Description
Southern California has one of the most diverse linguistic populations in the USA. The
widespread Spanish speaking communities from Central and South America, Iranian (Persian)
community in Irvine, Vietnamese community in Orange County, Armenian community in
Glendale, the largest Korean diaspora in Koreatown Los Angeles, people speaking various
Chinese languages in the San Bernardino valley, several South Asian language communities in
Artesia, Russian, Polish, Thai communities in West LA, only to mention a few.
§ Your task is to select one minority immigrant linguistic community of Southern
California, other than your native language, and write a report about it.
§ Please do not write your report about English language speakers (we are focusing on
minority linguistic communities). We won’t be grading projects written about English
speakers.
• If you are unsure about your selection of a linguistic community, please speak with
your instructor well ahead of time. Do not wait till the very last moment!
§ The report should be:
• 4-5 pages, plus one page of citations
• Minimum 2 pages of interview transcript (see section V)
• Size 12 Times New Roman fonts
• 1.5 spaced
• 1-inch margin on all sides.
§ The project is due on June 7th 2019 by the end of the day (11:59 pm). Submi
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§ You may choose to work in groups of no more than four people (optional), but you must
write and submit the project report independently.
• If you choose to work in a group, please mention the names of your group members on
the information sheet.
• If you fail to submit independent project reports, 50 points will be deducted from
the papers of all the group members.
§ Gathering information: You are required to interview at least 2 native speakers of the
target language –one younger generation speaker, and another older generation speaker.
• You are required to create a questionnaire to interview your informants based on the
set of issues mentioned in section IV. If you are working in a group, one questionnaire
per group is fine.
A. Older generation speaker:
o 1st generation immigrant in the USA, native speaker of the target heritage
language, may speak English as a second or a foreign language.
B. Younger generation speaker:
o 2nd generation in the USA (ages ~18-30) born in the USA or moved to the
USA before the age of 5, native English speakers, possibly bilingual in
English and the target heritage language.
Do NOT gather your data from international students, for the following reasons:
o Although they might fit the age group of the younger speakers, but they are not 2nd
generation in the USA.
o Although they are first generation in the USA, they may not have close ties with a
linguistic community in the Southern California, due to the small amount of time they
have spent in the country.
• Research on your own regarding the language use in the community. You should try to
find existing research, similar to research we will discuss in class under section
“Language shift and maintenance among immigrant communities”.
§ Wikipedia should not be used as your main source of information for this project.
Wikipedia may be used, but very sparingly, only to refer to survey and statistics, and with
proper citations. Excessive use of Wikipedia will be considered as lack of research and lack
of efforts towards the project.
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§ Special notes on a some linguistic communities:
• If you select the Chinese speaking community, then you must focus on a particular
variety of Chinese (e.g. Mandarin, Cantonese, or others). However, for sections I-III
(only), if you are unable to find information specific to a variety, then you may include
data for Chinese as a group of speakers/languages.
• If you select the Spanish speaking communities, try to narrow down your research to a
specific region (for example, East Los Angeles) or a specific country of origin.
§ Plagiarism of any magnitude will NOT be tolerated at all. You must comply with UCI’s
academic integrity policies. Please read HERE!
The report will be divided in 4 sections:
Section I: Survey and statistics of linguistic diversity in the USA (10 points)
In this section you will report surveys and statistics that provide quantitative information
regarding languages and language use in the USA. You will report on the number of
bi/multilingual and monolingual population in the USA (see class slides titled “Languages in the
USA” which refers to US Census 2010 and a report published by CIS in 2018). Do not copy and
paste the class slides if you refer to the information discussed in class.
Section II: Survey and statistics of the target language (15 points)
In this section you will report surveys and statistics that provide quantitative information about
the linguistic community of your choice. First you will provide information about the area(s)
where the community is concentrated in Southern California. Next, you will report the number of
speakers there are for the linguistic community in the USA as well as in Southern California.
You should look for recent US and California census reports. Try to include graphs and figures
in your report.
Section III: History of immigration of the target linguistic community (10 points)
In brief this section you will report the history of the linguistic community. Specifically, you will
try to report (but not limited to): When did the community begin to immigrate to the USA? Was
there any mass immigration that took place? Were there any specific factors due to which the
community immigrated to the USA? Feel free to include any interesting information about the
linguistic community that you may uncover in your research.
Section IV: Language use and Language Maintenance (50 points)
In this section you will report the extent of the use of the selected language in within the
linguistic community and in Southern California. The points you will cover include (but not
limited to) are:
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**READ CAREFULLY**
– To what extent the speakers of the language continue using it within the community.
– To what extent the younger generation speakers of the language are using the language
and trying to maintain it.
– Is the language taught at the public schools in Southern California? Are there after-school
language programs for young people to learn the language, and is the community
interested in sending their children to learn and maintain the heritage language?
– Are there any employment opportunities available in the target heritage language within
southern California that may motivate the speakers to use their heritage language?
– Is the language being used in the modern day pop culture of Southern California or the
USA by the younger generations? If yes, provide some examples.
– Are there restaurants in the community and/or outside the community with menus in the
heritage language? Are there newspapers, magazines, radio/ tv channels, or other
resources available in the selected language? Please include pictures if you can.
– Are there public/government documents available or translated in the selected language?
For example, check DMV instructions; can a native speaker of the selected language take
a driving test in the heritage language?
– To what extent the speakers of the language code-switch. If they do, provide some codeswitching examples in that language. Are there positive or negative attitudes towards
code switching in the community? Further, explore the reasons behind the positive or
negative attitudes towards code-switching.
– How much do the speakers of the target immigrant community associate their heritage
language with their social and individual identity?
– What attitudes do the younger, as well as, the older generations have towards their
language and linguistic community? Is the attitude positive or negative? If negative, try to
explore the factors behind the negative attitude.
– Has the linguistic community or individual speakers ever experienced any negative or
positive bias from other communities for using their heritage language?
– Do the speakers of the community think that the use of the heritage language is
declining? If yes, what are the primary reasons for the decline in the language use? If no,
what factors are playing a key role in the maintenance of the language?
– Are the speakers of the heritage language interested in preserving the language? If yes,
what steps are taken by individuals or communities to preserve the language?
Section V: Transcripts of interviews (10 points)
Finally, you will include minimum 2 pages of your interview transcripts based on the
questionnaire you created for the interview. You do not have to provide transcriptions for the
entire interview if your interview is lengthy –only provide the segments crucial to the
discussion in your paper.
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Information sheet (2 points)
Every project report should contain a filled-in information sheet at the beginning of the
project. The information sheet is uploaded on canvas along with the project details.
Citations (3 points)
For every resource you use you will need to provide citations. You can use either the MLA or
the APA format, as long as you are consistent. For information that you gather from native
speakers of the linguistic community, you will cite it as ‘Personal communication’ in
parenthesis.
Also, please keep your informants anonymous and do not include their names in your paper
