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Jul 01, 2025
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Fall 2025 Graduate Catalog
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AAS 555 - Heritage Languages of Asian Americans English has long been the dominant language used in the United States, while the languages of numerous indigenous and immigrant communities have declined and many have died. At the same time, the United States¿ extensive global role, the rising geopolitical rise of Asian powers, such as China, India, Japan, South Korean, and others has highlighted the need to foster greater Asian language and cultural skills among Americans. In that context, maintaining the existing diversity of languages spoken among American immigrant populations becomes as important and effective as teaching the languages to new populations. There is an increasing recognition that the advantages of such multilingualism are not only cultural, but also cognitive, diplomatic, security, commercial, social, and political as well. Retaining knowledge of the home language is found to promote the minority individuals¿ psychological well-being, facilitate communication and bonding across generations, and ease the process of adjusting to life away from the home country, while promoting a pluralistic outlook and providing globally valuable job skills. Still, the brunt of the actual effort to foster multilingualism has been left to individual families despite the known fact that parental effort at maintenance alone are not enough to prevent an eventual shift to English. This new course is a critical examination of the nature and extent of available support (institutional, social, family, and other) for maintaining this valuable resource of Asian immigrants languages. Students learn through through in-depth readings, class lectures and discusssions, and directed research in language communities of their choice.
3 credits
Grading Letter graded (A, A-, B+, etc.)
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