The Three-Generation Model (hereafter also the TGM) is the prevailing theory of language assimilation. According to the model it takes three generations for an immigrant family to lose the mother...Show moreThe Three-Generation Model (hereafter also the TGM) is the prevailing theory of language assimilation. According to the model it takes three generations for an immigrant family to lose the mother tongue and shift to English. Since the model forms the basis for theory and research, it is important to ascertain the validity of the model. This thesis therefore examined to what extent the Three-Generation Model of language shift can be applied to contemporary immigrant groups in the United States. In order to answer this question, this descriptive research built on U.S. census data from 1980, 2000, and 2018 to reflect the three generations. This data was collected by IPUMS (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series). The proportions of monolinguals with a non-English mother tongue, multilinguals, and monolinguals who speak English were determined, in order to describe the linguistic assimilation process. Findings appear to be in agreement with the TGM. While roughly two-thirds of the first generation of immigrants spoke a non-English mother tongue (whether alongside English or not), 95.9% of the third generation reported that they spoke only English, which suggests that they lost the mother tongue. Nearly a third of the first generation was already a monolingual speaker of English in the first generation. The difference between the second and the third generation was especially large. Further research could aim to strengthen these findings, or to find out the reasons behind these results.Show less
Throughout the Soviet rule Buryats have been subjected to interventionist legislation that affected not only their daily lives but also the internal cohesion of the Buryat group as a collective...Show moreThroughout the Soviet rule Buryats have been subjected to interventionist legislation that affected not only their daily lives but also the internal cohesion of the Buryat group as a collective itself. As a result of these measures many Buryats today claim that they feel a certain degree of disconnection with their own ethnic self-perception. This ethnic estrangement appears to be partially caused by many people’s inability to speak and understand the Buryat language, thus obstructing their connection to ancient traditions, knowledge and history. This work will investigate the extent to which Soviet linguistic policies have contributed to the disconnection of Buryats with their own language and offer possible effects of ethnic language loss on the self-perception of modern day Buryats.Show less
