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Heritage Language, Identity, and Education in Europe: Evidence from the UK

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Handbook of Research and Practice in Heritage Language Education

Part of the book series: Springer International Handbooks of Education ((SIHE))

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Abstract

Heritage language education has received increased attention in recent years by scholars of various disciplines: science, sociology, anthropology, pedagogy, and linguistics. This renewed interest in the subject includes also studies on heritage language learning in relation to identity.

In the last few years, there have been many quantitative studies and a great deal of qualitative research on the subject. This chapter is on the line of qualitative research, taking the constructivist approach to identity still strong even in the most recent sociolinguistic research. The aim of this work is to test whether it is possible to apply the hermeneutic models generated and applied to the study of heritage language in North America to a European context, like that of some Italian communities in England. The intent is to verify to what extent some of the theoretical models developed for very different areas of research are applicable to the European context. This is in order to provide food for thought at the theoretical level and to rethink the way in which support is provided for the teaching of the Italian language to the descendants of Italian migrants in England and Europe.

The research deals with the Italian communities in Bedford, Cambridge, and Peterborough, which on a sociological level are very different and therefore provide the opportunity to investigate, also from a sociolinguistic perspective, the relationship between the heritage language and identity and the related effects on the level of the transmission of the Italian language and its dialects.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some contexts of Italian migration in Europe have been researched very little. For some European countries, in particular, there are some studies relating to one single interpretative paradigm, which relate to a specific time, such as those on the Italian presence in Germany carried out by Auer and Di Luzio (Auer 1995; Di Luzio 1984) from a sociolinguistic perspective and focusing exclusively on contact dynamics (code switching, code mixing); in other cases, such as the Italian communities in Spain, Portugal, and France as well as in Northern European countries (Sweden, Denmark, Holland), there are no substantial studies).

  2. 2.

    (with England, it is possible to research the dynamics concerning the development of the Italian language, its transmission, and its hold throughout the various generations, thanks to a large, diverse bibliography which covers all aspects by which the subject can be analyzed: the educational and didactical aspect (Tosi 1986, 1993), the sociolinguistic interpretation of the variations of the process of contact and transmission (Di Salvo 2012), as well as the competence and the use of the English language in the second and third generation (Guzzo 2014) and the linguistic loss (Sorace 2004))

  3. 3.

    (For Bedford see Tosi 1993; Sponza 2005, 2012; Guzzo 2014; Di Salvo 2011; for Peterborough see Tubito and King 1996; Cereste and Bagnoli 2001)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy

    Margherita Di Salvo

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  1. Margherita Di Salvo
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Correspondence to Margherita Di Salvo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. OISE/University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Peter Pericles Trifonas

  2. CERES/University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Themistoklis Aravossitas

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Di Salvo, M. (2016). Heritage Language, Identity, and Education in Europe: Evidence from the UK. In: Trifonas, P., Aravossitas, T. (eds) Handbook of Research and Practice in Heritage Language Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38893-9_10-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38893-9_10-1

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