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CHAPTER 7 FINDINGS
the Hungarian language and traditions to their children. Once again, subjects
could select from five plus one statements to the guestion "If you have (or if
you had) children, is it important for you that they speak Hungarian?". The
responses to this question all begin with “No, because ...” and have been
categorized relying on the underlying motive reflected by the implicit content
of the sentences (see more in Chapter 6). The five plus one statements are as
follows: A) “Hungarian can only be used in Hungary; B) “One does not need
to speak Hungarian to be Hungarian”; C) “Hungarian would only interfere
with their ability to acquire English perfectly”; D) “Sooner or later English
will replace small languages such as Hungarian”; E) “I would want them to
be fully integrated in the American society”; F) Other (not included in the
statistical analyses).
Going along the line of highlighting intergenerational differences, G1 and
G2 motives have been contrastively examined.
Table 40: The lack of motives in cherishing the Hungarian language in G1 vs. G2
groups
Statement Statement Statement Statement Statement
Responses A B (Lan- c p E
P (Instru- guage as (Conflicting) | (Pragmatic) | (Integrative)
mental) identity)
Gl ‘yes’
responses 5 (36%) 3 (22%) 1 (7%) 1 (7%) 4 (28%)
(N=14)
G2 ‘yes’
responses 0 1 (33%) 0 1 (33%) 1 (33%)
(N=3)
Once again, the tendencies observed in Table 40 manifest a considerably
more homogeneous pattern in the G2 group than in G1. However, it has to be
pointed out that a considerably low number of responses has been given to
this question (in the G1 group 5 is the highest number in one cell, while in the
G2 group it is 1.) By comparison, the highest number of positive responses in
the previous section in the G1 and G2 groups are 18 and 8, respectively. (See
Table 37). The low number of responses given to the question why it is not
important to cherish the Hungarian language and traditions reflects that in
fact it is important for both groups, for G2 speakers apparently even more so
than for G1 speakers. This finding reinforces Yagmur and Akinci’s result that
despite their reduced competence in and actual use of the heritage language,
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