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Heritage Language Ethnolinguistic Vitality

Over the years, heritage languages (non-official languages that are not English and French) are not as commonly understood and practiced to its full potential. In comparison to our ancestors, the later generations are not as fluent (including understanding, reading and writing) in the language and are reluctant to follow cultural traditions. There are various reasons as to why this has occurred. According to the Model of Ethnolinguistic Vitality, the institutional support, status and demographics of the people are significantly involved in maintaining the heritage languages and passing it on. In Toronto, the Korean heritage language is still practiced by most people as it boasts to be one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world until this day.

Status

In order to maintain their Korean-Canadian status and beliefs, some have refused to change their ways of life and association with others in the community. 'There was an analyses of fifteen interview data conducted on six new ESL immigrants from Korea (Tae-Young 117).' The results show that four of them kept their Korean names while the other two anglicized their names to efficiently function in the unfamiliar society they now found themselves in. Those who kept their Korean names tend to live in Korean-speaking communities (to retain a sense of having an ethnic identity despite the pressure from society (Tae-Young 117 cited from Bourdieu 1977, 1998, 2000).

Demographics

According to Bourdieu, linguistic habitus is a subset of a person’s class habitus in which they have may have formed it over various experiences of linguistic markets. It helps evaluate the relationship between social class and ethnicity, status, language learning, status, demographics and how often/well one uses their language (Shin 99). Studies of the Toronto population show that there is a significant increase in Korean immigrants recently as they have found it to be advantageous to their economy. Since, they wanted to establish a rich and upper middle class reputation, many chose to live in North York. Hence, there's also a major rise in Korean immigrants in North York as seen from studies.

References

Kim, Tae-Young. "The Dynamics of Ethnic Name Maintenance and Change: Cases of Korean ESL Immigrants in Toronto." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 28.2 (2007): 117-33. ProQuest. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.

2. Shin, Hyunjung. "Social Class, Habitus, and Language Learning: The Case of Korean Early Study-Abroad Students." Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 13.2 (2014): 99-103. ProQuest. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.