Japanese Parent's Discourse Strategies in Response
to Inappropriate Language Choice by Their Children
Takeuchi Masae
Victoria University of Technology, Australia
There have been positive reports on the acquisition of two languages among young children whose parents adopted the "one parent - one language" approach. However, there is a general perception that maintenance of the minority language into middle childhood and beyond is difficult due to increasing exposure to the societal language and the tendency for the societal language to become more dominant in the child's daily life. The minority language parent's role as a source of input for children's development of the minority language becomes even more important during this period. This study examines conversations of Japanese mothers who are practicing the "one parent - one language" approach with their primary school age children in Australia. Since the children are expected to interact with their Japanese mothers in Japanese, the conversations are analyzed to see whether there is a correlation between the Japanese parents' discourse strategies in response to the children's use of English and the children's subsequent language choice. The results suggest that the Japanese parents' consistency in the use of Japanese in combination with strategies which provide equivalent Japanese translations for the children correlates with their children's active use of Japanese and is more likely to promote Japanese language maintenance.
