International Journal of Bilingual Education and

Bilingualism

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Anxiety, language use and linguistic competence

in an immigrant context: a vicious circle?

Yeşim Sevinç & Ad Backus

To cite this article: Yeşim Sevinç & Ad Backus (2019) Anxiety, language use and linguistic
competence in an immigrant context: a vicious circle?, International Journal of Bilingual Education
and Bilingualism, 22:6, 706-724, DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2017.1306021

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2017.1306021

Published online: 23 Mar 2017.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM
2019, VOL. 22, NO. 6, 706–724
https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2017.1306021

Anxiety, language use and linguistic competence in an immigrant

context: a vicious circle?
Yeşim Sevinça and Ad Backusb
a
Center for Multilingualism in Society Across the Lifespan (MultiLing), University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; bDepartment
of Culture Studies, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

By exploring two novel concepts, heritage language anxiety (HLA) and Received 19 January 2017
majority language anxiety (MLA), this study draws attention to the Accepted 8 March 2017
hitherto neglected topic of language anxiety in immigrant and minority
KEYWORDS
contexts. Based on semi-structured interviews with three generations of Language anxiety; immigrant
Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands (n = 30), we investigate why context; majority language
members of an immigrant community experience language anxiety and anxiety (MLA); heritage
how it affects them. Findings suggest that language anxiety in the language anxiety (HLA);
immigrant context, in both its HLA and MLA manifestations, can be causes and effects; Turkish
attributed to linguistic and socioemotional causes. These linguistic and immigrants
socioemotional causes, however, are occasionally difficult to isolate and
they often interact in bringing about a number of negative
consequences. Immigrants may ultimately avoid using the language
about which they feel anxious, which will in turn cause further problems
in terms of conflicted identities and reduced proficiency in the language
concerned. We thus propose that there is a vicious circle that connects
bilinguals’ language knowledge, language use and language anxiety.

Introduction

(1) DG: … My daughter, she has great difficulties in speaking Turkish with our relatives particularly in
Turkey. She gets ashamed that her Turkish is insufficient. … She gets stressed about being seen as
different, being mocked and she is scared of being excluded. Thus, she gets very panicked and also
angry.
Interviewer: Do you think her reactions are language-related?
DG: Definitely. As she cannot explain herself precisely in Turkish, misunderstandings arise. And then
she gets more panicked, loses herself.

This quote is from DG, a Turkish immigrant in the Netherlands, describing her 14-year-old daughter’s
anxiety when speaking Turkish during their visits to Turkey. It refers to three notable aspects of the
immigrant experience, and as DG suggests, the first two provide a basis for the third. The first aspect
is linguistic, as immigrants experience insufficient language knowledge they feel misunderstood and
unable to express themselves clearly. The second aspect is social: the fear of being excluded, mocked,
and considered an outsider. Finally, there is an emotional aspect, including reactions such as shame,
scare, panic, and anger. These aspects affect the way immigrants perceive themselves and thereby
pose challenges for everyday language use. The second quote below is from SLD, a 26-year-old,
second-generation Turkish immigrant born in the Netherlands, who recalls entering school

CONTACT Yeşim Sevinç yesim.sevinc@iln.uio.no

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 707

without ever having been exposed to the majority language Dutch. The language spoken in her
home was Turkish, and the place where she grew up was a minority neighborhood in Rotterdam
where her parents socialized mostly with other Turkish families.

(2) It [anxiety in Dutch] is more because of the things I lived … I experienced that when someone
goes to school, if she doesn’t speak Dutch very well, they point their fingers at her, [it’s] more
like they expel her from everything. For instance, they mostly talk to the ones who speak Dutch
better. My teacher, for instance, didn’t like the students who come from outside [of the Nether-
lands] … He always put us down saying, ‘they are Turks, Moroccans, how do they know it … ’
(Sevinç 2016)

As these anecdotes illustrate, in an immigrant context, emotions related to language ability may
relate to various conflicts. Emotional reactions may trigger ‘language anxiety’, i.e. unease about using
a language. There is a large body of research on language-related anxiety in the inherently stressful
foreign language classroom, but the topic remains relatively unexplored with regard to everyday
communication in immigrant or minority communities. However, a recent study reveals that there
are daily communicative situations that induce anxiety, at least for members of the Turkish immigrant
community in the Netherlands (Sevinç and Dewaele 2016). For first-generation immigrants, this par-
ticularly applies to the use of Dutch, whereas for the third this applies to Turkish; the second gener-
ation sometimes experiences anxiety in both languages.
In this paper, we aim to show that language anxiety in the immigrant context has both linguistic
and socioemotional sources, and may well have negative consequences in both arenas, which are
closely intertwined. Some people avoid using the language about which they feel anxious, which
will in turn cause further problems in terms of conflicted identities and reduced proficiency in the
language concerned. It is therefore important to investigate why individuals experience language
anxiety and how it affects them.

Language anxiety
Language anxiety is conventionally studied in language learning settings (Horwitz 2010) and is
defined as the negative emotional reaction that may attend the learning or use of a foreign
(FL) or second language (SL) (MacIntyre 1999). It is a form of communicative anxiety that can
occur in a range of cases, typically associated with foreign language classrooms. Over time,
however, its subtle effects can have a significant impact on the communication of individuals
also outside the classroom (Steinberg and Horwitz 1986). As the quotes above suggest, in immi-
grant contexts it is also evident in ordinary discourse, and this makes it a topic of wider sociolin-
guistic concern.
Crucially, neither ‘FL’ nor ‘SL’ fully reflects the reality in which second- and/or third-generation
immigrants live. It is not always accurate to describe the majority language as their ‘second’
language, since it may have been part of their repertoire from birth or a very young age. In
addition, it may well function as their main language in large sections of their adolescent and
adult life. In the Turkish immigrant community in the Netherlands, for instance, most members
of the third generation learn both Turkish and Dutch at home (Sevinç 2016). To better capture
the linguistic complexity of the immigrant experience, the terms ‘heritage language’ (HL) and
‘majority language’ (ML) will be used in the remainder of this paper. The HL is the original
language of the immigrant community (here: Turkish), and the ML is the language of the wider
society in which the immigrant community resides (here: Dutch). This immigrant perspective
will further be discussed in the Section ‘Language Anxiety in Immigrant Contexts’. First,
however, the following section will briefly explore what is known about language anxiety in FL
and SL settings, establishing a baseline with which to compare our findings regarding anxiety
in immigrant communities.
708 ̇ AND A. BACKUS
Y. SEVINÇ

Language anxiety in classroom contexts

Language anxiety is a situation-specific psychological phenomenon usually linked to the formal
learning of a foreign language (Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope 1986). Reviewing the literature on
language anxiety, MacIntyre (2017) lists three categories of causes for language anxiety: academic,
cognitive, and social (Table 1).
These three categories are interrelated. ‘Academic causes’, for example, induce anxiety because
they lead to difficult social situations (somebody criticizing your pronunciation, a teacher humiliating
you in class, etc.). In fact, one could argue that all causes are essentially social, because they involve
embarrassing situations during social interaction, which trigger various kinds of insecurity. The nega-
tive effects of language anxiety include lowering students’ confidence, self-esteem and level of par-
ticipation (Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope 1986) and the tendency to avoid using the anxiety-provoking
language (Gregersen 2003). Various studies have found a negative relationship between language
anxiety and language achievement (MacIntyre 1999; Dewaele 2007).
These concerns extend towards second language acquisition as well, since both learning contexts
involve performing in a language in which one lacks proficiency or is perceived to be lacking profi-
ciency. In addition, communicating in an SL (rather than in an FL) involves participating in the non-
native culture, which may cause further unease (Dewaele 2002), especially when there is normative
pressure from the majority to adapt (see Clément, Baker, and MacIntyre 2003).
All this suggests that language anxiety is both a cause and an effect of compromised language
performance (Young 1986). Language anxiety results from insufficient command of the target
language, but also contributes to further negative effects on linguistic competence (Horwitz 2001;
MacIntyre 2017). What emerges is a kind of feedback loop connecting avoidance, language perform-
ance and competence. In this paper, we examine this feedback loop in the everyday lives of bilin-
guals, thus broadening the scope beyond the microcosm of the foreign language classroom.
Immigrants face larger problems: as we will see, anxiety can penetrate down to the deepest levels
of their sense of self.

Language anxiety in immigrant contexts

Language anxiety is a dynamic and intricate phenomenon (see MacIntyre 2017). Since the immigrant
context is more complex than the foreign language classroom, with its confluence of social, cultural,
psychological and political currents, anxiety takes on further complexity in this context. Language
anxiety sometimes allows individuals to avoid the issues they intrinsically find disturbing: when

Table 1. Causes of language anxiety.

Academic – Errors in pronunciation
Causes – Unrealistic learner beliefs
– Instructors who intimidate their students with harsh and/or embarrassing error correction in front of other
students
– Methods of testing

Cognitive – Fear of losing one’s sense of identity

Causes – Biased perceptions of proficiency
– Personality traits and/or shyness
– Low self-esteem

Social Causes – Fear of being laughed at, embarrassed, and making a fool of oneself
– A poor quality accent
– Misunderstanding communication or using incorrect words
– Cultural gaffes
– Competitiveness
– Low frequency and low quality of contact with native speakers
(MacIntyre 2017, adapted by permission).
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 709

speakers or interlocutors worry about grammar, sounds or words, the real source of their anxiety is
often not the language itself, but issues like immigration or social instability (Machan 2009).
In immigrant and other bilingual contexts, language anxiety could be related to linguistic insecurity
as tackled in classical sociolinguistics: ‘speakers’ feeling that the variety they use is somehow inferior,
ugly or bad’ (Meyerhoff 2006, 292). However, anxiety is much broader in its scope, and thus the two
concepts are not identical. Linguistic insecurity occurs when people aim to adopt a standard of cor-
rectness that is not easy for them to reach (Labov 2006; Preston 2013), like when they attempt to use
a variety of their language that has a higher status than their own vernacular and that they have not
had ample access to. Given that immigrants tend to speak non-standard varieties of the ML and/or
the HL, linguistic insecurity thus defined can certainly be one of the sources of language anxiety in
the immigrant context.
Building on the link between language use and proficiency, Li (1994) points to a fascinating inter-
connection, which he refers to as a ‘vicious circle’: those in the Chinese immigrant community who
interact more with the British (mainstream) community develop more proficiency in English to
develop network ties with them; and it is because they possess adequate language proficiency
that they can interact better with the British (cited in Sevinç 2017a). Crucially, this vicious circle
also operates in the reverse manner for those who are not proficient in English and do not enjoy
network ties with the British. Due to linguistic or sociocultural obstacles, when immigrants (particu-
larly those in the first generation) fail to construct social networks within the majority group, they are
more likely to maintain their social contact and bond within the ethnic group or with people back in
the home country. For that reason, minority language practices should not be described merely in
terms of the social and linguistic relationships with the host community (Kerswill 1994).
The scope of the vicious circle relationship between social network (and the language practices
enacted within them) and language proficiency proposed in Li (1994) for the ML can be merged
with the link between anxiety and avoidance offered in the FLA/SLA context (e.g. MacIntyre 1999;
Dewaele 2007; Gregersen 2003). We suggest that immigrants’ language anxiety, whether Heritage
Language Anxiety (HLA) or Majority Language Anxiety (MLA), may play a considerable role in
driving this vicious circle, negatively influencing the other components of the circle (i.e. language
competence and language practice).1 HLA and MLA may lead immigrants to avoid using the
language they are anxious about, which means less practice and social interaction in that language,
which causes limited proficiency–actual or self-perceived–, which in turn leads to further language
anxiety, and thus further avoidance.
Few studies have investigated language anxiety directly in immigrants’ daily lives. Nevertheless,
such populations do experience both HLA and MLA. We will discuss the studies on these two
types separately.

Majority language anxiety

To the best of our knowledge, only two studies address anxiety surrounding the use of a second
language outside the classroom context (e.g. Dewaele, Petrides, and Furnham 2008; Garcia de Blake-
ley, Ford, and Casey 2015). Drawing on questionnaire data, they indicate that bilinguals may experi-
ence anxiety when speaking in their weaker second language(s), especially when talking to strangers,
at work, on the phone, or in public.
As in FL classrooms, language anxiety in immigrants may originate from speakers’ lack of self-con-
fidence in their linguistic abilities in either or both of their languages. However, there may also be
some causes that are specific to members of an immigrant community. Characteristics that are
more typical of immigrants compared to FL learners are individual and community attitudes
towards the majority and heritage languages and cultures, differences in social status between immi-
grants and so-called ‘natives’, and the fear of losing one’s ethnic identity (Norton Pierce 1995; Guiora
1983; Leary 1982; cited in Ohata 2005).
For ethnic minorities, interaction with the mainstream community often reflects power inequal-
ities between interlocutors in terms of linguistic and social status (Hudson 1996), even for second-
710 ̇ AND A. BACKUS
Y. SEVINÇ

and third-generation bilinguals who often acquire the ML from birth or as young children. Accultura-
tion in the host country implies increasing use of the ML. Sadly, this does not always result in social
acceptance by the majority and pride in one’s achievement – it also may induce shame about one’s
perceived lack of achievement (Rose 2008), or invite criticism from the majority population about
language proficiency and one’s ethnic allegiances and moral commitments (Pavlenko 2006). Social
inequality, a common reality in minority communities that originated in labor migration, may
induce a sense of powerlessness, linguistic insecurity, social distance and negative self-identity,
especially during interactions with speakers from the majority. We expect these various factors to
influence linguistic and socio-emotional causes of MLA.
For the population under study here, drawing on the questionnaire and physiological data, Sevinç
and Dewaele (2016) and Sevinç (2017b) indicate that MLA was experienced not only among first-gen-
eration Turkish-Dutch bilinguals, but also among their second-generation counterparts, particularly
when they had to speak Dutch with Dutch people. Usually, members of the second generation
started learning Dutch at school, and most educational studies document their proficiency as
lagging behind that of their Dutch classmates throughout their time in elementary school (Driessen,
Van der Slik, and de Bot 2002). Although Dutch appears to become their dominant language in later
childhood (Extra and Yağmur 2004), these bilinguals may still feel that their Dutch knowledge is
limited and will never reach the desired standard. The problem is likely to be at its worst in commu-
nicative settings in which perceived fluency in the majority language is key to social acceptance and
socio-economic success. This is what distinguishes SLA from MLA – in SL settings, learners are typi-
cally appreciated for what they have managed to learn, while in ML settings immigrants are often
expected to speak the language ‘perfectly’, no matter how much of the language they have
already acquired. In addition, many immigrants are confronted on an almost daily basis with negative
attitudes from certain segments of the majority population, especially through media discourses in
which low Dutch proficiency of Turkish immigrants is stressed and doubt is cast on their loyalty to
the Netherlands.

Heritage language anxiety

Members of an immigrant community are frequently exposed to the challenges of language main-
tenance and shift. Once past the first generation, many immigrants also experience linguistic difficul-
ties and insecurity in their HL due to their perceived limited proficiency, presumably caused by
reduced input and practice as well as contact-induced phenomena such as codeswitching,
contact-induced change, ‘imperfect acquisition’, and attrition. This comes with the complex social
and psychological baggage of emotions in which negative feelings about abandoning the HL (e.g.
shame, disappointment, frustration, pressure, intergenerational tension and stress) may thrive
(Sevinç 2016). The frustration is more intense in some immigrant groups than others, since it
depends on a variety of factors (cf. Portes and Hao 2002).
Characteristics of HLA will only partially overlap with those of FLA, SLA and MLA. HLA too may
result from frequently being corrected in embarrassing ways, for example, or being criticized
about one’s pronunciation or grammar. However, more than with the other kinds of anxiety, identity
issues are involved. Since language can function as an important defining characteristic of ethnic
group membership (see Giles 1977), inclusion in the group may be jeopardized. The literature on
endangered languages (e.g. Hill and Hill 1986) often mentions the community-internal tensions
that attend language shift. The shame and frustration that occur when one is not unconditionally
accepted as a full member of one’s ethnic group is likely to be of a different nature than the feelings
associated with MLA as discussed in the previous subsection. Concern about the loss of one’s ethnic
identity and about one’s potentially negative role in the ultimate demise of the HL (as the community
undergoes language shift) would typically be associated with HLA. Since the need to belong is among
the strongest of human behavioral motivations (Baumeister and Leary 1995), when belonging and
connectedness are compromised, humans experience adverse consequences in adjustment and
well-being, and feelings of rejection and exclusion can lead to anxiety (Baumeister and Tice 1990).
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 711

In language contact settings, heritage languages tend to change lexically and grammatically
under ML influence. Bilinguals often develop a bilingual communication mode (Grosjean 1997),
used primarily with other bilinguals, and characterized by widespread codeswitching. One
common diachronic effect of bilingualism is increased differentiation between the bilingual’s way
of speaking the HL and the monolingual norm. Previous research on the Turkish community in the
Netherlands has illustrated that the Turkish spoken in the Netherlands differs from the Turkish as
spoken in Turkey both lexically (codeswitching, loan translations) and structurally (Dutch interfer-
ence) (Backus 2014; Sevinç 2014). Such differences are often interpreted as a deficiency (Zentella
2007). Speakers seem to be aware of this overall difference and as a result perceive their own com-
petence in Turkish as low. Particularly third-generation bilinguals feel incompetent when speaking
their HL and report experiencing HLA when communicating with native speakers of the HL, including
their parents and grandparents (Sevinç and Dewaele 2016). As this bilingual mode of speaking is
often the default register in in-group communication, a monolingual mode may actually not be
used much. Limited practice in using the HL in a monolingual mode may contribute to a lack of con-
fidence in one’s linguistic competence. As a result, speakers may feel incompetent and experience
difficulties in communicating with monolingual speakers of the HL or bilinguals considered more pro-
ficient, including parents and grandparents (Braun 2012). This may put a strain on family relationships
(Wong Fillmore 2000; Cummins 2003; De Houwer 2015), induce isolation from one’s cultural commu-
nity (Canagarajah 2008; Oh and Fuligni 2010), and instigate rejection from compatriots in the country
of origin (Norton Pierce 1995). Analyses of the psychological well-being of immigrant families natu-
rally focus on experiences in the host country (see Dimitrova, Bender, and van de Vijver 2013).
However, to understand immigrants’ HLA, we must also investigate their feelings during visits to
their ancestral home country. Turkish immigrants appear to encounter discrimination, social exclu-
sion, prejudice and labeling in Turkey, and some of it is related to their perceived lack of skills in
Turkish (Kunuroğlu, van de Vijver, and Yağmur 2016). All of these factors are likely to have a negative
impact on children’s self-esteem, psychological well-being, and academic aspirations (Rumbaut 1996;
Zhou 1997).

Current study
The current study evaluates the similarities and differences between MLA and HLA and expands
understandings of MLA and HLA in one particular immigration context: Turks in the Netherlands.
A particular theoretical challenge for work on language anxiety is ‘to determine the extent to
which anxiety is a cause rather than a result of poor language learning’ (Horwitz 2001, 118). Pursuing
this, we propose that there is a feedback loop, a vicious circle, between self-perceived language com-
petence, language use, and language anxiety, both as regards the HL (Turkish) and the ML (Dutch).
Anxiety, with its linguistic and socioemotional implications, leads to avoidance, avoidance leads to
lower (self-perceived) proficiency, and this results in still more anxiety. The linguistic results might
be stagnation of the learning process in the case of MLA and language loss and language shift in
the case of HLA. Socially, the outcome may be alienation from the ML or HL speech communities.
In a previous study of the community under scrutiny, Sevinç and Dewaele (2016) examined HLA
and MLA across three generations through a questionnaire,2 and found that first- and second-gen-
eration Turkish immigrants experienced moderate levels of MLA when communicating with Dutch
native speakers. Some second-generation and most third-generation bilinguals experienced high
levels of HLA when talking to Turkish native speakers in all three social contexts asked about, includ-
ing at home (when talking to grandparents and father), and especially when talking to Turks in
Turkey, including friends. Crucially, participants’ anxiety levels did not correlate with their own self-
reports on language proficiency and daily language use in certain social contexts (i.e. within
family). This indicated that language background variables on their own might be insufficient in
explaining the causes of immigrants’ language anxiety. Moreover, language anxiety in immigrant
contexts appears to be a response to a variety of issues not easily captured through only
712 ̇ AND A. BACKUS
Y. SEVINÇ

questionnaires. Interviews were selected as a way to draw out the details of this response, and we
report on these interview data below.

Method
Participants
Interviews were conducted3 with 30 individuals (21 female, nine male); six were first-generation bilin-
guals, eight were second generation, and 16 were third generation (Table 2). For the purposes of this
study, these categories were defined as follows. The first generation includes two types of immi-
grants: those who migrated to the Netherlands through labor migration in the 1960s and early
1970s, as well as those who migrated after marrying a second-generation Turkish spouse. We refer
to Turkish people who were born in the Netherlands or arrived there before the age of 5, i.e.
before school, as ‘second generation’. All second-generation interviewees were born in the Nether-
lands. We define ‘third generation’4 as having two second-generation parents or one second-gener-
ation parent and one Turkish-born parent who came to the Netherlands through marriage migration.
In fact, all third-generation participants had one first-generation parent who came to the Netherlands
through marriage migration.
Interviewees were selected from a larger sample (n = 116) which had filled in questionnaires one
month before the interviews (see Sevinç and Dewaele 2016 for further information on the question-
naire and respondents). A greater proportion of third-generation individuals and their family
members were selected for the interview stage in order to explore recent developments in this new
generation. Bilinguals from eleven different families were interviewed, including six mothers. The
intention was to interview both parents in each family, but none of the fathers wished to take part.
Interviewees ranged in age from 12 to 43 (first generation M = 41, second generation M = 26, third
generation M = 14) (Table 2). First-generation interviewees completed their education in Turkey (two
were university graduates, one held a high school diploma, and three only completed elementary
school). Third-generation bilinguals were enrolled either in elementary school or high school in
the Netherlands, while second-generation bilinguals varied in their educational levels from high
school to higher education.
Table 2 illustrates interviewees’ language history and background as well as the levels of HLA and
MLA they had indicated on the questionnaires one month before. While all participants acquired

Table 2. Interviewees’ demographic information, language backgrounds and levels of HLA and MLA.
1st Gen. (n = 6) 2nd Gen. (n = 8) 3rd Gen. (n = 16)
Mean SD (Range) Mean SD (Range) Mean SD (Range)
Age (Years) 41 4.0 (33–43) 26 1.6 (24–28) 14 2.2 (12–19)
Gender
Female (n = 21) 6 8 7
Male (n = 9) – – 9
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Age of Dutch Acquisition 24.0 5.3 3.8 0.5
Age of Turkish Acquisition 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Oral Proficiency in Dutch 3.3 0.5 4.1 0.4 4.7 0.5
Oral Proficiency in Turkish 4.8 0.4 3.7 1.0 2.9 0.9
Frequency of Dutch use 4.0 0.9 4.3 0.7 4.8 0.4
Frequency of Turkish use 4.2 0.7 3.3 1.2 2.6 0.5
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
Overall self-rated HLA 1.0 0.0 1.5 0.7 3.2 1.3
Overall self-rated MLA 1.5 0.5 1.9 0.8 1.0 0.2
HLA with Turks in Turkey 1.0 0.0 1.6 0.5 3.5 1.4
MLA with Dutch people 1.7 0.6 2.1 0.9 1.0 0.2
Note: Range of oral proficiency: (1)None, (2)Poor, (3)Fair, (4)Good, (5)Excellent.
Range of language use per day: (1)Never, (2)Rarely, (3) Sometimes, (4)Frequently, (5)All the time.
Anxiety scale: (1)Not at all, (2)A little, (3)Quite, (4)Very anxious, (5)Extremely anxious
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 713

Turkish from birth, third-generation participants were exposed to Dutch earlier than those from the
first and second generations. Self-reported oral language proficiencies and the frequency of Turkish
and Dutch use differed across the three generations. In comparison to first- and second-generation
participants, oral proficiency and daily language use of the third-generation participants was lower
for Turkish and higher for Dutch.
In the questionnaires, participants had been asked about feelings of anxiety they might experi-
ence when speaking Turkish or Dutch with family, friends, and native speakers. Third-generation
bilinguals indicated the highest language anxiety in their HL, while they reported no anxiety in
Dutch. First- and second-generation participants reported experiencing more MLA than HLA. Note
that these are the scores averaged for each interviewee to obtain overall language anxiety for
each language based on language anxiety levels reported with three types of interlocutors (family,
friends, native speakers), with nine items.5 The overall averages for the MLA shown in Table 2 are
low for the first generation, which may be an effect of the sample selected for the interviews, as
these focused on the family members of third-generation bilinguals. Also note that self-reported
MLA levels of first- and second-generation bilinguals are found to be particularly high when
native speakers are the interlocutors (see Sevinç and Dewaele 2016 for detailed discussion of
these results).

Materials
Semi-structured, open-ended interviews were designed to delve deeper into language anxiety in the
immigrant context, with its causes and effects. They also provided a means to explore bilinguals’
language history, linguistic dominance, and language practices and choices, the story behind their
experiences, their motivations for learning languages and their attitudes towards bilingualism. In
this paper, we focus on the part related to immigrants’ experiences, their own reported language
anxiety and that of others, and the impact of anxiety on their lives.

Procedure
Each interview lasted between forty minutes and one hour. All participants were interviewed indivi-
dually. There were two interviewers – one of Turkish origin, and one Dutch – and the subjects could
choose their interviewer: 12 of them chose the Dutch researcher and 18 the Turkish one. Interviewees
were informed that they could use both languages freely. The researchers had brought the partici-
pants’ responses on the questionnaire, so they could follow up on remarks participants had made
earlier about their levels of language anxiety.

Analysis
All interviews were fully transcribed and the names of the interviewees were anonymized.6 Pro-
cedures for ‘open coding’, i.e. the process of breaking down, examining, comparing, conceptualizing
and categorizing the data were applied to provide structure to the interview texts (see Strauss and
Corbin 1990). The data were first divided into main categories (e.g. language history and background,
language use and choice, attitudes, anxiety, etc.). Each category was further divided into sub-cat-
egories. Concerning anxiety, more focus coding was undertaken to distinguish between causes
and effects of language anxiety. These two main categories were further divided into two sub-cat-
egories, depending on whether they referenced linguistic or socioemotional factors. The latter col-
lapses MacIntyre’s (2017) social and cognitive factors, since it was not always possible to
categorize data into one or the other group in a clear-cut way. The category ‘socioemotional
factors’ embraces all social, psychological, cultural, and identity-related factors. Responses concern-
ing language use, practices, competence, and language contact phenomena were allocated to the
category of ‘linguistic factors’.
714 ̇ AND A. BACKUS
Y. SEVINÇ

Findings
In this section, we present the interview findings separately for MLA and HLA, and as far as possible
focusing separately on linguistic and socioemotional factors.

Causes and effects of MLA

As seen in Table 3, MLA was to a large extent (57%) associated with language-related causes.
However, considering that no third-generation interviewees actually reported experiencing MLA
(Table 2), their responses must be interpreted with caution: they indicate what these participants
think causes anxiety in those who do experience it (namely, the older generations). We illustrate
the various factors with excerpts from the interviews. For reasons of space, we include only a few
of the insightful responses. Thus, although the selected excerpts are representative, they do not
convey the richness of the data.
Interviewees commonly mentioned four linguistic factors as possible causes of MLA: low profi-
ciency in Dutch, trouble with the formal register of Dutch (Ex. 3), rarity of everyday situations that
require communication in monolingual Dutch, so that language choice often favors Turkish or codes-
witching (Ex. 4), and the large differences between Turkish and Dutch, making it hard to get all the
grammatical details of Dutch right (Ex. 5).

(3) When I have to speak formal Dutch at an official place or so in the Netherlands, I still don’t know all
the words, then I panic, but with my friends it is OK, I can also use Turkish words [when speaking
with them]. (AT, 43-year-old, first-generation)
(4) Cause I speak more Turkish in general. I have Turkish friends, we use Turkish words a lot when we
speak Dutch. (RAK, 28-year-old, second-generation)
(5) It is certainly related to my experiences, as I said, I applied for the police academy and took the
exams. For instance, these Dutch people have words used with de, het, een [articles] written
with d and t etc … As these words don’t exist in Turkish, I make a lot of mistakes with them …
Because of these words, I mean because of this, I failed the exams several times, I couldn’t be a
police officer. Now, I am scared of using them, whenever I need to use it, I hesitate. I even took
additional Dutch courses after school [to fix the wrong article use] … but I couldn’t fix it. Cause
it no longer sticks in my brain. You learned it wrong once, you know, you can’t correct it. (SAK,
27-year-old, second-generation)

Concerning the socio-emotional factors causing MLA, participants referred to two aspects in par-
ticular: the pressure they feel and issues of identity and belonging.
Participants talked about the pressure they felt when they were expected to speak both languages
perfectly. This pressure comes from both the family and the mainstream society (Ex. 6). Second-gen-
eration immigrants sometimes blamed their lack of Dutch knowledge on their parents’ insufficient
involvement in their education and the limited exposure to Dutch they got at home during their
childhood (Ex. 7).

(6) It is all about the pressure and stress. [It is] because of the wish to speak both languages in the best
way. We live in the Netherlands, so they [Dutch people] expect us to speak Dutch properly. Our

Table 3. Reasons for majority language anxiety.

MLA – Reasons 1st gen. 2nd gen. 3rd gen. Total (n = 25)
Linguistic factors 3 (10%) 3 (10%) 11 (37%) 17 (57%)
Socioemotional factors 2 (7%) 2 (7%) – 4 (13%)
Both 1 (3%) 3 (10%) – 4 (13%)
No response (I don’t know) – – 5 (17%) 5 (17%)
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 715

parents are Turkish, but we were born here, still they [our parents] expect us to speak Turkish accu-
rately. When trying to know two languages perfectly, you get stuck in between the two. It is not
easy. (MRB, 27-year-old, second-generation)
(7) We learned Dutch later at school. Nobody spoke Dutch to us at home. My parents could not even
come to school once to talk to my teacher. It has been difficult for us. Although my Dutch has
improved there is still that feeling that Dutch people speak it better, ‘cause they don’t have to
fight with another language all the time, like us. (SLD, 26-year-old, second-generation)

The attitudes of Dutch natives towards the Dutch spoken by immigrants were often cited as the
reason for MLA, mainly because this way they were denied inclusion in the Dutch community. Par-
ticipants stressed that evaluation and direct correction of their speech by Dutch people made
them feel rejected, foreign and excluded. The feeling of social inequality due to their immigrant back-
ground was prevalent particularly among first- and second-generation immigrants. They emphasized
a sense of unequal power relationships (Ex. 8). Participants perceived ethnic exclusion, prejudice and
inequality to be causes of MLA (Ex. 9–10).

(8) At work, I experience that some Dutch people correct every little mistake of yours consciously just to
show that they are Dutch, so they can do this to you. Some of them laugh at you if you use a wrong
word and say ‘WE don’t use this, WE use that!’ So you feel discriminated, and despised. (SVD, 26-
year-old, second-generation)
(9) It can be because some Dutch think that Turks don’t know about their language [Dutch] and they
may put them down sometimes, just to show it is their language and you live in their country. (AT,
43-year-old, first-generation)
(10) At school, teachers or so corrected only us [immigrant children] all the time! At school, in the class-
room, everywhere, in front of others … But when a Dutch student made the same mistake, they
didn’t say anything to him/her. So when they correct YOU directly, you feel different, like you’re not
one of them, and that the language is not yours. (NSB, 24-year-old, second-generation)

The most often mentioned effect of MLA is that some speakers avoid using Dutch when they can,
which hinders further development of their language proficiency, linguistic effect. The majority of
the second-generation interviewees also mentioned socioemotional effects of MLA on their
health (Ex. 11), their communication opportunities with other people (Ex. 12), and their language
competence (Ex. 13).

(11) SVD: It affects one’s health totally! So, I try not to care anymore, I don’t bother myself. I am trying
to speak Dutch as little as possible just not to make myself too stressed.

Interviewer: How do you think this situation affects you?

SVD: I know it affects my Dutch in a bad way now, cause I gave up speaking it, but it is better for my
health this way. (SVD, 26-year-old, second-generation)

(12) SAK: It [MLA] affects my social life; for example, I stopped talking to people that I am not close to,
just so I do not have to speak Dutch with them.

Interviewer: How come? What do you do when you need to ask for something?
SAK: I make my younger sister ask it. Or I try not to use the words of which I am not sure what article
goes with them. (SAK, 27-year-old, second-generation)

AA describes how she overcame the MLA she had experienced before:

(13) When you panic, you even forget the things you know. In the beginning, I was very scared, but now
I got rid of it. Even though I panic, I try to speak Dutch. By speaking and being relaxed, your Dutch
improves and you also learn how to control that panic. (AA, 43-year-old, first-generation)
716 ̇ AND A. BACKUS
Y. SEVINÇ

Causes and effects of HLA

As noted, especially the third generation indicated they suffered from HLA. As Table 4 illustrates,
more than half of the participants (53%) linked the reason for their own or their children’s HLA to
both linguistic and social aspects of the immigrant experience. This suggests again that it is often
hard to separate these two components.
Starting again with linguistic factors, almost all of the interviewees (27) highlighted the bad
Turkish they feel they speak as a major cause of HLA (Ex. 14). They attribute their self-perceived
lack of Turkish abilities to the effects of language contact (lexical and structural errors), codeswitch-
ing, and talking too much Dutch and not enough Turkish (Ex. 15). Others mentioned not having the
chance to learn Turkish at school. The feeling of having inferior Turkish skills was prevalent across all
three generations, including the first, and it affected even conversation among family members (Ex.
16). Many compared themselves unfavorably to Turks in Turkey (Ex. 17), citing the attitudes in Turkey
towards their linguistic competence as negative.

(14) Because Turks there talk better than us. I cannot read or write at all, I can only talk a little bit. But I
can understand everything, just that. (EK, 14-year-old, third-generation)
(15) I think it is because we mix Turkish and Dutch a lot here [in the Netherlands], and in Turkey, we
need to speak only Turkish. And also you all the time feel that Turks there [in Turkey] speak Turkish
better than us. That makes it stressful. (SAK, 27-year-old, second-generation)
(16) With them [my grandparents] … It’s because our Turkish is insufficient you know. It’s because they
talk better than us, sometimes you know uhm I can’t find Turkish words, Dutch words come to my
mouth, and sometimes I can’t be sure if the sentence is right. I also consider myself like that and
make myself stressed. (SLD, 26-year-old, second-generation)
(17) … Because you are used to a different language. For example, I am used to Dutch and most of the
others too I think are used to Dutch. So you think in Dutch. And also inside your head you think in
a Dutch way. And when you are in Turkey you think what should I say and you get scared to make
mistakes. I think it’s because of this. (IE, 15-year-old, third-generation)

Socioemotional factors of HLA can again be divided into ones that increase pressure and ones
that compromise identity.
As with MLA, interviewees mentioned the pressure they were under due to unrealistic expec-
tations and negative attitudes held by others, including parents, grandparents, and people in
Turkey. They do not always feel accepted as a full member of the community. Interview findings
showed that first-generation mothers blamed HLA partially on the education system, for not provid-
ing Turkish classes, but also on themselves for not being successful in parenting (Ex. 18). Children also
report anxiety resulting from parents’ anger and corrections, making them scared of making an error
(Ex. 19).

(18) Because they don’t learn Turkish at school, and they can’t describe themselves in Turkish. But
perhaps, most of all, they lack self-confidence. For instance, many of them constantly speak
Turkish, watch Turkish channels, they have Turkish friends but still they think their Turkish is
not sufficient. They live in the Netherlands, they go to school in the Netherlands, and they are
still not sure about their Dutch level. This [anxiety] is not related to the language levels, it is

Table 4. Reasons for heritage language anxiety.

HLA – Reasons 1st gen. 2nd gen. 3rd gen. Total (n = 30)
Linguistiac factors – 4 (13%) 7 (23%) 11 (37%)
Socioemotional factors 1 (3%) – 2 (7%) 3 (10%)
Both 5 (17%) 4 (13%) 7 (23%) 16 (53%)
No response(I don’t know) – – – –
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 717

related to their insecure lifestyle, it is related to how we raised our kids. For instance, the way that
we raise children is different from the way that Dutch people do it. We raise our children with pro-
hibitions, fear, and panic. They [Turkish parents] say for instance ‘if you don’t speak Turkish well,
you cannot be a Turk’ or they say ‘if you don’t know Dutch well, you won’t be able to earn money’
The children get torn between these two [opinions]. Without letting children try and learn, we
expect them to be perfect with fear. That is why they grow up insecure. (NVO, 43-year-old, first-
generation)
(19) Interviewer: In the questionnaire you reported that you feel stressed when speaking Turkish with
your mother. Why do you feel stressed?
SLD: Well, she corrects me immediately, sometimes gets angry. For instance, when I say something
incorrect, let’s say, when she gets angry and corrects me, I am thinking then, if I make the same
error again I get scared. As a human being, I mean one gets naturally uncomfortable, stressed.
(SLD, 26-year-old, second-generation)

Interviewees also attributed their HLA to concerns about their Turkish identity. Many reported
being exposed to feelings of foreignness, exclusion and discrimination when visiting Turkey. The
majority stressed the importance of speaking perfect Turkish in Turkey, because otherwise it
would be difficult to be fully accepted as a Turk (Ex. 20).

(20) Because when you arrive there [in Turkey], you know, they [Turks there] understand you live in
Europe. And the Turks here try to be more careful about their Turkish, but then they hesitate
more and get panicked, they sink more … Cause I experience this. When you go on the street,
when they [shopkeepers] ask for 10TL from someone else they ask for 10Eur from us [Turkish immi-
grants in Europe] for the same thing. You start thinking, why am I considered as different? Nope, I
am not different, I am Turkish! But they understand this immediately and mark you with ‘the
Almanci label’ [term for member of the Western European immigrant community, with negative
connotations]! That is why one panics more, not that they don’t know Turkish or so, but because
of that label! (AA, 43-year-old, first-generation).

Negative evaluations by Turks in Turkey of their Turkish linguistic and cultural skills emphasize a
perceived cultural distance. Fear of being mocked and of being excluded was often cited as a reason
for HLA (Ex. 21).

(21) Because they [Turks in Europe] are afraid that they make mistakes … as a Turkish person, you do
not know the language? … I experienced that before that I talked Dutch to my niece uncon-
sciously. She is normal Turkish and lives there. She said: ‘You Dutch guy! What are you saying’?
She laughed at me and said I need to talk Turkish more then it should get better. It was a joke
I know, but it was embarrassing, and this is a common reaction there. (CC, 15-year-old, third-
generation)

Several participants explicitly brought up the need to belong as one of the reasons for HLA (Ex. 22)

(22) ST: When they [kids from the neighborhood in Turkey] correct me I feel ashamed.
Interviewer: What are you feeling ashamed for?
ST: For I speak very bad Turkish.
Interviewer: Well, do you think you have to talk perfect Turkish?
ST: Yes.
Interviewer: Why?
ST: Cause I want friendship [to be friend] with them. (ST, 11-year-old, third-generation
immigrant)
718 ̇ AND A. BACKUS
Y. SEVINÇ

As with MLA, a major linguistic effect of HLA is avoidance of using the language. Half of the inter-
viewees said that due to HLA, they or their children –predominantly third-generation bilinguals–
stopped trying to speak Turkish even with their parents, but mostly in Turkey.
In Ex. (23), DG illustrates how HLA causes avoidance and avoidance causes further HLA.

(23) Interviewer: Well, how do you think IK’s stress related to her Turkish is influencing her life?
DG: Well. She loses herself, she screams, yells, gets aggressive! Then, she shuts herself
down, doesn’t speak Turkish with me, shakes her head, moves her eyebrows, argh!
so annoying sometimes. Seriously, sometimes she doesn’t speak with me at all. So I
am telling her: her Turkish is not improving, it is not the solution! We will never get
rid of these problems like this! Especially for her, she needs to try to speak Turkish,
so she doesn’t hate it.

In the final excerpt, DTB tells how her daughter’s avoidance of Turkish had further alienating
effects of a socioemotional nature:

(24) My daughter for instance last summer, she behaved too ill-tempered in Turkey. She was not
affected that much when she was little, but now when she couldn’t make herself clear, when
she panicked she had nervous breakdowns! And this time she caused many problems. She is
ashamed of herself when she can’t talk Turkish. Kids [in the neighborhood in Turkey] invited
her to play, but … because of her Turkish fear and these breakdowns she didn’t play with
them once the whole summer!

Discussion
Drawing on qualitative semi-structured interviews, this study has investigated the causes and effects
of language anxiety across three generations of the Turkish immigrant community in the Nether-
lands. The interviews confirm that members of this community sometimes suffer from language
anxiety in their everyday lives (Sevinç and Dewaele 2016; Sevinç 2017b). Participants’ answers
have helped uncover the ways in which anxiety manifests itself in daily interactions, providing
insights into its likely causes.
The same types of factors that cause anxiety in FL and SL learning contexts also play this role in the
life of immigrants. Although we divided the data into linguistic and socioemotional factors, it is clear
that these are interrelated. As the quote by DG with which we started the paper illustrates, language
anxiety in the immigrant context, but probably elsewhere as well, is simultaneously triggered by mul-
tiple factors. Reviewing what participants said during the interviews, the conclusion seems warranted
that ultimately all causes and effects of anxiety in the immigrant context are socioemotional. Even if a
factor seems to be purely linguistic, e.g. self-perceived limited proficiency, it only induces anxiety
because of the speaker’s socioemotional reaction to it. Limited proficiency is only a problem if one
feels bad about it, or is made to feel bad about it. Immigrants’ language use and competence in
both languages is evaluated with reference to yardsticks that in most cases they could not possibly
fulfill, simply by virtue of being bilingual (Backus 2014). As a result, self-perceived low proficiency and
other factors appear to typecast them as less than perfect members of the ML and HL communities. It
makes immigrants subject to discrimination, stereotyping, and accusations of slipping ethnic alle-
giances and problematic moral commitments (Pavlenko 2006).
Immigrant language anxiety, in both its HLA and MLA guises, seems best captured as part of a
larger psychological challenge triggered by the immigrant experience. It is a particular manifestation
of ‘communicative anxiety’, and it rises to the surface in specific situations of language use. All
examples the participants give are from communicative settings in which they have to converse in
monolingual mode. For some this applies to the HL, as in communicating with people in Turkey
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 719

and even with older family members; for others to the ML, as in communication with majority main-
streamers; and for some it applies in both these settings.
The integrated way in which linguistic and socio-emotional factors affect anxiety might be much
more prominent in immigrant contexts than in the protected and socially limited microcosm of the
foreign language classroom, on which much of the earlier work on language anxiety has focused.
While classroom anxiety often stems from inadequate performance on the particular skill that is
being practiced, immigrant language anxiety is connected more strongly with life itself, with identity
issues that potentially affect almost all communication in everyday life. It stands to reason that if
anxiety results from negative evaluation and direct correction in daily communication by speakers
who claim the authority of the native speaker, this has graver implications for one’s self confidence
than when one is corrected by a teacher in a learning setting. The implicit refusal to accord immi-
grants the status of fully competent authoritative language users appears to be what makes them
feel anxious, humiliated and rejected. Communication with members of the Dutch majority may
make immigrants feel that their proficiency in Dutch is not good enough, triggering MLA. Likewise,
interaction with speakers of Turkish in Turkey may induce the feeling that their proficiency in the HL is
also inadequate. While differential levels of proficiency and contact-induced deviations from the
monolingual norm are natural consequences of bilingualism, this naturalness does not seem to be
accepted easily by the monolingual communities that act as gatekeepers for the languages
concerned.
While the data clearly indicate that anxiety mostly results from the negative opinions of others,
rather than for example from disappointment in their own linguistic capabilities, the question is
why second- and third-generation participants care about these negative opinions. After all, they
could shrug them off as the ill-informed opinions from people who just do not understand. The
fact that they do care suggests that they accept the idea, up to a point, that those ‘others’ are
indeed gatekeepers, the legitimate guardians of the social norm. Participants often mention incidents
in which they were made to feel guilty. Many feel that their Dutch and/or Turkish should and could be
‘better’, and that they should not codeswitch. Immigrants feel confronted by a prevailing ideology
that treats natural contact effects (mixing languages and making ‘errors’, in Dutch as well as
Turkish) as undesirable, and that judges a speaker exhibiting such tendencies as ignorant. As a
major cause of anxiety, it comprises several of MacIntyre’s categories (e.g. unrealistic learning
targets, fear of being laughed at, compromised identity, biased perception of proficiency, etc.).
Thus, immigrants may feel excluded from the communities they see themselves as belonging to, a
classic cause of anxiety (Baumeister and Tice 1990). What remains to be investigated, however, is the
extent to which this is a question of perception. It is clear from the interviews that at least some out-
siders seem to express negative views about the immigrants’ linguistic skills, sometimes explicitly, but
what is not as clear is how widespread these views are. Similarly, the current data do not seek to
ascertain whether immigrants have actually internalized these views and truly feel incompetent, or
whether they merely see these views as annoying aspects of their everyday sociocultural environ-
ment. Some may ignore it while others may feel anxious about it. The data, however, do confirm
that language anxiety is related to socioemotional pressure regarding language use: within the com-
munity intergenerational pressure to maintain Turkish and in society at large the perceived socioe-
conomic pressure to shift to Dutch (Sevinç 2016).
The results suggest that anxiety has to be understood within a larger context of unequal power
relationships. Neither the immigrants’ way of speaking Dutch nor their way of speaking Turkish
are accepted as normative, that distinction being held by non-ethnic speech in the case of Dutch
and by the monolingual norm of Turkey in the case of Turkish. Tellingly, anxiety research in SLA con-
texts has shown that it is when a majority community is accepting of different ways of using the
language (‘low normativity’) that ML learners tend to be more confident (Clément, Baker, and MacIn-
tyre 2003), as in such situations they feel more encouraged to use the language, and presumably feel
less anxious about the ‘errors’ they will inevitably make.
720 ̇ AND A. BACKUS
Y. SEVINÇ

Communities differ in the degree to which they accept outside norms. What such ideological
clashes can lead to has been described especially in post-colonial settings, perhaps most fully in
Hill and Hill (1986) for the Mexicano-speaking community in Puebla, Mexico. We may refer to this
as the ‘bad language syndrome’: people feel that they don’t speak the language well enough, or
at least sense that others think they are not proficient enough. High proficiency is apparently so desir-
able that its perceived lack provokes what we refer to as ‘anxiety’. It makes them feel insecure, and
have low confidence in their own language abilities. The term ‘insecurity’ has been used in sociolin-
guistics in a narrower sense: the insecurity that comes with attempting to speak a variety of your
native language that has higher status than the variety you speak as your vernacular (cf. Preston
2013). Anxiety as we have discussed it refers to insecurity about one’s daily vernacular: like the Mex-
icans Hill and Hill (1986) describe, many of the participants feel insecure in the most basic daily
discourse.
Finally, we argue on the basis of the insights garnered from the interviews that anxiety plays an
important role in stagnating ML development (in the MLA case), and in language loss in and language
shift away from the HL (in the HLA case). The key phenomenon, we suggest, is avoidance. This situ-
ation is reminiscent of the vicious circle relation between social network (language practices) and
language proficiency proposed in Li (1994) – more proficiency in the ML, more network ties with
the ML community (more ML use), and further developing proficiency in the ML. As examined in
the FLA/SLA context, based on the relationship between language anxiety and avoidance (e.g. MacIn-
tyre 1999; Dewaele 2007; Gregersen 2003), language anxiety has a place in this circle. Also note that
most likely the vicious circle is not only relevant for ML competence and MLA. It also concerns HL
competence and HLA, as we saw for the younger generations.
In this vicious circle, language anxiety leads people to avoid using the language they are anxious
about, as several participants noted. Findings showed that some of the participants, mostly third gen-
eration, tried to avoid speaking Turkish in particular circumstances. Turkish speakers with MLA may
avoid communicating with Dutch natives, and as a result feel more and more alienated. If this feeling
is widespread, the Turkish community gets more isolated from the majority population. There are
various theories about what determines one’s proficiency in a language, but most theories agree
that the most vital determinant is the extent to which one uses the language. Avoidance of a
language means less practice in that language, and less practice means less entrenchment of the
words and structures of that language in the mental representations (or ‘linguistic competence’) of
its speakers. The interview results suggest that self-perceived low proficiency leads to further
anxiety, and thus to further avoidance. Some participants were well aware of the cyclical effect of
avoidance: less language practice, lower proficiency, and thus more anxiety. Caught in this circle, it
might be hard to move beyond HLA or MLA as illustrated in Figure 1:.
The vicious circle may affect the whole process of the immigrant experience (e.g. immigrants’ self-
confidence, well-being, socialization, integration, social life and family relationships). In an immigrant
context, it can cause further communication problems within the family and the community. Because
of the vicious circle, using the non-dominant language can be an unpleasant and exhausting task for
immigrants, particularly in a monolingual mode. Avoiding speaking the HL at home may cause
further pressure and tension within the family. HLA may negatively affect the quality of communi-
cation within the family, and this may expose immigrant children to considerable stress, even to
feel alienated in their home country or ethnic community. The result may again be language loss
or shift. Consequently, some of those caught in this circle may move away from their own self and
identity. (p. 33).
Future research should look at this vicious circle more closely, as it brings up many new questions.
Does a critical perception of one’s own proficiency always lead to anxiety, for instance? To what
extent do people differ in the way they respond to the linguistic pressures, and how does this corre-
late with personality traits? Most pointedly, what can people do to break through the circle they are
caught in?
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 721

Figure 1. The vicious circle effect of HLA and MLA.

Conclusion
Language anxiety as discussed in this study, in both its HLA and MLA forms, seems best captured as
part of a larger psychological challenge inherent in the immigrant experience. Despite some simi-
larities to the anxiety that foreign language learners experience, the anxiety that immigrants face
is related to more complex linguistic and socioemotional challenges. Both HLA and MLA are
closely linked to linguistic and social inequality and unrealistic expectations of monolingual or
native-like language use. They are inextricably intertwined with identity issues linked to perceptions
of native-likeness, sense of belonging, and social exclusion, both in the ethnic and in the mainstream
community. As such, anxiety leads to avoidance of using the language concerned, causing further
anxiety. Future studies in highly multilingual contexts should address their attention to language
anxiety, and the feedback loop–the vicious circle–, as a matter of individuals’ daily life challenge
and should consider the role played by HLA and MLA, respectively, in causing language loss in
and language shift away from the heritage language, and obstructing further integration into the
majority community.

Notes
1. The anxiety research in the classroom context has differentiated between different types of anxiety: speaking
anxiety, listening anxiety, reading anxiety, and writing anxiety. Note that in the current paper the terms Heritage
722 ̇ AND A. BACKUS
Y. SEVINÇ

Language Anxiety and Majority Language Anxiety only refer to speaking anxiety. However, we do not imply that
HLA and MLA are specific only to speaking.
2. In Sevinç and Dewaele (2016), levels of HLA and MLA were measured based on a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire
that contained a closed question formulated as follows: Please indicate whether/how anxious you are when
speaking the languages (Turkish/Dutch) with different people in different situations? Information was requested
for levels of HLA and MLA in three social contexts (i.e. family, friendship and speaking with native speakers)
through 18 items. The internal consistency of this part of the questionnaire was very satisfactory (Cronbach’s
alpha = .85, n = 9 for HLA, and = .75, n = 9 for MLA).
3. The data used in this study were designed and collected by the first author with the approval of the Norwegian
Social Science Data Services (NSD) in 2014 for the project ‘Language anxiety in the immigrant context: An inter-
disciplinary perspective’ carried out by the first Author. The data analyses were conducted by the first author and
a research assistant based on ethical considerations identified by NSD.
4. Note that rather than that of official demographic statistics, we follow the tradition in sociolinguistics and contact
linguistics here: the immigrant parents are the first generation, the children second, and the grandchildren are the
third (Silva-Corvalán 1994)
5. Reliability for these combined scores was for HLA α = 0.85, N = 9, for MLA α = 0.75, N = 9.
6. Original texts can be obtained by contacting the first author at yesim.sevinc@iln.uio.no

Acknowledgements
The authors thank the participants for taking part in this study. They further thank Dr. Marianne Gullberg and the anon-
ymous reviewers for their insightful comments and constructive suggestions on earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This study was financially supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centers of Excellence funding
scheme [project number 223265], which was facilitated by a doctoral fellowship to the first author.

Notes on contributors
Yeşim Sevinç is a doctoral research fellow at University of Oslo, Center for Multilingualism in Society Across the Lifespan.
She received her BA degree in TESL at Istanbul University and her first MA degree in Linguistics at Kafkas University. She
obtained her second MA degree in Linguistics at Radboud University Nijmegen. In her first MA thesis, she studied indi-
vidual differences between Polish and Turkish ESL learners. With her second MA thesis on the Turkish immigrant com-
munity in the Netherlands, she won the third best MA thesis prize in Belgium and the Netherlands awarded by Anela/
VIOT in 2012. Her recent publications and PhD thesis address linguistic, social, psychological and physiological aspects of
multilingualism with a particular focus on language anxiety in the immigrant context.
Ad Backus got his PhD in 1996, on a thesis on Turkish-Dutch codeswitching, and has been working since that time on
various issues related to language contact, language change, and usage-based linguistic theory. He is Professor of Lin-
guistics and Sociolinguistics at Tilburg University in The Netherlands. Recent publications include a number of book
chapters on a usage-based approach to language contact and language change and a review article about minority
languages in The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism.

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