1. + Indonesian Language Maintenance: A Case Study of Indonesian Families in the United States By: Nurenzia Yannuar

2. + Topic Area Sociolinguistics Language Maintenance Language Heritage

3. + Background/Justification Family plays important role in maintaining heritage language; therefore, parents are encouraged to interact and communicate with their children in their heritage language. This study will investigate how Indonesian is being used by Indonesian families who reside in the United States. Beside looking at parents’ role in maintaining Indonesian as the heritage language, the study will attempt to determine the attitude of children towards Indonesian. It might be very difficult for children to maintain their heritage language in the United States when they are being exposed to English at school and in social communities. However, there are several factors that may support heritage language maintenance.

4. + References (1) Garcia, M. (2003) Recent research on language maintenance. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 23, p.22-43 (2) Luo, S.H & Wiseman, R.L. (2000). Ethnic language maintenance among Chinese immigrant children in the United States. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24, p.307- 324 (3) Canagarajah, A.S. (2008). Language and the family: Questions from the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(2), p 143-176 (4) Joo, H. (2009). Literary practices and heritage language maintenance: The case of Korean-American immigrant adolescents. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 19(01).p 76- 99

5. + Research Questions What is the role of parents in maintaining Indonesian as their heritage language? What is the attitude of children towards Indonesian as their heritage language? What are the strategies in maintaining a heritage language?

6. + METHODOLOGY Participants: Two Indonesian Families Each family has five children

7. + Methodology Procedure: 1. Distribute background information questionnaire. It will document the background information of the participants. 2. Focus group interview. The first focus group will involve children from both families, while the other session will combine parents and children. The sessions will be recorded. 3. Observation. Researcher will join the families in order to be able to observe the natural use of language in their interactions.

8. + Analysis Qualitative Analysis Descriptive Analysis Transcribed data from the taped interview sessions Research Logs

9. + Expected Findings Parents play important role in maintaining Indonesian as the heritage language Children are reluctant to learn Indonesian, because they are exposed to the societally dominant language, English. Parents speak Indonesian, and children respond in English Parents use English when communicating to the children in order to make sure that they are understandable There are certain contexts in which one language is used

10. + Anticipated Problems/Limitation of Study Limited numbers of Indonesian families in Athens, Ohio Hard to generalize Language Maintenance performed by Indonesian families in the United States The families might perform differently because of the presence of a researcher Conducting Qualitative Research Anecdotalism