| 英文摘要 |
Taiwan is a multiracial, multicultural, and multilingual country. Over the past two decades, massive numbers of foreign spouses have moved to Taiwan and changed the structure of the population dramatically. Most of them are from mainland China and Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, etc. According to the population statistics from the Ministry of the Interior in 2015, there are 505,320 new immigrants and over 210,000 new immigrant children studying at the elementary school and the junior high school. In other words, one out of every ten students in Taiwan is a new immigrant child. This study aimed to investigate new immigrant children’s self-ethnic identity, new immigrant language proficiency and use, attitude toward heritage languages, Mandarin, English, and other Taiwanese languages. A total of 3,143 questionnaires were collected, statistically analyzed, and implications drawn. In addition, eight new immigrants from Southeast Asia were interviewed to find out when and where immigrant languages were used, what are the reasons for their use or non-use in the family, and what are their attitude toward the school’s decision to launch a new immigrant language course and passing dwon heritage language. The results indicated that 68.7% of the new immigrant children chose their paternal ethnic group for their ethnic identity, and up to 54% of these children acquired Mandarin as the first language. Mandarin also received the best evaluation in many aspects of language attitude. Generally, they have neither high proficiency in the new immigrant language, nor do they use it frequently. The statistics also revealed that there were significant differences in new immigrant children’s language attitude among different residential areas and according to the mother’s country of origin. Positive linear relationships between new immigrant parents and children’s heritage language use and between heritage language proficiency and language attitude were found to be significant too. Furthermore, the interviews with new immigrant parents showed that for some reasons, they did not actively provide opportunities for children to learn their heritage language; however, in spite of this, they still hoped that the school could provide the new immigrant language courses for their children. Finally, on the basis of these research findings, some viewpoints were proposed to the government regarding cultivating new immigrant children as a talent pool for the “ New Southbound Policy” in the future. |
