ETHNIC NETWORKS AND LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AMONG IMMIGRANTS

Recent research on the linguistic adjustment of minority-language spea king immigrants in several destinations has found that acquisition of destination language skills is inhibited by living in an area where ma ny others speak the same minority language, This paper uses a unique d ata set for Australia (1988) that includes a variety of ethnic network variables to analyze the role of the language concentration measure, These ethnic variables, in particular, ethnic press, relatives in Aust ralia, and spouse's origin language, are highly statistically signific ant. Their inclusion in the equation eliminates the effect of the mino rity-language concentration variable, The model for analyzing the dete rminants of English reading and English writing skills in Australia is also shown to be very similar to the model for speaking fluency, incl uding the effect of the ethnic network variables.