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My Dissertation Publications and Working Papers My Favorite Quotes
My Dissertation
My current research examines social and psychological determinants of language proficiency among children of immigrants. Past studies consistently show that proficiency in English and non-English languages is strongly associated with youth’s socio-emotional well-being, academic achievement and future employment opportunities, and, therefore, has a critical influence on the mode and success of adolescent social integration into the English-dominant U.S. society.
Most sociological research on linguistic adaptation focuses on demographic explanations of language proficiency. Studies in social linguistics, on the other hand, also emphasize the crucial role of the immediate social environment. However, our knowledge about the relationship between the social environment and language proficiency is limited, despite its direct implications for linguistic and social integration of immigrants into the host society.
In this research context, I investigate the effects of perceived discrimination, family characteristics and personal language preferences on proficiency in English and non-English languages among adolescent children of immigrants. Using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, I demonstrate that family, peers, teachers and counselors at school and also the larger society have a marked impact on adolescents’ language proficiency with possible outcomes ranging from bilingual proficiency to language shift to semi-bilingualism.
For the purpose of my study, I devised a novel approach that integrates findings from social linguistics, social psychology and sociology. First, I distinguish oral proficiency from literacy. Compared to oral proficiency, literacy requires greater investments of time and effort and is strongly associated with long-term language maintenance. Second, I acknowledge the dual meaning of self-reported language proficiency. I discuss implications of using self-reported proficiency as a measure of both objective language competence and subjective perceptions of one’s language abilities. This original approach applied to data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study is instrumental in addressing my research questions.
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Publications and Working Papers
- 2004 McKinney, Kathleen, Maria Medvedeva, Karey Vacca and Janice Malak. 2004. Beyond the Classroom: An Exploratory Study of Out-of- Class Learning in Sociology. Teaching Sociology, 32 (1): 43-60.
- Perceived Discrimination and Language Proficiency among Children of Immigrants in the United States (Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Youth and Adolescence).
- Family Characteristics and Language Proficiency among Children of Immigrants in the United States (Under Review, Journal of Family Issues).
- Language Preferences and Language Proficiency among Children of Immigrants in the United States.
- Human Capital, Social Capital, and Intergenerational Mobility: Some Implications for the Case of Immigrants.
- Educational Expansion and Persisting Inequality in Several European Countries in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century.
My Favorite Quotes
“As language interpenetrates every aspect of modern life, so it must follow modern man to his brightest heights as well as his darkest depths.”
Fishman, Joshua. 1966. Language Loyalty in the United State. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton. (p.26)
“It is this constant interplay between language and experience which removes language from the cold status of such purely and simply symbolic systems as mathematical symbolism or flag signaling.”
Sapir, Edward. 1958. Selected Writings in Language, Culture, and Personality: Selected Essays. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. (p. 11)
“It is important to realize that language may not only refer to experience or even mold, interpret, and discover experience, but that it also substitutes for it in the sense that in those sequences of interpersonal behavior which form the greater part of our daily lives speech and action supplement each other and do each other’s work in a web of unbroken pattern.”
Sapir, Edward. 1958. Selected Writings in Language, Culture, and Personality: Selected Essays. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. (p. 12)
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