et al., 2006). Children were shown 18 pairsof pictures. Each pair represented opposing features of the same object(e.g. a picture of a clean floor and one of a dirty floor). The children wereasked to name the opposite feature of the object. Cronbach’s alpha was0.82.

3. Word description (adopted from Rom & Moreg, 1999). This task wasadministered to participants in two experimental conditions. Childrenwere given one of five stimulus words (watermelon, telephone, butterfly,bicycle and bag) and asked to give as many dimensions of meaning asthey could think of first without stimulus questions and then withstimulus questions. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.80 for the first experimentalcondition and 0.84 for the second.

4. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R) (Hebrew version: Nevo, 1979;Russian version: Schwartz et al., 2006, adapted from Dunn, 1965). Thetest required children to indicate which of four pictures matched aspoken word.

Procedure

The study was carried out in the first two months of the school year. Thechildren’s tasks and questionnaire were completed individually in twoseparate sessions lasting about 40 minutes each. The questionnaires forparents were completed at the parent�teacher meetings.

ResultsLanguage practice and management

Table 1 presents the data concerning the parents’ language practices. Thetable shows that parents preferred to use mainly Russian for communicationwith their spouses and used only Russian to interact with their own parents.At the same time, I found a strong tendency to permit a mixture of L1 and L2in communication with the children. Parents noted that using Hebrew with thechildren was a choice conditioned mainly by linguistic circumstances, when it

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was impossible to find the right word or expression in Russian. Mixed codevarieties of this type have been shown to be a precursor to L1 attrition amongimmigrants (Poplack, 1980). This language management strategy can play adual and antithetical role in L1 loss and maintenance at home, contributing atthe same time both to L1�L2 shifting and to a continued exposure of thechildren to the L1 (Kaufman, 2000; Romaine, 1999).

Language practice in various private domains (reading newspapers,listening to radio and watching TV) tended to be both in Russian and Hebrew,except for a preference to read for pleasure mostly in Russian. These findingsare inconsistent with data reported by Ben-Rafael et al. (1997). Their researchwas conducted in 1992 using a large-scale sample of immigrants from the FSU,and found that two years after immigration Russian was the predominantlanguage in all areas presented above. This discrepancy may be attributed tothe fact that (1) in our study the immigrants have resided in Israel for at leastfive years and (2) they showed greater command of Hebrew and consequentlya greater interest in acquiring the culture of the host society. In sum, it seemsthat the parents tended to opt for an additive form of bilingualism rather thanfor L1 segregation or a subtractive L2 model.

The questionnaire also revealed that parents agreed about the importance ofall target languages involved in multilingual Israeli reality (M�4.8; SD�0.39,for Russian; M�4.9; SD�0.21, for Hebrew; M�4.9; SD�0.17, for English;M�4.3; SD�1.34, for other language). Moreover, it was found that theparents’ friends were mostly RJ immigrants (M�90.8; SD�16.84, inpercentages). Finally, 61% of the parents stated that their children had beentaught literacy in L1 only and 27% that they themselves conducted readinginstruction. Among other caregivers and service providers actively involved inthe process of intergenerational L1 literacy transmission, the parents men-tioned the supplementary education system (41%), grandparents (25%) andbabysitters (7%).

Table 2 presents the children’s reports on language practice and manage-ment in different domains. Although the bilingual children reported frequentuse of Russian with their parents and grandparents, some of them were more

Table 1 Parents’ language practices in percentages (n�70)

Domain Hebrew Russian Hebrew andRussian

Talking to spouse (n�60) 0 72 28

Talking to parents (n�63) 0 100 0

Talking to children 0 31 69

Reading books for pleasure 0 82 18

Reading newspapers 9 39 52

Listening to radio 13 17 70

Watching TV 3 11 86

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likely to communicate with their parents in Hebrew only. In addition, asexpected, the children commonly used Hebrew with their siblings. About onefifth (21%) of the children had no siblings at the time the study was conducted.It is noteworthy also that most of the children had elder siblings in the family(27%), which seems to have affected the children’s preference of Hebrew overRussian in between-sibling interactions. Hebrew was also the preferredlanguage of communication with Russian-speaking friends. Note, however,that the children reported that 69% of their close friends were RHS.

I further found that 40% of children reported active involvement in readingin L1 and 70% stated that during childhood they were read to in the heritagelanguage only. There was significant correlation between parental report onchildren’s L1 literacy and the information provided by the children aboutactive involvement in reading in L1 (r�0.45; pB0.01). The absence of astronger relationship between the former and the latter may be attributed tothe fact that some children were not enthusiastic about reading in the heritagelanguage.

The questionnaire also revealed that most of the bilingual childrenconsidered Hebrew to be their strongest and preferred language. The dataon the dominance of Hebrew are consistent with results reported in bothquantitative and qualitative studies on the command of Russian among RHSchildren born in Israel (Schwartz et al., 2006; Kopeliovich, 2006).

Language ideology

Table 3 describes the parents’ language ideology. As shown in Table 3, themajority of the parents had a positive attitude toward their children’s progress

Table 2 Children’s language practices in percentages (n�70)

Domain Hebrew Russian Hebrew andRussian

Talking to father 10 58 32

Talking to mother 13 53 34

Talking to grandparents 0 96 4

Talking to siblings 41 23 36

Talking to Russian-speakingfriends at school

74 4 22

Talking to Russian-speakingfriends out of school

67 10 23

Watching TV 61 5 34

Listening to books read by parents 10 70 20

Reading books 60 � 40

Best known language 62 14 24

Favourite language 56 36 8

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Table 3 Parents’ language ideology in percentages (n�70)

Number of item/statements Completelyagree

Partiallyagree

Noopinion

Partiallydisagree

Completelydisagree

(1) It is necessary to communicate with children at home only in Russian inorder to maintain their L1

51 29 6 9 5

(2) Speaking two languages at home is confusing to children; as a result, theydon’t know either language

3 6 11 14 66

(3) Children learn Hebrew easily at school 61 23 5 9 2

(4) Speaking Russian constantly negatively affects a child’s ability to masterHebrew

3 8 14 14 61

(5) It is important to speak mostly in Hebrew with children from infancy inorder to improve their knowledge of L2

20 12 19 15 34

(6) Bilingual children don’t know either language well 0 6 6 5 83

(7) For RHS children, teaching Russian at school is as important as teachingHebrew and English

51 20 18 9 2

(8) To succeed in school, it is better for children to master two languages frominfancy

66 14 11 3 6

(9) Reading in two languages at home is essential for a bilingual child 75 14 3 5 3

(10) Children’s ability to read in two languages may have a positive effect ontheir academic progress

81 11 6 0 2

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in both languages, with emphasis on the maintenance of the heritagelanguage. Parents tended to support dual language development and valuedmastery of both languages. In contrast, parents appeared to downplaywidespread myths about linguistic handicaps attributed to bilingualism(Cummins, 1984). Only 3% of parents were unequivocal about the negativeeffect of a bilingual upbringing with L1 dominance at home. At the same time,the parents were decisive about the notion that the language of the hostcountry can be learned easily in school.

Table 4 contains the descriptive statistics of the children’s attitudes aboutlanguage. Despite being educated in a non-additive Hebrew context and withthe notion that Hebrew is the language of national identity, 60% of bilingualchildren were agreeable to learning Russian in school. Only 30% of thechildren supported the idea of a complete L1�L2 shift at home. Finally, thechildren conclusively voiced the need to be more proficient in both Hebrewand Russian.

Correlations between the components of family language policy andthe children’s lexical knowledge in L1

I performed a series of correlational analyses to examine the relationbetween the children’s lexical knowledge in L1 and the independent factorsthat may be connected to it (see Table 5). Not surprisingly, significant positiverelationships were found between the composite measure of lexical knowledgein L1 and the parents’ language management (children’s L1 literacy knowl-edge); the negative relationships between the former and the parents’language practice tended to permit the co-existence of both languages athome. I found a weak and insignificant association between all factors relatingto the parents’ ideology regarding language and the dependent variable. Theparents’ ideology concerning language was not correlated significantly withtheir reports about language management and practice at home, nor with anyof the measures of the children’s attitudes about language. By contrast, therewas a significant correlation between the composite measure of lexicalknowledge in Russian and the children’s positive attitude toward the

Table 4 Children’s language attitudes in percentages (n�70)

Number of item/Do you want . . . Agree No opinion Disagree

(1) to speak only Russian at home? 58 5 37

(2) to speak both Russian and Hebrew at home? 79 � 21

(3) to speak only Hebrew at home? 30 10 60

(4) to be read to in both Russian and Hebrew? 66 � 34

(5) to be more proficient in Russian? 73 4 23

(6) to be more proficient in Hebrew? 90 1 9

(7) to acquire Russian literacy? 73 1 26

(8) to learn Russian at school? 60 3 37

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Table 5 Correlations between family language policy measures and the composite measure of Russian lexical knowledge

Variables 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

1. Parents’ attitudes L1�L2 1

2. Parents’ attitudes L1 0.10 1

3. Parents’ attitudes L2 0.19 0.13 1

4. Children’s attitudes L1�L2 �0.04 0.17 �0.06 1

5. Children’s attitudes L1 0.02 �0.00 �0.03 0.66** 1

6. Children’s attitudes L2 �0.01 �0.20 �0.04 �0.29* �0.22 1

7. Parents’ language practices (language choice with children) �0.09 �0.22 0.10 �0.26* �0.25* 0.11 1

8. Parents’ language management (teaching children to read in L1) �0.18 0.03 0.05 0.26* 0.03 �0.26* �0.12 1

9. Composite measure of Russian lexical knowledge �0.17 �0.04 �0.12 0.39** 0.12 �0.25* �0.30* 0.47** 1

*pB0.05, **pB0.001

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development of both languages at home and toward L1 literacy acquisition atschool. The correlational analysis revealed a weak but significant negativerelationship between the children’s mastery of heritage vocabulary and theirdesire to speak only Hebrew at home. Finally, as expected, children’s reportson active practice of reading in Russian were related considerably with theiractual command of the heritage vocabulary (r�0.40; pB0.001).

Multiple regression analysis

Next, I performed a multiple regression analysis (Table 6). The compositemeasure of L1 lexical knowledge was entered as a dependent variable and theparents’ ideology concerning language, their language management andpractice, and the children’s attitudes toward language were entered simulta-neously as explanatory variables.

As shown in Table 6, the explanatory variables accounted for a significantamount of the variance in the bilingual children’s performance on the compositemeasure of lexical proficiency in Russian, F(8, 61)�5.01, pB0.001, R2�0.39.Two variables that substantially contributed to bilingual children’s L1 lexicalcompetence were, in order of importance, the parents’ language management(teaching children to read in L1) and the children’s positive attitude toward thedevelopment of both languages at home and toward the acquisition of L1literacy in school. The parents’ language practice (the tendency to use bothlanguages with children) negatively affected vocabulary mastery in the heritagelanguage. Finally, consistent with the correlation results, the parents’ ideologyconcerning language contributed significantly to the dependent variable.

Table 6 Summary of multiple regression analysis for family policy variables contribut-ing to the composite lexical knowledge in L1

Variable B SE B b

R2�0.39

Parents’ attitudes L1�L2 �0.10 0.11 �0.09

Parents’ attitudes L1 �0.18 0.11 �0.17

Parents’ attitudes L2 �0.05 0.08 �0.06

Children’s attitudes L1�L2 0.40 0.16 0.37*

Children’s attitudes L1 �0.17 0.11 �0.22

Children’s attitudes L2 �0.10 0.09 �0.12

Parents’ language practices(language choice with children)

�0.20 0.08 �0.25*

Parents’ language management(teaching children to read in L1)

0.24 0.08 0.31**

*pB0.05; **pB0.001

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DiscussionThe present study produced several important findings. First, not surpris-

ingly, the results indicate that literacy in the heritage language accounted for alarge portion of the variance in Russian lexical proficiency among the secondgeneration. The crucial role of the acquisition of home language literacy forthe survival, revival or enhancement of a minority language was widelystressed in the literature (Baker, 1996; Cummins, 2000; Fishman, 2001;Skutnabb-Kangas & Toukomaa, 1976). Note, however, that according toparents’ and children’s reports, most of the participants received only basicliteracy in L1, which was insufficient for substantial vocabulary enrichment. Itis reasonable to assume that the children’s exposure to basic Russian literacyhas been combined with overt or covert practical work directed at enhancinglexical growth, which may include such activities as enthusiastic discussion ofliterary texts, memorisation of children’s poetry and playing language gamesbased on Russian puns and rhymes.

To what extent has this successful language management been conductedby the parents themselves? The role of Russian literacy schools in promotingheritage language maintenance has been substantial. Specifically, the datashow that over 40% of bi-literate children acquired L1 literacy skills in non-formal educational settings. These frameworks are aimed at arousing thechildren’s interest in the original cultural heritage (which is highly valuedamong Russian-speaking immigrants) and thus serve as an important link inthe practical realisation of the language ideology of the family.

Informal conversations with the parents suggested that the role ofcommunity-supported education is of great consequence for the intergenera-tional transmission of the Russian language. Some of the parents voiced adeeply felt dissatisfaction and disappointment with the decline in heritagelanguage management at home due to the hardships of immigration and timepressures. Similar feelings of RJ immigrants were described in the in-depthethnographic case study of the K. family (Kopeliovich, 2006). Kopeliovichpresented dramatic intimate dialogues with the K. parents and stressed thehidden side of the Russian language maintenance policy. The K. parentsreported to be reconsidering their linguistic ideology, mentioned its serioustransformation under various competing demands and appeared to besearching for a balance between two languages at home. In an ethnographicstudy, Okita (2002) also presented vivid examples of stress and tension in dailyfamily life caused by frustrating attempts to maintain the ethnic language athome.

The data, therefore, underscore the role of Russian-literacy schools asparental substitutes in the efforts to provide a connection for the secondgeneration of immigrants with the unique Russian cultural heritage, even in acontext of overwhelming Hebrew dominance.

The findings also point to several interesting disconnections between thecomponents of family language policy. I found a significant contribution ofthe children’s positive attitude toward development of both languages athome and toward heritage literacy acquisition at school to their lexicalknowledge of L1. Whereas the parents’ positive attitudes toward home

414 Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

language retention did not contribute reliably to the children’s competence inL1 vocabulary, the children’s attitudes did. Moreover, the results suggest astrong relationships between the children’s positive attitude toward L1maintenance, active L1 practice (e.g. reading in Russian) and higher scoreson L1 vocabulary measures. These provide evidence for the relatively highconstruct validity of the children’s reports. Note, however, that children’sattitudes are considered to be relatively unstable and changeable over time. Inaddition, although the children’s questionnaire and the language measureswere administered in separate sessions, one should consider the potentiallynegative effect of such factors as inattentiveness, fatigue or boredom on thechildren’s responses. We need to further research, therefore, focusing on thechildren’s language ideology in order to replicate the study data.

Despite the limitations mentioned above, the children’s reports, in contrast tothose of the parents, seem to reflect the real family language policy. In immigrantfamilies the children often turn out to be a leading force in language choice(Spolsky, 2004). Moreover, the children can be powerful promoters of switchingto the majority language. It is also apparent that a child’s individual reaction tothe parents’ effort to facilitate the intergenerational transmission of the heritagelanguage becomes a real test of the effectiveness of practical language manage-ment. The results indicate that the children’s reports about their attitudestoward L1 maintenance may be considered an indicator of the effectiveness oftheir parents’ efforts to preserve the Russian language at home. The childrenwho scored high on Russian vocabulary measures appear to have profited fromsuccessful language management, including practical strategies used by parentsor other caregivers. Without using divergent and creative language activities, itwould be impossible to arouse a spark of genuine interest in the heritagelanguage or a strong motivation to acquire Russian literacy in a non-additiveHebrew context.

At the same time, the parents’ language ideology did not even have a minorimpact on the children’s command of the heritage language and did notcorrelate with their reports on their actual language choice with the childrenand on Russian literacy management at home. Furthermore, the resultsindicate a disassociation between parents’ and children’s positive attitudestoward Russian language preservation: close to a ceiling effect was obtainedon the parents’ reports but not on the children’s.

Placing the findings within the theoretical framework of Spolsky’s (2004)model of language policy reveals a clear discrepancy between the parents’declared commitment to L1 maintenance and their reports on actual languagepractice with their children and on written language management at home. Itwould be wrong to attribute this inconsistency to the social desirabilityphenomenon. It is more likely that parents, preoccupied with competingdemands, relent in their struggle for their favourite language and find it easierto manage the co-existence of the two languages. This interpretation isconsistent with the fact that 69% of parents reported switching to Hebrewmostly when children misunderstood their messages in Russian. Not surpris-ingly, the natural co-existence of the two languages slows down the process ofvocabulary growth in L1. These findings contradict the efforts of the

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practitioners of Fishman’s RLS theory to maintain the purity of the minoritylanguage at home.

In conclusion, the present study has shown that variability in bilingualchildren’s L1 lexical knowledge can be understood, to some extent, by threeunderlying factors related to family language policy: teaching children to readin L1, children’s positive attitude toward L1 maintenance and the parents’language practices. The study also underscores the crucial role of thecommunity-based supplementary educational system in the survival of theminority language among second generation immigrants. It appears, therefore,that a family’s potential to prevent a complete L1�L2 shift cannot be realisedwithout the common efforts of family members and community proactivists ofRLS projects. Further research should be conducted in the broader socialcontext within the two-fold theoretical framework of family and community.

Conditions in Israel are particularly favourable for the survival of theRussian language among RJ immigrants and for Fishman’s RLS theory. Theyprovide unlimited access to the heritage culture and benefit from a state-funded Russian-language radio network and television channel. At the sametime, it appears that immigrant families are inclined to adopt a model ofintegrated target languages in parent�child communication. Finally, theresearch bears out Spolsky’s (2004) claim about the complex relationshipbetween parental language attitudes and their application in everydaylanguage management activities. This phenomenon deserves further in-depthresearch.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a Kreitman Postdoctoral fellowship (Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel) awarded to Dr Mila Schwartz.

I am grateful to Mark Leikin, Victor Moin, Ely Kozminsky, and threeanonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

Correspondence

Any correspondence should be directed to Mila Schwartz, Ben-GurionUniversity, Beer-Sheva 8405, Israel (milasch@bgu.ac.il).

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