Multilingual competences and family language practices

Abstract

In this paper we examine the role of family-induced linguistic input as a predictor for proficiencies in written language production of multilingual children aged 11. Our study considers their proficiencies in majority language (German) as well as in their family languages. Given that in most cases systematic educational support is warranted for majority language only, we assume marginal effects of familial linguistic input on the child's performance in majority language but substantial effects on family language proficiencies. We differentiate between quantitative and qualitative input aspects and include additional social and educational variables that are supposed to interfere with the relation between linguistic input and language proficiencies. The study is based on cross-sectional data collected in a pilot study, including Russian-German, Turkish-German and Vietnamese-German children in northern Germany. We computed nested OLS-regression models to examine the hypothesized relations. Results indicate that effects of familial quantitative input in German decrease when controlled for duration of contact with the majority language and for type of school the children attend. We discuss these factors mainly as indicators for external linguistic input. On the other hand we find support for the hypothesis that the quality of familial input in the family language has significant effect on the child's writing proficiencies in this language. We find no evidence that structural factors of the social background play an independent role in the examined relations.