It is hard to imagine the social world in their absence. Rethinking ethnicity . How and when to link between language and ethnicity comes about, its saliency and potency, its waxing and waning, its inevitability and the possibility of its surrounding, all need to be examined. Handbook of language and ethnic identity . Oxford University Press.
Language is an important part of ethnic maintenance.
The centrality of heritage languages . Immigrant parents may feel great pressure for their children to function in the majority language quickly in order to integrate into the social mainstream and experience academic success. Using the term 'international' might help people understand that the language education is for everybody, not for particular ethnic groups. The Canadian Experience. The Canadian Association for Japanese Language Education.