Abstract

The literature on language, immigration and the labour market mostly links destination language proficiency to higher earnings. Thus, it emphasises economic motivation for immigrants’ destination language learning. A questionnaire with open-ended and close- ended questions was used to survey 100 Ghanaian immigrants living in Johannesburg with regard to factors that stimulate or impede the learning of South African indigenous languages. The findings of this article affirm that economic migrants mostly learn destination languages for economic purposes. However, the study further revealed that social motivation is also important for immigrants’ language learning. Even though some of the participants successfully used English in their workplaces and other contexts, the established members of the host community’s preference for using South African indigenous languages for social purposes made the participants socially motivated to learn these languages. They later appreciated the social access and acceptance they gained through their proficiency.

摘要

有关语言，移民和劳动力市场的文献大多将目的地语言水平与更高的收入联系在一起。因此，它强调了移民学习目的地语言的经济动机。使用带有不限成员名额和不限成员名额问题的问卷调查表，对生活在约翰内斯堡的100名加纳移民进行了调查，以了解刺激或阻碍南非土著语言学习的因素。本文的结论肯定了经济移民主要是出于经济目的而学习目的地语言。但是，研究进一步表明，社会动机对于移民的语言学习也很重要。即使一些参与者在工作场所和其他环境中成功使用英语，东道国社区的既定成员偏爱将南非土著语言用于社会目的，这使得参与者具有学习这些语言的社会动机。后来，他们赞赏他们通过熟练程度获得的社会参与和认可。