This study aims to provide implications for proper bilingual development of children with multicultural background by examining the correlation between family characteristics and bilingual skills of immigrated young adult of Vietnam. Young adults have an established language skill, therefore are adequate subjects for inductive examination of the environments that have led to their current bilingual skills.
Studies relating to language environment of multicultural families have been actively conducted in Korea since the dramatic increase of the group took place in the late 2000s. The importance of the role they will have in the era of globalization has been repeatedly mentioned through various studies. Amongst the multicultural families within Korea, Vietnamese accounted for the largest proportion right after China, which stresses the necessity of this case study regarding Korean-Vietnamese multicultural families. Most of the related studies present insights of education for preschoolers or infants in Korea or comparison of Korean language skills with monocultural children. However, very few researches are done on young adults and even if done, they are mainly relevant to policies toward multicultural families or establishment of self-identity, not their actual bilingual skills nor their development environment. This qualitative study is meaningful in that it provides base line data as preceding research is insufficient, but shows limitations in that there is no comparison group.
Many studies have shown family environment has preferential influence on language development from an early stage. The main caregiver, usually being the mother, sets on most influences to the child, passing down linguistic and cultural knowledge. This implies that these knowledges can be developed intensionally with persistent stimulation, requiring parents' involvement rather through natural acquisition. In addition, a research regarding multilingual development have reported that code-switching, where multilingual speaker use more than one language in one context, happens when the second language(prior knowledge) affects the third language(later knowledge).
Based on the preceding studies above, it is crucial for the parent to show they are actively learning the language of their social environment and passing down individual linguistic and cultural knowledge in order to compose an ideal bilingual developing environment for multicultural family. In this study, we will find out whether the subject has developed their curent bilingual skills with similar environmental conditions as preceding studies have stated. This base line data can be helpful in preparing next generation of multicultural families to develope bilingual in a proper environment.