Boosting Heritage Languages
Boosting Heritage Languages: Multimodality in Urban and Digital Spaces
ARC Discovery Project DP260102855
Chief Investigators: Associate Professor Anikó Hatoss and Professor Louise Ravelli
This project investigates how heritage languages are sustained or eroded within Australia’s families. Heritage languages carry rich cultural, social, and economic value, yet younger generations increasingly face pressures that weaken intergenerational transmission.
A large proportion of Australian children do not learn to speak their heritage language, with losses ranging from 30% to 90% across migrant communities. Much is already known about the transfer of heritage languages within the family or at school, but little is known how the broader environment impacts this process. Thus, this project seeks to explore how the public spaces in which people engage in daily life, and the digital spaces that engage with, can contribute to enhancing heritage language practices and support intergenerational language maintenance.
Methods
The project uses an innovative multimodal research design to explore how urban spaces and digital platforms shape language practices, representations, and ideologies. It combines linguistics, social semiotics, and multimodal discourse analysis to reveal how visual, spatial, and technological factors influence language use and identity in migrant communities. This approach captures the complex ways heritage languages are enacted, represented, and negotiated across physical and virtual environments.
Research impact
The project will bring policy and educational benefits through enhanced awareness of the value of heritage languages. It will lead to new knowledge about migrant families’ everyday intercultural, interethnic and transnational interactions and identify the social factors that condition heritage language use. The study will provide useful knowledge about the communication practices and inter-cultural experiences of Australian youth from diverse migrant backgrounds and their social connectedness in urban and digital contexts.
Contact & further information
Please contact the research team for more information about the Boosting Heritage Languages project, research findings, or collaboration opportunities.
Contact: a.hatoss@unsw.au or l.ravelli@unsw.edu.au
Chief investigators
