Suggestions

 

How can the goal of bilingualism be finally reached? It has been stressed a few times that early and sufficient exposure is the key to successful acquisition of any language. In the light of this, here are a few recommendations to create the proper environment for the children:

 

An equal-footing relationship between the parents’ languages

Among our interviews, most fathers have very little or even no command of the mother’s language. Given the linguistic environment in Hong Kong, it deprives the mothers of chances to use their native tongue. This is critically unfavourable for the transmission of language. Even the mother interact with her children in her first language, the children may gauge the language as inferior due to its limited use (only mother’s, but not any other’s language), and turn to the dominant language (father’s language) entirely, as they will see mother use father’s language in front of their father. To break this fate, it is highly encouraged that the father should learn mother’s native language to use it on daily basis. This unites the language in the family as a whole. Children will also have a higher chance to judge the language more positively, and won’t feel this language is inferior (at least in the family). This also creates a sense of belonging to the whole family when the children are speaking the language.

 

Socialise children with people speaking the mother’s language

It is worth noticing in Mrs Chau’s case that successful transmission of Kham Muang depends on immersion - bringing her son back to Chiang Mai, and using it with her Northern Thai friends in Hong Kong. While the former may not be feasible to some parents, the latter just require some regular gatherings: either with the mother’s relatives or societies set up by the linguistic community. Being an international city, it would be extremely rare that our interviewees are the only ones speaking their native languages. Bringing the children to socialise with these ‘aunts and uncles’ not only provides the linguistic environment which might be lacking at home, but also strengthens the children’s identity to the linguistic community.

 

Cultural and identity education

When the linguistic environment is sufficient, more can be done on the cultural and identity parts, which are closely linked to language. It is suggested that parents should tell their own history to the children, and practise customs associated with their native language as much as possible (e.g. singing folk songs, telling folktales, celebrating festivals etc.) in order to let the children appreciate the language more deeply.