2014 Volume 39 Pages 51-64
In intermarried families that use multiple languages, the problem of which language to use with the children is likely to arise. Therefore, in this study, our intention was to bring to light the factors that influence language choice in Korean–Japanese families. Toward this end, we used questionnaires and interviews with mothers. Questions centered on Japanese language heritage and aimed to clarify the mothers’ relations to society.
Results showed that in many families, Japanese language heritage is being transmitted, and that “the status of the native language in society,” “the support of foreign spouses,” and “the understanding of the host society” are factors that influence such heritage. We also observed a conscious self-identification of being a “foreigner” among the Japanese mothers. Unlike in the past, when such women before World War II were labeled as “Japanese wives residing in South Korea” and who tended to hide their Japanese ancestry and live with the goal of putting down roots in Korea, a new way of thinking is emerging in these intermarried families, namely of “living as a foreigner.” In this way, a society is being built in which parents have “hopes for increasing children’s future options,” such as the fact that speaking to children in the mother’s native language is “something natural” and that they are providing their “children with opportunities for contact with the Japanese language.”
