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English, An endangered Language?

            
             The knowledge of more than one language has become a crucial element in a society noted for its diversity and multiculturalism where immigrants constitute an integral part of the population. However, there are those who claim that immigrants must abandon their native languages in order to fully integrate into American society. Some view the speaking of another language by immigrant populations as a threat to the unity and health of United States. There have been many attempts to ban bilingual education in schools fearing that immigrants maintaining their languages alive would result in the demise of the English language. In hopes of clearing up certain misconceptions, Alejandro Portes and Richard Schauffler of Johns Hopkins University conducted a study in Florida examining the children of immigrants and their language skills. Florida is a key state for such a study due to the high influx of immigrants. The study focuses on the children of immigrants who were either born !.
             in the United States or have resided here for more than 5 years. It looks at their ability as well as their desire to speak English and their retention of their parent's language. The significance of this study is notable since it shows to what degree these second generation Americans have integrated into mainstream American culture, as language is one of the most important cultural elements uniting an individual society, and how they maintain their own cultural identity through their parent's language. It attempts to find the elements that determine why some of these children are truly bilingual and the others remain monolingual, speaking either only English or their parent's language.
             The authors establish three hypotheses at the beginning of the study. They claim that English monolingualism is directly linked to the concentration of a certain immigrant group in a particular area as well as the length of time spent in the United States.


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2. Endangered and Minority Languages

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