Socialization into Persian language and culture: An investigation of mother-child interactions in a bilingual environment

By

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my lecturer who has always shown confidence in me. He has offered his patience, remarks, propositions and understanding. Here I would also like to mention my parents who have always believed in me for all my hard work. My family, including my parents, brother and sister have endlessly supported me during my life and academics. This has helped me in making positive decisions for my life. I would also mention my peers and co-workers and appreciate their collaboration and expert advice on every circumstance. I am also grateful towards my University and my Department, the administrators, faculty members and fellow students for their support throughout this study.

DECLARATION

I declare that the material stated in this dissertation/thesis is original and does not present work of any other scholar or research study conducted in the past. Material in this study is not partially or completely published elsewhere and collected only for the purpose of this study. I also acknowledge that I have complete understanding of the requirements, guidelines, regulations and procedures of the University with respect to the endowment of higher education degree and my research work. Here, I would also like to take the opportunity to declare that I have almost exclusively followed the requirements, guidelines, regulations and procedures of the University regarding this research study.

Signature: ________________Dated: ________________

ABSTRACT

This study tried to find out the relationship between socialization into Persian language and culture by investigating mother and child interaction in a bilingual environment. For finding out this, the two months observational phase was done. The data collected of the child's family home literacy's not only address the various types and uses of literacy/bi-literacy but also the family's conversational activity and their everyday uses of verbal activity as a means of socializing children into the domains of both languages, Farsi and English. Thus, it can be concluded that socialization into Persian language and culture is easy when the mother interact and teach her child in the early stage.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

ABSTRACTIV

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background1

Language, Identity, and Power2

Language socialization4

Parent strategies5

Language development6

Aim of Study8

Research questions9

Section summary9

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW10

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY15

Qualitative research method16

Video Recording18

Validity19

Reliability21

Ethical Concerns22

Literature Search23

Keywords Used24

CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION25

Persian Language26

Second Language Acquisition28

Effects of language acquisition30

Language Socialization32

Second Language Socialization33

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory35

Cummins' Language Development Theory37

Bilingualism41

Language Differentiation and Code Mixing43

Early Bilingualism and Literacy49

Developmental stages of the language of bilinguals51

Code-switching52

Transfer and Code Switching Debate54

Siblings effects in bi-literacy practices55

The Socialization of Indirect and Polite Communicative Styles56

The Home Literacy Environment57

Feeding63

Directive Response63

Co-occurring Activities64

Code-switching64

Engagement of Child With the Computer65

Repetition65

Mother-guiding65

Non-Verbal Guiding66

Bilingual Adult and Children Transfer66

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS74

REFERENCES78



CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background

Since the introduction of the language socialization paradigm, many researchers have examined the scaffolding that language socialization affords, in order to explore the interconnectivity of socio-cultural behaviors and processes of language use. Based on the assumption that language socialization begins the moment a child is first brought into contact with its social environment; a large body of research has ...