Intercultural Family Case Study

Thanks to globalization, it is easier to meet people with different cultural background and from all around the world nowadays. Intercultural families are therefore more prevalent in today society. As special as intercultural families, there are some common cultural issues that these families have to deal with, especially when they give birth to a third culture kid. A third culture kid is a person who had spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parent’s culture. In the case of Mauro and May’s family, they have encountered the problem of what family language is to be used. Different from Mauro’s Italian background and May’s Chinese background, Luka, their child, is born and bred in the United Kingdom. In this

In view of the sense of identity of Luka, using English as the family language can help Luka root his identity as a Britain in U.K. Luka is born and bred in U.K and people surrounding Luka like classmates and neighbours speak English. Speaking the same language at home and outside home allows Luka to feel his social identity. In another words, speaking different language in different occasion will confuse Luka’s sense of identity and he may suffer from encapsulated marginality. Encapsulated marginality may develop when the individual feels overwhelmed by identity conflict, unable to control personal boundaries, and alienated from all reference groups. Language is one of the main factors that seriously affect the internal culture shock

If the family use English as the family language, he can have better command on English by using it in daily life. Possessing English as a native speaker will definitely help in his learning in adolescent and workplace communication when he grow up. Linguistic capital has exchange value in market economy like other capital. It is the fluency in, and comfort with a high-status, world-wide language which is used by groups who possess economic, social, cultural and political power and status in local and global society (cf. Morrison & Lui, 2000). And English is proved to be spreading around the world. According to David Crystal (in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 2010), English is used as an official or semi-official language in over 60 countries. It is either dominant or well-established in all six continents. It is the main language of books, international business and academic conferences, science, technology and diplomacy, etc. And more than two-thirds of the scientists in the world write in English. In the same point of view as May, speaking English at home can help Luka learn English. If Luka speaks Indian or Chinese at home as the family language, apart from the difficulty for him to possess more than one language in a fluent proficiency, this will probably affect his accent of speaking English. Accordingly, using English as