Societal, community, family, and individual factors affecting Russian language maintenance in migrant families in Ireland

Abstract

This article analyses the effects of individual, family, community, and societal factors on language socialisation in Russian-speaking (RS) families from Russia and Latvia in Ireland. Sixty semi-structured interviews were conducted between 2008–2011 with RS parents and their children between 10 and 19 years of age. The analysis reveals that the Russian and Latvian cultural groups have different status in Ireland as well as different attitudes to their languages, which result in different approaches to language maintenance. The observed dissimilarities in the two cultural groups problematise studying Russian speakers as one group. Furthermore, the current study provides evidence that the family level is seen as crucial for heritage language maintenance by the adult participants, but it is the societal level that creates an impetus for the RS adolescents to learn Russian through the opportunity to sit a high-stakes language exam.

Keywords:

• Russian language
• heritage language maintenance
• bilingualism
• language transmission/socialisation
• supplementary minority language schools

Acknowledgements

The author deeply appreciates the guidance and endless support of her extraordinary supervisor, Dr Sarah Smyth (Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, Trinity College Dublin). Furthermore, the author is grateful to Dr Conny Opitz (Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, Trinity College Dublin) for her meticulous proofreading of the article and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Irish Research Council in Humanities and Social Sciences [grant number G31088].

Notes

1. Work permit requirements for recruitment outside of the EU make it difficult for employers who have to prove that they cannot find an appropriate employee within the EU, and there are also fairly high minimum wage requirements. In the case of highly sought after specialists, employers are willing to go to the trouble, and this is how the husbands from Russia got their jobs, which enabled these families to migrate. The wives, however, find it much more difficult to secure such employment. These restrictions do not apply to families arriving from Latvia and other countries within the EU.

2. In 2006, 13,319 Latvian nationals were living in Ireland (Central Statistics Office Ireland, 2007b). In 2006 there were officially 4495 Russian nationals in Ireland (Central Statistics Office Ireland, 2007a).

3. The Junior cycle comprises the first three years of secondary school and concludes with the sitting of Junior Certificate Examination, while the Senior cycle normally comprises two years, or optionally three, and leads to the Leaving Certificate Examination.