„Emigrantai: kalba ir tapatybė“

LAIMA KALĖDIENĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language Research areas: sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, dialectology, onomastics, phonetics and phonology, computational linguistics. EMIGRANTS: LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY Collective monograph Scientific editor Meilutė Ramonienė, maps prepared by Viktorija Baranauskienė, authors: Viktorija Baranauskienė, Eglė Gudavičienė, Kristina Jakaitė-Bulbukienė, Dovilė Krupickaitė, Meilutė Ramonienė, Loreta Vilkienė Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 2015, 232 p. ISBN 978-609-459-543-1 Emigration is a pressing issue in Lithuania today, a powerful process currently under way whose scale may yet grow; therefore, studying phenomena related to this process is not only necessary but inevitable. Researchers at Vilnius University—linguists and geographers, assisted by sociologists—conceived and carried out in 2011–2013 a sociolinguistic project supported by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, The Language of Emigrants (led by Meilutė Ramonienė). During fieldwork in Germany, America, and Tasmania, a great deal of data was collected through in-depth interviews; in addition, numerous responses were received online—the 2,026 questionnaires completed constituted a standardized survey (pp. 209–221) covering 61 questions. A major advantage of the data obtained and analyzed is that they were collected at almost the same time, over a period of a couple of years. Straipsniai / Articles 305 LAIMA KALĖDIENĖ The considered application of quantitative and qualitative sociolinguistic methods is the key to the success of this project. The project leader had already gained considerable experience in this kind of work1, on which she draws, together with Dovilė Krupickaitė, in presenting the methodology for studying emigrants’ language (pp. 19–40). At the very outset, on p. 19, the Achilles’ heel of the entire study becomes clear: the concept of an emigrant. Here, emigrants are defined as all “persons who have lived outside Lithuania for at least 3 years” (p. 19). This includes both those who emigrated from Lithuania and their children and grandchildren who identify as Lithuanian and feel connected to Lithuania (as in the Global Lithuania program). And this is precisely the most precarious starting point: the extent to which they themselves feel connected to Lithuania, what ties they maintain, or what ties they feel bound by. Undoubtedly, when surveying even several thousand emigrants, these very ties to Lithuanian identity were the most difficult, and at times even impossible, to establish, whereas the reliability of the responses depended largely on them: whether or not an emigrant wishes to be associated with Lithuania, a point also raised in D. Krupickaitė’s article (p. 26), which provides a detailed overview of emigration waves and destinations from this perspective. The researcher justified the choice of the study area and the principles used to construct the sampling matrix by pointing to gaps in the data and their unreliability (pp. 27–28). In the best sense of the word, M. Ramonienė’s article “Quantitative and Qualitative Studies of Emigrants’ Language” (pp. 31–40) is a veritable textbook account of the methodology for combining quantitative and qualitative research methods in applied linguistics, intended for students and doctoral candidates in this field and for all those interested. It is also a detailed account of skillful project leadership. The book’s second part, “Language and Language Attitudes in Emigration,” analyzes the main research question: language use in emigration. In her article “General Trends in Emigrants’ Linguistic Behavior and Attitudes” (pp. 43–58), Eglė Gudavičienė draws on quantitative survey data and arrives at conclusions that could be called rather banal: “as time passes, it becomes harder to maintain the Lithuanian language unchanged” and “it becomes harder to teach children—especially when there is more than one—their parents’ native language.” However, she draws this conclusion from the answers to the questionnaire items gathered in the study and explains why this happens: “As many as 90 percent of respondents would like their children, as well as their grandchildren and 1 This experience began to accumulate for M. Ramonienė through collaboration with researchers at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, when a methodology for quantitative research developed in the Netherlands was successfully applied for the first time in Lithuania to study the languages of homes and schools in major cities (Ramonienė M., Extra G. Multilingualism in Lithuanian Cities. Languages at home and school in Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda. Vilnius/Tilburg, Klaipėda: Klaipėda University Press, 2011, 92 p.). M. Ramonienė also led two other major studies that used not only quantitative but also qualitative research methods: Cities and Languages, scientific editor M. Ramonienė. Vilnius: Vilnius University Press, 2010, 312 p.; Cities and Languages 2. A Sociolinguistic Map of Lithuania, scientific editor M. Ramonienė. Vilnius: Vilnius University Press, 2013, 318 p. 306 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXV Emigrantai: kalba ir tapatybė. Kolektyvinė monografija great-grandchildren would know Lithuanian, and explains how important this is; however, only 66 percent of parents in the first generation of emigrants try to ensure that their children speak Lithuanian at home, compared with 31 percent in the second generation and 10 percent in the third” (p. 58). For this reason, and not only for this reason, E. Gudavičienė’s assumption that “[I]t may be that the longer people live abroad and the more their native language is affected, the more important it becomes to emigrants—as a guarantee of preserving their identity” (p. 57) seems rather doubtful. After all, drawing on survey data, the article concludes that “it is precisely the second and third generations for whom the attitude of identifying nationality with the Lithuanian language is uncharacteristic—only a third of the respondents surveyed stated that a Lithuanian must know Lithuanian” (p. 52). The questionnaires contained a great deal of data about the native languages and language proficiency of children born in mixed families in which one parent is a Lithuanian emigrant. Very little of this data is used in the article; perhaps the most important finding is that in mixed families, 74 percent of children have Lithuanian as their native language if the mother is Lithuanian, and 54 percent if the father is Lithuanian (p. 66). Therefore, the didactic reflections that “knowing the language used in the country of residence does not ensure a sense of ‘belonging’” or that “[I]t is also mistaken to think that good or very good command of the language of the country of residence will in all cases help a person fit in and integrate into a foreign country” (p. 47) are in no way substantiated by the data from the study under discussion; they rely only on Jim Cummins’s well-known interdependence, or iceberg, hypothesis. This aspect of the study—the influence of mixed families—is extremely important and should be explored further in separate studies, drawing on the accumulated material, much of which has probably not yet been presented in this article; it is, however, discussed at considerable length in an article by another contributor to this collection, Kristina Jakaitė-Bulbukienė (pp. 67–114). Another article in the second part of the book, on language use and language attitudes, addresses patterns of emigrants’ language proficiency and use in different regions of the world (by D. Krupickaitė and V. Baranauskienė, pp. 59–65). It serves as illustrative material for Egidijus Aleksandravičius’s Karklo diego (2013): “first-generation emigrants are often reluctant to identify themselves as Lithuanians while in Lithuania, participate less in community activities, and so on, indicating that their identification with Lithuania or the Lithuanian language is not very strong, which may lead to a more rapid decline in their command and use of Lithuanian than among emigrants of earlier generations” (p. 65). They are, in a sense, a lost generation, yet they persistently demand Lithuanian citizenship as a second citizenship. The article by D. Krupickaitė and V. Baranauskienė under discussion makes especially clear where and why the survey responses were actually obtained: “[O]f the 2,026 respondents, more than half (60.2 percent) live in Western and Southern European countries, to which emigration has been most intensive over the past 25 years (...). An absolute majority, as many as 78.5 percent, of respondents represent the first generation of emigrants, that is, the respondents were born in Lithuania (...). Such a proportion of this generation of emigrants Recenzijos / Reviews 307 LAIMA KALĖDIENĖ respondents is considerably higher than had been planned for the survey. A similar situation is found in Central and Eastern European countries” (pp. 59–60). It is explained that a relatively large number of second-generation emigrants were also surveyed, but by no means as many from the third generation. Few respondents were surveyed in Asia as well (only in the Asian part of Russia). All these observations are reflected in highly informative maps (“Respondents’ Citizenship,” p. III; “Country Where the Respondent Grew Up (Lived Until Age 16),” p. X). A very interesting aspect of this study was the question of how emigrants feel in the countries where they live and in Lithuania itself: the painful confirmation was that, unlike emigrants of earlier generations, who often left Lithuania for political reasons, “a large proportion of the new generation of emigrants, who left Lithuania because of economic hardship, do not feel at home either in Lithuania or in the country where they live” (p. 65). Thus, although sad, the scientific forecast is well-founded: “This suggests that the use of Lithuanian may decline much more rapidly among Lithuanians of the third wave of emigration than among emigrants of the second wave and their descendants” (p. 65). This is a recommendation to those who formulate and implement Lithuania’s foreign policy, one already grounded in scientific evidence. The third article in the second part of the book is devoted to family language policy and management (by K. Jakaitė-Bulbukienė, pp. 67–114). Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data (the latter particularly effectively), K. Jakaitė-Bulbukienė reveals the attitudes that shape emigrants’ determination to maintain the Lithuanian language, especially in the United States and Germany. Certain rather obvious truths—such as “There is a desire to pass the Lithuanian language on to future generations,” “Speaking Lithuanian is perceived as natural,” and so on (p. 113)—may seem to explain little about the reasons for maintaining Lithuanian, but these are what are known as subjective attitudes, whose force is considerable. A closer reading of the article reveals that most of this type of data was collected from those who were especially willing to answer the questionnaire: postwar-wave emigrants, their children, and grandchildren (p. 113). The resulting picture is therefore distorted—the reflection obtained is not an objective snapshot, but an image of the choir members’ club. This is one of the shortcomings of the research methodology: the question of how to control respondent selection remains unanswered. The third part of the book—“Identity and Language Maintenance” (pp. 117–185)—consists of three articles by Loreta Vilkienė on national, linguistic, and cultural identity. This part of the book is distinguished by the abundance and depth of its theoretical discussions and by its consideration of the data obtained in a broader global and scholarly context. A critical approach to the sociolinguistic data obtained only enhances the value of the work and reveals prospects for other research: “It should be recalled that only socially active individuals for whom their ethnic identity is important participated in the qualitative surveys of the ‘Emigrant Language’ project; moreover, it may be assumed that such individuals were also much more active in completing the quantitative survey questionnaires. However, one cannot assume that their views represent the position of all Lithuanians / people of Lithuanian descent living abroad,” 308 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXV Emigrantai: kalba ir tapatybė. Kolektyvinė monografija because, as already mentioned, that part of the Lithuanian community which has consciously severed its ties with Lithuania and Lithuanian identity was probably reached only to a limited extent, or perhaps not at all, during the project’s research. Thus, all generalizations apply only to some Lithuanians / people of Lithuanian origin living abroad, for whom Lithuanian identity is important to one degree or another” (p. 133). The Appendices are especially valuable: they comprise 18 sociolinguistic maps drawn by V. Baranauskienė; the 61-question questionnaire for the “Study of the Linguistic Behaviour of Emigrants of Lithuanian Origin”; information about 177 qualitative interviews; and the interview protocol for the project’s qualitative interviews Emigrantų kalba. The analysis of the articles shows that the study of emigrant language described here is a very complex undertaking, first and foremost from a methodological perspective. You get what you ask for. Submitted on 23 December 2016. LAIMA KALĖDIENĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language 5 Petro Vileišio St., Vilnius LT-10308, Lithuania [email protected] Recenzijos / Reviews 309