Language maintenance among “fortunate immigrants”: The French in the United States and Americans in France

Abstract

Our comparison of French immigrants in the United States and American immigrants in France (based on extensive fieldwork in each case) first reveals similarities regarding their motives for emigration, demographic and sociocultural characteristics, and contacts with the homeland. However, some marked differences also emerge on closer examination, particularly in the area of language behavior, analyzed here in terms of family bilingualism. In an attempt to account for those differences, we systematically review a number of potential factors of language maintenance ranging from national context to family dynamics and the status of each of the two languages concerned. After a detailed presentation of our findings, we end with considerations on the emerging study of atypical immigrants (or “fortunate immigrants,” as we call them here) in the age of globalization.

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