Literacy practices among Spanish-Japanese children in Catalonia: An ethnographic study of their uses and attitudes toward them
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1344/did.2018.3.16-34Keywords:
multilingual, heritage language, literacy practices and attitudesAbstract
This ethnographic study aims to analyze writing tasks, attitudes, roles and social practices of 11 students from grades one to nine who attend the Japanese Saturday school in Barcelona, Spain (Hoshuko Barcelona Educación Japonesa),in each of their four surrounding languages (Spanish, Catalan, English and Japanese). We conducted 22 interviews with their Japanese mothers and collected 32 students’ writing samples in multiple languages. Our participants have different language backgrounds because they belong to bilingual families and all go to local schools. In addition they all attend the Japanese school on Saturdays in order to maintain Japanese as a heritage language. We found that these children use four different languages both constantly and actively. With regard to Japanese, the most common literacy activity performed by them is keeping a diary, which is an assignment from their school. They occasionally write seasonal cards and send messages to their extended family in the appropriate language for the readers. From a sociocultural perspective, the literacy practices and the use of technology across the four languages were analyzed, with a special focus on the interactions and the appropriation of two significantly different writing systems (Spanish, Catalan and English versus Japanese).
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