'What's Preached' vs. 'What's Practiced': Language Views and Family Language Practices in Russian-English Bilingual Families

摘要

Although numerous studies have been done on language ideologies, bilingualism and effects of second language socialization on bilinguals' conceptualization in both languages, these three areas of research are almost never brought together in one study. This study is an attempt to investigate language views of adult Russian-English bilinguals and whether there are patterned differences in conceptualization of these views depending on the language chosen for discussion. The study also inspects whether the articulated language views are accurate predictors of actual literacy practices in Russian-English bilingual families and parental choices of maintaining/not-maintaining Russian in their children. Since the frames of reference are so different in Russia/Ukraine (where the participants came from) and the United States, the language views articulated by bilingual participants are compared to those expressed by Russian/ Ukrainians and Americans to see how the participants' views are influenced by the process of second language socialization.