LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE IN AN INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE: THE CASE OF INDONESIAN FEMALES’ LANGUAGE CHOICE IN CANADA

Abstract

This study aims to investigate Indonesian females’ language choice in their interracial family in the home domain and factors that contribute to their language choice. Ultimately, the study seeks to describe the influence of language choice on maintaining the Indonesian language amidst multilingual Canada. Semi-structured interviews and observations were employed to collect the data. The participants of this study were three female Indonesians with their Canadian spouses living in Canadian cities.  The study revealed that English was chosen as the language spoken at home in each family despite having an Indonesian mother. Although all (Indonesian) mothers code-switch between the Indonesian language and English, the study discovered that the children are passive speakers of Indonesian, some do not even understand their mother language. Social context and motivation are some factors that influence the participants’ language choice. The findings also indicate that language shifts from Indonesian to English were taking place in the participants’ repertoire.