A Theory of Social Forces and Immigrant Second Language Acquisition

Don DeVoretz and Christiane Werner
Additional contact information
Christiane Werner: Simon Fraser University

No 110, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The preponderance of minimal second language acquisition by immigrants worldwide is striking. This paper proposes a theoretical model, which analyzes the underlying forces that contribute to this outcome of minimal secondary language acquisition by immigrants in such diverse immigrant-receiving countries as Canada, Germany, Israel and the United States. It is argued that the weak incentive structures for second language acquisition for an immigrant appear in four analytically separate spheres including the labour market, political, social, and education spheres. Furthermore, two integration regimes are imposed in these spheres - no government interference, or government-mandated minimum language acquisition after arrival. In all cases and in all spheres, it is argued that, for the majority of immigrants, the weakest level of second language acquisition - minimum oral and minimum written - is the optimal outcome given their incentive structure. In addition, the labour market is the primary determinant of this outcome. Finally, several policy measures to increase the incentives for further second language acquisition are explored.

Keywords: Immigration; ethnic Germans; Canada; language acquisition; labour market; integration; assimilation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2000-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp110.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp110

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().