Case Study: Keele-Finch In Toronto

Introduction:
Living in one of the most diversely populated area in Toronto is both exciting and enlightening. If Toronto represents itself as the topmost multicultural and multilingual society city in the world, then Jane – Finch would be the most magnificent piece of the mosaic. In Toronto, 43% of the population is visible minority whereas 71% of the residents in Jane-Finch are visible minority. 1 Our study is to find out about the language maintenance of non official languages in this area, the on going language shift from L1 to majority language, English.
Back in the early 70’s and 80’s, it used to be a predominantly Italian language dominant community, who were mostly the first generation settlers. Now, the second and third generation
We have also attended one Italian social gathering and visited: the North York Toronto Library, RBC and CIBC Bank, the local district schools such as Lambarton Elementary School and Catholic School, local grocery “Food cent” surrounding stores near the Four Winds drive, the local youth and community development NGO, the local gymnasium, the Jane Finch and Yorkgate Malls ,the medical services at Keele-Finch intersection, the Government services such as Service Canada, Children’s Services, and Toronto Welfare Office.
Before we started our research, we read Meyerhoff’s chapter ‘Multilingualism and language choice,’ Romaine’s chapter ‘Language choice,’ and Appel and Muysken’s chapter ‘Language maintenance and shift’. This helped us to base our research on the topic of discussion. For literately review, we have used York University library resources using the Proquest, Ebsco, Scholar's Portal Search and Factiva database.
Our journal pool included International Journal of the sociology and Language, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Journal of Politeness Research, Journal of Pragmatics, Canadian Journal of Communication, The Canadian Modern Language Review, Cross-Cultural Research, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science and Library and Archives
(2001) 7, Canada has become an increasingly diverse and complex society, composed of a multitude of linguistically and ethnically different groups. At the turn of the century, the population in Canada was predominantly made up of French Canadians (30.7%) and British Canadians (57%). The 1996 census has, however, demonstrated that approximately one third of Canada’s population claimed ethnic origins other than French or British (Statistics Canada 1998) and that those whose mother tongue1 was neither French nor English accounted for nearly 17% of the total population (Statistics 1997). This paper is concerned with the issue of ethnic identity maintenance and heritage language retention in Canada. The paper deals with the importance of language to identity, arguing that language is the central marker of ethnic identity within minority groups themselves, as well as within the context of the broader, dominant society. As such, arguments are made in defense of the notion that retention is a positive goal. The paper also provides a review of recent empirical studies that have been undertaken, with a particular focus on studies related to the socio-cultural, social-psychological, and economic dimensions. The key variables associated with ethnic identity maintenance and heritage language retention has been