Linguistic Practices of Old and New Migrants: Heritage Language in Lithuanian Diaspora

This paper analyses data drawn from two large and complementary research projects funded to investigate the linguistic behaviour, the maintenance of the heritage language and the links to the Lithuanian identity of the... [ view full abstract ]

This paper analyses data drawn from two large and complementary research projects funded to investigate the linguistic behaviour, the maintenance of the heritage language and the links to the Lithuanian identity of the Lithuanian communities abroad. Lithuanian diaspora in various countries of the world is constituted of people from different emigration waves: 1) those emigrated in the end of 19^th century and after the WWI (mainly economical emigrants), 2) after the WWII (mainly political emigrants), 3) after 1990, when Lithuania detached from the Soviet Union and re-established its Independence (mainly economical emigrants). Many differences in the linguistic behaviour of the different emigration waves and different generations of emigrant communities in the world are observed. In some situations Lithuanian as a heritage language is maintained by the second and third generation emigrants whereas in other situations language shift towards the language of the host country happens already in the families of first generation. The paper analyses the data of both quantitative survey and qualitative in-depth interviews. The sample of the survey was 2000 respondents, 1000 of which living in Europe (Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain and other countries) and 1000 in other continents. The in-depth interviews with Lithuanian emigrants have been conducted face-to-face or via skype. The paper will analyse linguistic practices of the older (the first and the second waves of emigration) and the new (the third wave of emigration) emigrants in order to find out the strongest factors that influence heritage language maintenance. The paper will also consider the role of Lithuania ’s language policy at the time of emigration on the language choice in Lithuanian diaspora.