Linguistic and Cultural Minority Immigrants’ Integration in the Multicultural Society = Linguistic and Cultural Minority Immigrants’ Integration in the Multicultural Society

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In this study, Korean immigrants' participation in ethnic religious institutions was examined within the multilingual context of Montreal, Canada in order to understand the role of ethnic community institutions for Korean immigrant parents’ attitudes toward their younger generations’ Korean language and cultural identity preservation. The present study focuses particularly on the parent participants’ attitudes toward their children’s majority languages (i.e., English & French) and Korean language learning in general, and on their attitudes toward the role of the religious ethnic institution in their lives, particularly related to the linguistic and cultural responsibility of the church for Korean immigrants. In this study, total 23 Korean immigrant parents participated. All of them live in the Montreal area and actively participate in a Korean immigrant church. For this study, qualitative interviewing and participant observation were conducted. Interviews were conducted only in Korean for less than one hour on the average. Observations were conducted in the church where all the participants attended for a five-week of period in 2019. Field notes were taken in full detail during the observation period for analysis. Overall, the findings of this study confirm the socio- cultural and linguistic role of ethnic religious institutions for Koreans abroad, and also for their integration to the multicultural society.