TEST OF A NONLINEAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LINGUISTIC ACCULTURATION ANDETHNIC IDENTIFICATION

Following a review of the literature concerning the relationship betwe en acculturation (acquisition of a dominant culture) and ethnic identi fication (retention of culture of origin), the authors propose that li nguistic acculturation is nonlinearly related to ethnic identity. An e mpirical study was conducted to test this relationship between linguis tic acculturation and ethnic identification using data gathered from m ultiple studies investigating four different ethnic groups in Eastern Canada over a period of 7 years. Regression analysis results indicate that the two underlying dimensions of ethnicity are related and that t he postulated function exhibits an excellent fit, thus providing suppo rt for the proposition.