29.1841, Review: Russian; Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Isurin, Riehl (2017)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-1841. Mon Apr 30 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.1841, Review:  Russian; Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Isurin, Riehl (2017)

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Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2018 14:46:29
From: Natalie Operstein [natacha at ucla.edu]
Subject: Integration, Identity and Language Maintenance in Young Immigrants

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-2593.html

EDITOR: Ludmila  Isurin
EDITOR: Claudia Maria  Riehl
TITLE: Integration, Identity and Language Maintenance in Young Immigrants
SUBTITLE: Russian Germans or German Russians
SERIES TITLE: IMPACT: Studies in Language and Society 44
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Natalie Operstein,  

REVIEWS EDITOR: Helen Aristar-Dry

''Integration, Identity and Language Maintenance in Young Immigrants'' is a
collection of eight studies of the social, cultural, economic and linguistic
integration of Russian-speaking immigrants from the (former) Soviet Union
('FSU') that have migrated to Germany over the course of the last
approximately three decades. Edited by Ludmila Isurin and Claudia Maria Riehl,
the collection is framed by the editors' introduction and conclusion that
introduce and close the volume by presenting the issues studied and
summarizing the main findings. The age groups targeted by several of the
studies are those who were either born in the immigrant families or migrated
as young children (the second generation) and those who migrated as older
children or adolescents (the so-called 1.5 generation). As is repeatedly
emphasized throughout the volume, the studied immigrant population is
non-homogeneous in terms of its ethnic composition and consists, in the
descending order of their numerical strength, of ethnic Germans ('Russian
Germans'), Jews ('Russian Jews') and Russians. 

SUMMARY

In Chapter 1, Claudia Maria Riehl presents a cross-generational snapshot of
patterns of language use and identity self-perception among Russian Germans at
the turn of this century. As background to her investigation, she surveys the
origin of Russian Germans, the history of the German population in the FSU,
the maintenance of the German language, as well as selected structural
characteristics of Russian German, with particular emphasis on contact
features transferred from Russian, such as calques (e.g. 'zu Gast kommen' for
'besuchen' ''to visit''), borrowed discourse markers ('eto', 'vot') and hybrid
bilingual constructions (e.g. 'Parteibilet' ''communist party membership
card''). The fieldwork portion of the study is based on interviews with 40
Russian Germans conducted in different areas of the FSU between 2000-2002.
Interviews with four generations of speakers -- those born before 1932
(generation 1), those born between 1932 and 1952 (generation 2), those born
between 1952 and 1975 (generation 3) and those born after 1975 (generation 4)
-- indicate that non-academic knowledge of German is confined to the first two
generations. The study contributes to an understanding of German language
proficiency among different generations of Russian Germans at the moment of
their repatriation to Germany as well as its correlation with
cross-generational differences in the interviewees' self-perception of their
ethnic identity.  

In Chapter 2, Barbara Dietz and Heike Roll explore the interplay between
identity factors and economic and social integration of the two largest groups
of Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany, Russian Germans and Russian Jews.
The bird's-eye-view study of these immigrant groups' economic integration
focuses on such issues as unemployment rates, income status and occupational
downgrading, while the study of their social integration brings into focus
such issues as language use, social contacts and settlement patterns. By
tracing the historical, political and legal contexts of repatriation of ethnic
Germans and admission of Jewish immigrants from the FSU in Germany, the study
also highlights the impact on these groups' identity formation of the legal
context of their  immigration and of the corresponding integration provisions.

In Chapter 3, Larissa Remennick undertakes a comparative sociological overview
of young adult Russian Jewish immigrants who migrated to Germany and Israel
with their families while in their late childhood or teens (generation 1.5).
The specific focus of the study is on how country-specific socio-political
conditions, policies directed at the immigrants, and their reception by the
local populations interact in shaping the identities of the 1.5ers, including
maintenance of cultural legacies from their country of origin, contact with
the locals, and involvement in the life of the respective host countries. The
data from Israel, more plentiful and more detailed than the comparable data
from Germany, indicates that ''a large group of immigrant youth became
bicultural or globalized rather than assimilated into the dominant Hebrew
culture'' (p. 81). This identity finds expression in such life aspects as
language use, reading and other cultural consumption patterns, and social
preferences when searching for ''friends, dates and life partners'' (p. 80).
The data from Germany, based in part on the author's own interviews with 20
young bilingual immigrants, shows cross-country similarities in the linguistic
and cultural identity patterns of this age group while at the same time
revealing certain differences due to different economic, educational and other
integration opportunities in the host countries.     

In Chapter 4, Vera Irwin analyzes the interplay between the social network
structure and identity as factors in the maintenance of L1 and shift to L2 in
immigrant communities. She focuses her analysis on Russian Germans and Russian
Jews, two immigrant groups that have a shared linguistic background but
different social and ethnic identities in the host country. Comparable studies
reported in the literature suggest that the rate of language shift in
bilingual immigrant communities is inversely correlated with the strength of
co-ethnic networks of its members: tighter co-ethnic social networks slow down
the shift toward the ambient language whereas looser social networks that
include speakers of the ambient language accelerate it. Irwin's own findings
indicate that the impact of the social network structure may be overridden by
post-migrant identity construction factors, as expressed, in part, by the
groups' attitudes toward language maintenance and shift, language choices in
cross-generational communication within families, and attitudes toward
code-mixing. 

In Chapter 5, Ludmila Isurin examines the effects of ethnicity and immigration
path differences on the identity self-perception and language attitudes of
young Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany. The age group targeted by the
study are young people who migrated to Germany in their mid to late teens or
early twenties and have lived in the country for the average of twelve years.
While the participants were similar in their age, length of residence and
language fluency, the study finds that their attitudes toward maintenance of
the Russian language and culture and their perception of their post-migration
identity differed in function of their ethnicity, Jewish versus Russian, as
well as their migration path to Germany: while the Jewish participants
immigrated with their families and had no independent say in the decision to
migrate, the Russian participants came on their own, following their own
decision to pursue employment or education opportunities in Germany. 

In Chapter 6, Katharina Meng and Ekaterina Protassova investigate the
correlation between the social and linguistic integration of immigrants who
migrated to the host country as young children. The focus of their study are
eight Russian Germans who moved to Germany with their families between the
ages of 5 and 8 years. The study, based on interviews that were conducted
between 2010-2014, provides a snapshot of the interviewees' self-perception of
their language skills in both Russian and German, as well as a more detailed
description of their linguistic skills in Russian, after about 20 years of
residence in Germany.  

In Chapter 7, Tanja Anstatt looks at heritage language maintenance among
second-generation Russian speakers in Germany by examining how their attitudes
toward Russian interact with their Russian language skills. The age group
targeted by the study are adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 who were
either born in or immigrated to Germany before their 12th birthday. The
participants were found to have an overall ''loyal and emotional'' (p. 219)
attitude toward Russian, while their linguistic skills in Russian were found
to correlate with two sets of language attitude factors, ''Appreciation of
Russian as a cultural value'' and ''Importance of Russian as a means of
communication between peers'' (pp. 217-218). 

In Chapter 8, Bernhard Brehmer and Tatjana Kurbangulova examine language
attrition in second generation immigrant children and its correlation with the
language input received from their parents. The principal focus of the study
is the evolving realization of VOT in the Russian of a child born in Germany,
Aljona, and of her Russian-speaking parents who had migrated to Germany in
their mid-twenties. The data for these family members were gathered in 2012,
when Aljona was eight years old, and then again in 2014. Comparing the
obtained VOT values with those of Russian and German monolinguals, the study
finds clear evidence of growing cross-linguistic influence from German in all
the family members, with the convergence with German being more pronounced in
Aljona's speech than in that of either of her parents. 

EVALUATION

This collection contributes fresh data and insights to a range of ongoing
discussions on immigrant languages and communities. These include new
empirical studies on aspects of heritage Russian (Meng and Protassova), the
impact of attitudes toward heritage languages on their maintenance in
bilingual immigrant communities (Anstatt), the integration of generation 1.5
immigrants in different host societies (Remennick), the interplay of social
networks, ethnicity and motivation behind the immigration as factors in L1
maintenance (Irwin), and the impact of parental input on heritage language
development, L1 attrition in migration, and contact-induced changes in VOT
(Brehmer and Kurbangulova).  

Several of the chapters provide useful literature overviews in their areas of
inquiry as well as revealing background information about the social,
political, legal and economic contexts of (post-)Soviet immigration to Germany
and Israel and their impact on the integration of Russian-speaking immigrants
in the respective host societies (e.g. Riehl; Dietz and Roll). The focus on
the 1.5 generation in several of the studies brings into relief some of the
unique tensions and challenges of 1.5ers that arise, on one hand, from their
formative years spent in the country of origin and, on the other, from their
''strong drive for assimilation, a wish to shed the hateful label of immigrant
and get accepted by their local peers'' (Remennick, p. 74). 

A number of common threads run through the chapters, bringing unity to this
collection. For example, after reading the collection it becomes clear that
the immigration path and the host country's policies directed at the
immigrants, alone or in combination, may have an impact on shaping their
self-perception of their post-migration identities, both in relation to the
host society and to the other immigrant communities with the same L1. The
collection also succeeds in highlighting the fact that immigrant groups which
may be perceived as homogeneous by the host society due to their shared L1 can
be deeply divided along ethnic or other lines, with an impact on their
integration in the receiving country. The studies also confirm the earlier
finding that ''bilingual competency does not automatically entail
biculturalism among immigrants and minorities'' (Remennick p. 91). In our
times of massive transnational population movements, studies like the ones in
this volume are important not only in highlighting these issues but also in
stimulating further research on understanding immigrant communities and
immigrant experience.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Natalie Operstein is the author of ''Consonant Structure and Prevocalization''
(2010) and ''Zaniza Zapotec'' (2015) and co-editor of ''Valence Changes in
Zapotec: Synchrony, Diachrony, Typology'' (2015) and ''Language Contact and
Change in Mesoamerica and Beyond'' (2017). Her research interests center on
language change, phonology and language contact.





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