Book notice

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Forwarded from Linguist-List

Gibbons, John; Ramirez, Elizabeth Grace

Maintaining a Minority Language: A Case Study of Hispanic Teenagers
 Multilingual Matters 2004
 Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2499.html


 INTRODUCTION

 In this important study, Gibbons and Ramirez survey 106 Hispanic
 teenagers living in Sydney in order to investigate what factors lead to
 second generation immigrants developing high level proficiency in their
 parents' language. As such it asks three main questions: what constitutes
 high level proficiency in Spanish (and how can we measure it), to what
 degree do Spanish-speaking teens in Sydney appear to have acquired this
 proficiency, and what social and institutional factors appear to correlate
 with high level proficiency? These questions make "Maintaining a Minority
 Language" a book for language testers and educators as much as for those
 working on language maintenance and shift, and one which gives valuable
 insights to both fields. Importantly too, authors take seriously the question
 of what can be done to aid the acquisition of Spanish, and particular higher
 level Spanish, in a minority context and provides numerous practical
 suggestions for parents, educators and policy makers to help promote
 language maintenance among the second and subsequent generations.

 SUMMARY

 The volume consists of eight chapters, including an introduction and
 conclusion. The first brief chapter introduces the study, giving an overview
 of why solid biliteracy plays an important role in language maintenance
 before outlining the sampling procedure and basic demographics of
 Gibbons and Ramirez sample.

 Chapter two "Language Proficiency" discusses the issue of academic
 language proficiency in much more depth. The chapter begins by outlining
 the features of academic English in some detail, and then compares them to
 academic Spanish by means of a close analysis of texts from Hispanic and
 English school text books aimed at both primary and secondary students.
 This close analysis of textbooks not only demonstrate ways in which
 conventions of academic Spanish differ from those of academic English
 (particularly the different roles nominalisation plays in the two languages)
 but also explores the way academic language varies between the more
 junior and senior textbooks. This understanding of basic and more
 advanced features of academic Spanish is then used to guide the
 development of the cloze tests discussed in more detail in Chapter three.

 Chapter three "Measuring Proficiency" essentially outlines the methodology
 used in this study. As Gibbons and Ramirez developed a unique
 methodology for this project, involving C-tests, an oral proficiency test
 based on informal conversation and cloze texts based on texts from age-
 appropriate Hispanic school texts, the section should be of great interest to
 those working in the areas of language testing and assessment. A particular
 strength of this methodology is that the C-test and cloze tests were also
 administered to a group of similarly-aged Spanish native speakers in
 Santiago, allowing results from the Sydney tests group to be discussed in
 terms of age-appropriate development, rather than simply in terms of
 grammaticality.  The section also provides a very basic overview of results,
 illustrating the differences in scores from students in Sydney and those in
 Santiago, as well as outlining correlations between the different measures -
 such as the correlation between high scores for appropriate accent in the
 oral test, and strong performance on the C test.

 The first half of Chapter four, "The societal", focuses on the wider
 environment, outlining the status and demographic of Spanish in Australia
 before moving on to a more detailed analysis of the place of Spanish in
 education and the media in Sydney. The second half of the chapter looks
 specifically at the role of societal variables in determining
interviewees
 scores on the proficiency tests, specifically addressing the influence of
age,
 sex, parental education and parental occupation. The Santiago sample is
 also analysed in terms of parental occupation and education. Perhaps

 surprisingly, the authors find no significant correlation between
language
 proficiency and measures of Socio-Economic Status (SES) in the Sydney,
 concluding that in the minority context contact with other speakers or
 media in the ethnic language become the crucial variables and far
outweigh
 the effect of classic sociological variables such as gender or parental
 occupation.

 Chapter five "Interpersonal Contact" explores the effect of social
networks
 on participants' Spanish language proficiency scores. The chapter begins
 with an overview of the application of social network theory to
linguistic
 research and introduces Milroy's (1980) methods for measuring the
 strength of network ties between people. Following Milroy (1980) and Li
 (1994), the authors distinguish between 'strong', 'weak' and 'passive'
 network ties. Strong ties involve regular and meaningful social contact,
 whereas weak ties develop between acquaintances, and passive ties are
 formed between emotionally close but geographically distant friends and
 relatives. The bulk of this chapter concentrates on the role of strong
 network ties in promoting Spanish proficiency, by examining the degree
 participants speak Spanish with a range of relatives and close friends,
and
 charting the correlations between using Spanish with certain people and
 scores on the various proficiency tests. In particular it found that
speaking
 Spanish with the mother correlates strongly with high scores for correct
use
 of idiom in the oral test, while speaking Spanish with the mother, an
older
 sibling or a cousin correlated reasonably well with high scores on all
 aspects of the oral test and the C test, but do not have a predictable
impact
 on the cloze test results. The role of weak and passive network ties in
 promoting Spanish proficiency is also examined, however only weak
 correlations are found, leading the authors to conclude that it only
strong
 network ties exert real influence on language proficiency.

 Chapter six "Education, Media Use and Literacy" focuses on the degree to
 which participants engage in Spanish educational and media opportunities
 in Sydney, and the influence this engagement has on higher level Spanish
 proficiency. As part of this analysis, the authors first consider what
 constitutes biliteracy, and the degree to which literacy skills are
transferable
 from one language to another. Discussion of education finds that
 attendance at Sydney's Spanish Saturday schools can improve scores on
 basic literacy, oral proficiency and the C-test, however the Saturday
schools
 do not appear to give children the skills needed to score well on the
higher
 proficiency level cloze tests. Engagement with Spanish media - including
 books, newspapers, CDs and the internet - in contrast produced positive
 outcomes across almost all testing areas, suggesting consuming ethnic
 media may be one of the most valuable things a family can do to support
 language maintenance.

 Chapter seven "Attitudes and Beliefs" explores participants perceptions
 about Spanish (and English where appropriate) across areas such as
 emotional attachment ('Spanish is a beautiful language'), utility
('Spanish is
 useful for gaining employment in Sydney') and vitality ('In Sydney most
 people want Spanish to be kept alive'). In line with earlier research,
Gibbons
 and Ramirez find a correlation between language proficiency and ethnic
 pride, utility and status of the ethnic language, but in addition to this
 cannon they find resistance to the international hegemony of English
plays
 a significant role in boosting language proficiency scores.

 The book ends with a short conclusion, which both reflects on the
 methodology used in the study and provides numerous practical
 suggestions to support language based on the Gibbons and Ramirez's
 findings.

 CRITICAL EVALUATION

 "Maintaining a Minority Language" is an exceptionally well written book
that
 will no doubt prove interesting to those interested in language testing
and
 language maintenance alike. By eschewing self-reported proficiency in
 favour of detailed and specialised language testing Gibbons and Ramirez
 take the road less trodden in language maintenance studies, but the work
 they put into designing their testing regime is certainly worth it in the
 richness of the data these tests generate. "Maintaining a Minority
Language"
 thus provides much-needed 'objective' data (insofar as any test results
can
 be deemed truly 'objective') in a field where conclusions have often had
to
 rely on the self-assessment of individuals, with all the vagaries and
 inconsistencies that these entail. This is not to say that Gibbons and
 Ramirez's methodology cannot or should not be critiqued, however since
 the authors reflect on their methodology, its problems and room for
 improvements throughout the book such criticism in the context of a
review
 would be unfair. "Maintaining a Minority Language" makes clear its status
as
 an experiment with a new methodology, and the book will hopefully spawn
 more research further refining Gibbons and Ramirez methods and adding
 to our understanding of the relationship between social networks,
 education and media consumption and ethnic language proficiency.

 In conclusion Gibbons and Ramirez provide a landmark study, which
 complements existing work on the Sydney Spanish Community (such as
 Clyne and Kipp 1999) and gives important insights not only for those
 working within the community but also for scholars of language
 maintenance and shift and language testing as well.

 REFERENCES

 Clyne, Michael and Sandra Kipp. 1999.  "Pluricentric languages in an
 immigrant context: Spanish, Arabic and Chinese". Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter.

 Li, Wei.1994.  "Three Generations, Two languages, One Family: language
 choice and language shift in a Chinese community in Britain". Clevedon:
 Multilingual Matters.

 Milroy, Lesley. 1980.  Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Blackwell.

 ABOUT THE REVIEWER

 Louisa Willoughby is a PhD student with the Language and Society at
 Monash University, Clayton. Her doctoral research focuses on the
 relationship between language and cultural maintenance and identity
 construction among the teenage children of immigrants to Australia
 looking specifically at the role of the secondary school experience in
 promoting language maintenance and shift.

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