Arabic language maintenance amongst sojourning families in Australia

ABSTRACT

Families that live temporarily abroad for work or education (amongst other reasons) often encounter some difficulties to maintain their children’s L1; particularly when they live in English-speaking countries. This study explores the language maintenance experiences of ten Saudi Arabian families sojourning in Australia, from the perspective of both family language policy and language and religion research. The article looks at this growing group of sojourners, for whom the link between Arabic language maintenance and religion poses particular challenges and opportunities. Parents reported a strong intention to maintain Arabic while in Australia, which they saw as particularly important for easier reintegration into Saudi schools when they return home. They worked hard to preserve their children’s oral fluency but found it more challenging to maintain age-appropriate literacy skills. Arabic maintenance was also seen as crucial for religious practice, and faith-based concerns appeared to be the major motivating factor for parents in enrolling their children in Arabic education programmes. When taken together, the findings demonstrate how religious concerns permeate language maintenance practices for these families, and the similarities and differences in their experiences to those described previously in the literature on Japanese (and some Korean) sojourners.

KEYWORDS:

• Arabic
• language maintenance
• sojourner language and religion
• language literacy

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Louisa Willoughby, Dr. Howard Manns, who have always provided insightful comments and guidance for this project. I also acknowledge that this article emerges from previous work at Monash University and was recently presented at the Fifth Intergenerational Transmission of Minority Languages Symposium: Language, Culture and Ethnicity in Indigenous and Migrant Languages (ITML5), Stockholm University under the title: ‘Always thinking about their schooling once we return home’: sojourning families’ language struggle.

Consenting from participants

All participants provided informed consents by signing a consent form prior to completing the surveys or being interviewed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics Committee Approval

Ethical approval No. (CF14/3 – 2013002008) for this research was obtained from Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC) on 21 January 2014.

Notes

1 This link provides more detail on the number of Saudi students overseas (in Arabic).

2 All comments were originally in Arabic and were translated into English by the researcher.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abdulwdood Bahhari

Abdulwdood Bahhari is currently a PhD candidate at Monash University, Australia, in the Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Program. His thesis explores how Arabic teachers manage the different language proficiencies students bring into the classroom - e.g. in Fus-ha, Ammyiah, English or other languages - and how the students use their comprehensive repertoire to make meaning and express identity. His interest in this area was developed from his work as a lecturer at Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia, where he teaches Arabic as a second language.