‘To be like a home extension’: Challenges of language learning and language maintenance - lessons from the Polish-Irish experience

The research described in this paper investigates issues related to language socialization of four adolescent Polish immigrant children attending different post-primary schools in Ireland. The focus is on how heritage (Polish) language socialisation goals affect these children’s identity negation as they grow up in a multilingual environment, and as they try to find their place in a new country and society. In particular, this paper examines the ways in which the children construct themselves as authoritative or unauthoritative heritage language speakers The theoretical background, methodology, and final results are set from the longitudinal study (5 years) involving such students and their families, two of whom also attend weekend Polish schools in addition to mainstream secondary schools. The theoretical and analytical approach combines an Ethnography of Communication approach to data collection and field work, such as participant home and school observations, audio-recordings of children’s interactions with their peers, their teachers and parents, open-ended interviews, children’s samples of school work with Discourse Analysis approaches (Duff, 1995; Davis & Harre 1990, Harre & Langenhove, 1999, Ochs & Capps, 2001). A particular focus is placed on epistemic, moral and affective stances taken by the children in question. Certain aspects of agency, such as variable participation, allegiances with heritage language peer groups, affective and epistemic stances taken with respect to sociohistorical norms and values of the Polish language and culture are illustrated. The results of the analysis are interpreted in terms of heritage language socialisation (Ochs, Schieffelin, & Duranti, 2011), describing how different educational contexts may influence children’s identity negotiation. This micro-analysis of heritage children language socialisation is contextualized within a


Introduction
Being an immigrant nowadays poses even more challenges than it did before. Previously, immigration was understood in terms of permanent settlement in the new country and adopting the new country's values and cultural norms. Today, people migrate for economic reasons more often, thus possibility of migration to another country or even going back to the country of origin is always present. New migrants do not only have to meet the challenges of a second language learning and first language maintenance, but they also need to gain intercultural competence in order to find employment in the very competitive labour market worldwide. Immigrants are likely to re-negotiate their identities and contest socio-cultural norms observed across two cultures. This is the case with young participants of the present study who constantly try to accommodate their heritage language values, norms and culture within the wider sociohistorical reality in which they live. Thus, in this particular context these issues become central for new language learning and heritage language maintenance. By wider socio-historical reality, it is meant being a child of contemporary European migrants, precisely, Polish migrants in Ireland. Even though the present study looks at the Polish-Irish context specifically, this has become very much the norm around the world as more and more people decide to migrate each year (see World Migration Report 2013). What appeared as the new world order a decade ago has become the norm for millions of people around the world nowadays. In this paper, the ways in which young Polish migrant children negotiate identity through contesting newly observed socio-historical norms with those in the home country are examined. It is claimed that it is a constant interplay between the power relations embodied in young minority and majority language users.

To be 'more equal than the others' -symbolic power of language and culture
Language is not conceived of as a neutral medium of communication, but is often understood with reference to its social meaning. It has been emphasised by scholars such as Hall (1996), Lippi-Green (1997), Miller (2003), Norton (1997), Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004), and Rampton (1995) that identity is constructed discursively. Lippi-Green (1997) describes language as a most visible way of establishing and advertising our social identities. According to Hall, identities are negotiated within discourseco-constructed with respect to personal histories and historic and institutional sites "within discursive formations and practices" (Hall 1996, p. 4). This has several implications for individuals. The process of becoming a member of a new society by acquiring new linguistic, social and cultural practices is thus perceived as self-transformation through the discourse in which one is operating on an everyday basis (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000). Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000) further describe the process of identity construction when immigrant students confront, and either accept or reject, linguistic and cultural affordancesaspects of a new language and culture that have the power to transform one's self identity. Identities are negotiated and constructed in numerous ways across one's lifespan, such as through educational or economic circumstances, school curricula, etc. (macro level), and through private decisions about religious affiliations, celebration of particular holidays, food choices, clothing, or language use choices (at the micro level) (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004, p.3). Many researchers, such as Cummins (2000), Norton Machowska-Kosciak 84 (2000) and Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004), highlight the fact that languages and identities are embedded within power relations. As Pavlenko points out, the fact that "languagesand language ideologiesare anything but neutral is especially visible in multilingual societies where some languages and identity options are, in unforgettable Orwellian words, more equal than the others" (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004, p.3). Correspondingly, Cummins (2000) and Norton (1997) argue that relations of power in the social world affect the social interactions between second language learners and native speakers of a language. Norton (2000) argues that SLA theory needs to develop a conception of the language learner as having a complex social identity that must be understood with reference to larger, and frequently inequitable, social structures, which are reproduced in day-to-day social interactions. Bourdieu (1991), in his theoretical work on social structures and symbolic power of language, claims that as language and social life are inseparably linked together, linguistic relations are also power relations. This model draws on a Saussurian paradigm that treats the social world as a universe of everyday symbolic exchanges and acts of communication that are to be deciphered by means of a cipher or a code, language or culture. Bourdieu depicts everyday linguistic exchanges as "situated encounters between agents endowed with socially structured resources and competencies" in such a way that "every linguistic situation", even the personal one, is bearing "the traces of the social structure that it both expresses and helps to reproduce", therefore is embedded within societal power relations (Bourdieu 1991, p.2). Central to his conception of linguistic practice is the understanding of cultural context-taking into account all the socio-political/socio-historical factors and other social conditions that are part of the production and reception of a language. Language learning, and language maintenance in this perspective, are instruments of symbolic power, agency and legitimation. This is so because, according to Bourdieu, "in the routine of everyday life power is rarely exercised as overt physical force": it is rather transformed into "symbolic form" and thereby endowed with a kind of "legitimacy" that it would not otherwise have. Therefore, Bourdieu's notion of "symbolic power" is to be understood as a very tacit form of social and cultural domination taking place within everyday social interactions. It is either symmetrically or asymmetrically inherent, and distributed in every social interaction in different contexts. As Bourdieu (1991, p. 40) notices, even "the relations of communication par excellence -linguistic exchanges -are also relations of symbolic power in which the power relations between speakers or their respective groups are actualized".
Research by Gee (1996), Lippi Green (1997 and Miller (2003) emphasizes that there are serious consequences for the language users not operating in dominant discourse. Differences in accent, grammar and vocabulary can be, for example, indicators of the social position of the speaker. These implications are best explained by three central ideas of Bourdieu's work: the concept of "linguistic habitus", the concept of linguistic capital and the concept of linguistic market, in which linguistic or cultural products are not equally valued. Individuals from different groups or social classes would have not only different accents and intonations but different values and beliefs about an external world. Their way of identification with certain world views is a manifestation of the socially constructed "habitus" of which they are part. Therefore, characteristics such as race, ethnicity, social background, gender, and sexuality are embodied dispositions that have serious consequences for the uptake of certain linguistic and socio-historical or socio-cultural competence. In linguistic terms, this involve not only production of grammatically correct discourses but also social capacity to use appropriate linguistic expressions and discourses adequately in specific situations. As Bourdieu (1991, p.41) argues, this is a social competence -"namely, that of the legitimate speaker, authorized to speak and to speak with authority". It is due to the position of these social and linguistic competencies that one is considered to be an "authoritative speaker" of a language and culture or is only granted restricted access to it. The concepts of being an authoritative speaker of a language and being authorized to speak the language draws on the sociological notions of "authority" proposed by Max Weber (Williams, 2003). According to him, "authority" is defined and reinforced by the norms of a wider socio-cultural system and is accepted as legitimate by those who participate in it. The present paper uses the term "authoritative speaker" to illustrate an interplay between the issues of legitimacy and power inherent in relationship between minority and majority language speakers. As Bourdieu (1991) further explains, the newly embodied dispositions, as well as the previously acquired dispositions in certain habitus, control, to some extent, both the language practices of an individual (agent) and their belief system. They also influence and impact on an individual's anticipation of the value that linguistic products will receive in certain linguistic markets, for instance in secondary or tertiary educational institutions. Bourdieu (1991) called these dispositions 'capital' that each individual is endowed with by his or her habitus, which includes the following forms of capital:  economic capital (material wealth)  cultural capital (knowledge, skills and other cultural acquisitions, educational qualifications)  symbolic capital (accumulated prestige or honour)  linguistic capital (language one learns in one's habitus) Different forms of capital can be transformed from one form into another: for instance, educational qualifications can be converted into economic capital. This is also the case with language, when some linguistic products (e.g. expressions), for example, are valued more highly on certain markets than others (ibid. pp.11-23). Thus, the question arises why the minority or heritage language of an individual is not perceived as a form of capital, but rather as some sort of impediment. Thompson in the Editor's Introduction to Bourdieu's work (1991) explains that it is the value of symbolic power that: "presupposes certain forms of cognition or belief, in such a way that even those who benefit least from exercise of power participate, to some extent, in their own subjection. They recognize or tacitly acknowledge the legitimacy of power, or of the hierarchical relations of power in which they are embedded; and hence they fail to see that the hierarchy is, after all, an arbitrary social construction, which serves the interests of some groups more than others" (Bourdieu 1991, p.3).
As previous research indicates (Machowska-Kosciak, 2016) Polish children living in Ireland are often embedded within complex power relations; trying to find their own understanding of the socio-cultural norms and practices of the two cultures and two languages that are part of their everyday life.

Nature and scope of the present study
This paper is part of a larger longitudinal PhD study that took place in 2009-2014. The research described in this paper constitutes a small part of all the material collected. The issues discussed in this paper were investigated in a broader way in the PhD study. This study explored and documented the experiences of four Polish children and their families living in Ireland in recent years. There is still relatively little information on how minority language children construct their identities, experience power relations, or deal with issues of language legitimacy or contesting majority and minority language ideologies. There is a scarcity of second language socialisation research in the European context, especially, studies investigating the homeschool community dynamics of minority/heritage language socialisation. Thus, this is the only such longitudinal study the author is aware of in the European context specifically investigating first and second language socialisation both in the family and educational context. The focus of this paper is on how heritage language (Polish) socialisation goals affect these children's identity negotiation as they grow up in a multilingual environment, and try to find their place in a new country and society. In particular, this paper examines the ways in which the children construct themselves as authoritative or unauthoritative speakers of the two languages they use on an every-day basis. This involves an examination of the children's own "discourses in use' in the communities to which they belong, such as peer groups, family and the wider school community. The participants' subjective interpretation of their own behaviour and language practices is seen as crucial to understanding their first and second language socialization experience including the interrelatedness of all component parts.

Research design, participants and educational contexts studied
Two broad educational contexts -English speaking Mainstream Schools (EMS) and Polish Weekend School English Mainstream Schools (PWS + EMS) are represented by two participant students. (See Table 1 below.) Table 1 briefly outlines the two language educational contexts examined in the present study.
To be like a home extension 87 The main participants of this study are four Polish immigrant children aged 13-15. Their parents and teachers constitute two additional informant groups. Table 2 below provides brief information with respect to these participants.

The range of data collected and analysed
An ethnography of communication methods were employed in this study. They provided a set of methods for conducting the present research as well as providing the grounds for emic and etic analysis of discourse. The theoretical framework that underpins this approach to data collection and analysis draws upon Hymes (1974), and Schiffrin (1994), a discursive psychology that examines "talk" as social action. The style of data collection and analysis focuses on exploring and collecting a wide range of materials without being constrained by a specific hypothesis (Potter & Edwards 2001). Additionally, content and discourse analysis was considered to be a suitable analytic and linguistic tool having a potential for unravelling language socialization practices inherent in the audio material collected. It is a multi-faceted case study of two groups of Polish adolescents situated in two different educational contexts: instrumental (illuminating particular issues involved in identity and knowledge construction); multiple (more than one case is investigated); and comparative -two cases (EMS and PWS) are compared.
The data collected through interviews comes from three major groups of informants: (i) the four Polish students themselves, (ii) their parents, (iii) their teachers. Two types of triangulation are used to ascertain the participants' perspectives on their own linguistic and cultural practices: (i) triangulation within methods to obtain a more holistic perspective (data derived from observations, semi-structured interviews, audio-recordings of meal conversations and documents), and (ii) informant triangulation to check the validity of the findings.
All audio recordings were transcribed for analysis. An analysis of audio recordings was conducted to examine how the children, their parents and teachers use specific language and cultural mediated practices in their everyday interactions. The present study employed two layers of audio recordings analysis: (i) epistemic/affective stance taking (see Ochs 1996, Biber, Conrad & Reppen 1998); (ii) reflective and interactive positioning (see Davies & Harré 1990). Davis and R. Harré (1999, p.37) defined "positioning" as "a discursive process whereby people are located in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced storylines". Positioning is distinguished into two categories: (i) reflective positioning, in which one is positioning oneself (ii) interactive positioningwhere what one says positions the other or invokes a particular role upon him/her. (See Davies & Harré 1990.). Table 3 below briefly illustrates the scope of data collected and analysed for the purpose of the longitudinal study. The transcripts selected for this study were selected as representative for the themes discussed.

Monolingual educational context
This is represented by two Polish students, Kasia (14) and Marcin (13), attending Irish mainstream schools only. Kasia attends Lower Secondary School (Junior High School) (labelled EMS 1) and Marcin goes to National Primary School (labelled EMS2). Education in this context takes place exclusively through the students' L2 (English). Baker's (2006) taxonomy of bilingual education represents this as a monolingual form of education for bilinguals, involving mainstreaming and submersion with the goal being the assimilation of the migrant language student into the mainstream groups.

Heritage language learning
The PWS+EMS context involves two different PSW + EMS school pairs: Polish Weekend School 1 and National Primary School (labelled PWS1 + EMS 3, Wiktoria) and Polish Weekend School 2 and Junior High School (labelled PWS 2 + EMS 4, Janek). In Baker's taxonomy (2006), this type of context is considered as heritage bilingual education as it aims to foster the minority language and culture in the child. Polish weekend schools hope not only to maintain their students' language skills, but also to develop their Polish language skills to full proficiency and full bi-literacy adequate to the child's age (enriched bilingual education). The scope of the curriculum is, however, limited to a few hours per week, delivered on Saturdays or Sundays. Polish weekend schools differ from heritage language bilingual education since Polish children do not use their native language in their mainstream schools as a medium of instruction as opposed to indigenous/heritage immersion programmes described by Baker (2006, p.238). Polish heritage language education takes place through weekend supplemental schools in Ireland (supported by the Polish government) and is restricted to one day tuition per week.  Closing of the school year

Who is an authoritative speaker? -transforming sociocultural norms
The excerpts in this section come from four participant children and their parents. They are examples of children's daily stance taking, illustrating the ways in which they discursively constructed themselves in their day-to-day lives. Letters like "W", "G" or "T", for example, are used as first initials of participants' names. "G" stands for the researcher's name. The present paper uses the term "authoritative speaker" or "legitimate speaker" to illustrate an interplay between the aforementioned issues of legitimacy and power. The table below explains transcript conventions used for the analysis of the excerpts. This excerpt comes from a meal conversation audio-recording. Wiktoria, her parents and the researcher discuss aspects of religious practices that differ for both countries. As Wiktoria provides some examples of such differences, her mother and her father align themselves with her proposition. Wiktoria's parents were explicitly oriented in their practices (i.e., in their stance taking and social acts) towards maintaining the Polish language and culture, through keeping rich links with their Polish family, being active members of the Polish community living locally (including the Polish Association and Polish Weekend School) and keeping their Polish religious practices and moral standards. Wiktoria shared her parents' strong attachment to "Polishness". She had closely identified herself with Polish moral standards (represented by her parents, the local Polish community, Polish Weekend School and the Polish chaplaincy) and Polish culture in general. In her understanding of culture, practices which were characteristic of the Polish community were seen, in many respects, as being superior to the newly observed ones in Ireland. This was Wiktoria's main way of positioning herself among "authoritative" heritage language speakers like her parents. At the same time, Wiktoria often expressed her desire to be part of the Irish peer group (Machowska-Kosciak, 2015); however she was constantly trying to negotiate her own position between the newly observed social and cultural norms of Irish society and her own moral standards. She has been experiencing a personal conflict on that ground.

Kasia and Janek's rejection of socio-cultural norms in search of being 'authoritative speakers of a language'
Kasia and Janek often used a form of "resistance" for cultural practices, their own form of agency in order to become more "authoritative speakers" of a given language. In the case of Kasia (14), it was an investment in becoming a speaker of majority language. The case was completely opposite for Janek, who through his practices wanted to maintain his position as an "authoritative speaker" of his heritage language, Polish. See the following examples.

Excerpt JANEK 149-154:
Janek never talked about Irish holidays or school events connected with the celebration of Catholic Holidays without prompts from the researcher or his mother. His college was, however, celebrating various Catholic holidays on many occasions during the school year. Janek's and Kasia's socialising practices took the form of "resistance", or in other words "agency" (Ahearn, 2001). Janek constructed himself as "different, other or even strange" within the group of majority speakers from his EMS, while Kasia did exactly the opposite.
Janek was able to position himself as "other" through having different interests from his Irish peers, as shown in the example above, by not taking part in local or national practices of his Irish peers. He was the only participant who openly approached the researcher in school and used Polish in front of his Irish classmates. His agency was also manifested through a lack of interest in Irish socio-historical norms or traditions. Janek intentionally avoided the celebration of St. Patrick's Day, considered Irish dancing of minor importance compared to the Polish dancing traditions and decided to consciously resist a native speaker's accent.
In contrast, Kasia strongly resisted any allegiances to her local Polish community or adherence to any of the heritage culture practices. While Kasia explicitly expressed a strong preference towards English in this particular situation (line 218), prosodic features of her discourse reflect a feeling of strong allegiances towards her friends. An actual explicit speech act of using Polish in this situation would make Kasia feel "other" and, as she herself believes, it would position her among "others" contrary to her own preferences. Speaking a minority language in this situation would then undermine her legitimacy to speak the majority language with enough authority to be considered as an 'authoritative' speaker of the language. This would mean being considered as a less authoritative speaker of the majority language.

Excerpt JANEK 747-752:
In the following excerpt, Janek is pointing to an important benefit of being part of a Attending Polish school involves having regular and active contact with "experts" -"authoritative speakers" of Polish. Janek makes a comment that because of the regular contact, he is able to remember things and words that he would have otherwise forgotten. In this short excerpt, Janek displays both his worries and hopes for the future. He does not want to forget his heritage: he wants to remain among legitimate speakers of the Polish language. See the following excerpt. Janek tries to position himself within Polish culture in the present moment. To do so, he compares the way he felt about it before (when he lived in Poland) and the way he feels about it now (when he lives in Ireland). "Before" he felt more in the centre of the Polish culture, as he comments: "nie taki jakby od środka całkiem" [not so much from inside]. Now, on the contrary, he only displays this culture to others, on the outside: "To jakby, że pokazuje tą kulture innym, na zewnątrz" [It's as if I show this culture to others, on the outside].
Janek uses two similes to make his affective stance even more evident. First, he compares himself to a "samym ubocznym kawałkiem" [the lonely side piece]. In this way, Janek reflectively positions himself as being only an additional part of Polish culture at the moment. Secondly, Janek uses another simile by figuratively asserting that he is like "dobudówka do domu" [a house extension]. Again, he compares himself to the "house extension" that is attached to a house (Poland), to emphasise his affectionate attitude towards Polish culture. At the same time, he makes an inference of not being an active part of this culture anymore. His resistance towards Irish cultural customs and strong allegiances with Polish culture place him among "authoritative speakers" of his heritage language.
Indeed, in the case of Janek, the majority culture was resisted in favour of a heritage culture.
Janek also put a lot of effort into learning Polish both in school and at home (Janek attended Polish heritage language school and was a member of the Polish Youth Club) whereas Kasia resisted her "Polishness" in many ways. She positioned herself as not belonging to her heritage culture. Both of them had opted to position themselves as 'more authoritative language speakers': Janek as an authoritative heritage language speaker; and Kasia as an authoritative majority language speaker. They felt that there is a choice that needs to be made, a choice between majority and minority culture and language. Their resistance took a form of agency, an agency not to participate in explicit speech and cultural acts. As Ahearn (2001) notes, resistance constitutes one form of "agency", being an active agent within socialising encounters, that is open to novices and in particularly to second language learners like Janek or Kasia. However, as Duff (2002) and Morita (2004) argue: "overt participation" or lack of "participation" in one cultural and linguistic activities cannot be the only measure of language and culture learning (Duff, 2009, p. 7).

Marcinan unauthoritative language speaker?
Through affectively charged stances of resentment, resignation towards Poland, the Polish language and culture, or negative assessments of his language skills in Polish, Marcin often resisted his Polish linguistic, social, ethnic and cultural identity on many occasions. Moreover, through positioning himself as a "novice" within the group of Polish language users e.g. when celebrating Polish holidays, participating in family events back in Poland or constructing negative affective stances with respect to Polish modes of politeness and greetings, Marcin reinforced his resistance. However, he hardly ever expressed his resistance outwardly: on the contrary, he did it rather tacitly. Choosing, for example, not to talk about some Polish traditions known to him, or positioning himself as a "novice" with respect to extended family events or social interactions that took place in Poland. Marcin often positioned himself among "unauthoritative speakers" of Polish. See the following example: Marcin makes an explicit comment regarding recognition of the Polish social hierarchy. He points out: "mnie irytuje to że w Polsce to że zawsze młodszy musi mówić pierwszy" [it irritates me that in Poland it is always a younger person who must speak (greet) first]. He takes on a negative affective stance (of irritation) towards this norm through the use of discourse markers and prosodic features such as a raised tone of voice. He further justifies his stance by pointing out that failure to adjust to this norm resulted in a strong negative reactionbeing told off ("krzyczała" [telling off]) by his grandmother. In his defence, he is taking on a "novice identity": "ale ja nie wiedziałem o co chodziło" [but, I did not know what it was about]. Thus, Marcin positions himself as a novice within this social Polish norm through an open rejection of adjustment to it. In this way he demonstrates his strong allegiances with Irish social and cultural norms and possibly places himself as a more "authoritative speaker" of majority language than his heritage language.

Discussion of findings: Authoritative or unauthoritative speakers of culture?
Beliefs and moral values systems that are inherent and transmitted onto an individual within his or her "habitus" (Bourdieu, 1991) play a vital role in the identity negotiation process and in considering one as an authoritative language speaker and culture participant. Our socio-cultural norms are constantly contested and they undergo constant moral evaluations. Participants in the present study often position themselves reflectively (Harre, 1990) towards certain norms, values cultural practices and negotiate spaces in which they can create further understandings of the new observable norms. It is often the subconscious processes that last through one's lifespan. Immigrant children often experience anxiety and chaos on their way to becoming bilingual and bicultural. The process "shakes their self-concept and cultural identity and brings the anxiety of temporary rootlessness" (Gudykunst & Kim, 1997, p. 357) as in Janek's metaphor, where he compares himself to "a house extension". He is still Polish, but does not belong to his heritage culture in the same way as he used to belong in the past. He puts a lot of effort into maintaining his language skills and cultural competencies to position himself as an "authoritative speaker" of his heritage language.
In the case of Wiktoria, her search to be a "authoritative heritage language speaker" takes the form of attachment to Polish religious practices. As Ayla Fader (2012) points out, religious practices are helpful tools for conceptualizing morality in the context of macro sociohistorical political processes. For instance, building on Bourdieu's theory, Foucault's (1997) tracing of organisations of "power and political constructions of knowledge" offer an informative background to the experiences of the minority communities, or those without power. His approach offers a very rich theoretical framework for attending to how "embodied attachments to historically specific forms of truth come to be forged" (Mahmood 2005, p. 34). Further, Foucault (1997) makes a distinction between moral discourse and ethical practice. Moral discourse includes the norms that establish certain forms of power and knowledge. We can conclude that adherence to Polish religious norms and practices is germane to certain morality for Wiktoria's family. In turn, it allows Wiktoria and her family to remain "subjects of this particular moral discourse" and reject the religious practices of the majority. By doing so, the speakers position themselves as possessing an "authority to practice Polish morality" through being active members of the Polish community in Ireland. It is crucial to note that Wiktoria (14) is fully engaged in these practices. Parents and their language attitude and ideologies exert a strong influence over Wiktoria's language development strategies.
Furthermore, Cummins (1981, p.14) argues that the negotiation of identity that takes place in the case of immigrant students is a task complicated by the fact that the immigrants grow up in two different cultural and language settings, which often represent different contradictory values. That is why the immigrant students often experience cultural conflicts when constructing their identity. In Marcin and Kasia's cases for example, heritage language and culture were often resisted in favour of the majority ones. Integration with majority Irish-English speakers both in school and outside formal settings played an important role in Marcin's and Kasia's being considered as an integral part of this group by its members. In this way they have been perceived as "authoritative speakers" and active participants by majority language speakers. They were very successful in getting access to Bourdieu's (1991) highly valued linguistic and cultural capital of majority language speakers. Not only did they get access to formal linguistic resources represented by their school, but they also created an effective social network in and through the second language which provided them with the symbolic "benefits" of an "authoritative" language user, a strong sense of self as well as knowledge of different genres, registers and discourses in use. However, both Lambert (1975) and Cummins (2000aCummins ( ,b, 2001aCummins ( ,b, 2009) underline the importance of encouragement (from as many sources as possible) to maintain the students' dual heritage, as this contributes significantly to the students' personal development as well as to L2 learning success. Schools for example could teach heritage languages of their students in formal or semi-formal ways. Lambert (1975) concludes, "I do not think they [these students] will be able to be fully be North American unless they are given every possibility of being fully French, Portuguese, Spanish, or whatever as well". Cummins (1981, p. 15) sums up that it is absolutely necessary to be sensitive to the students' identities (stages in negotiation of these identities), as in the past, insensitivity has led to many problems and academic failures.
Migrant children have to balance competing realities, often, without much support from their schools. An ethnocentric or culture-specific school curriculum, as well as the promotion of mutually incompatible cultural values, does not serve the best interests of the children. In this paper, I have demonstrated that Polish children engage themselves actively with constant negotiation of morality, socio-cultural norms and values, and embodiment of these norms. This negotiation shapes their social and cultural identities, and calls for significant cognitive and affective adjustments. These children's experiences are culturally determined, rather than empowering them towards gaining "legitimacy" to become "authoritative speakers" of both heritage and majority languages. In response, children make their own ways, without mediation or support from their Irish teachers, parents, officials or Polish teachers. On many occasions they struggle to put themselves forward as authoritative representatives of language and culture and, as a result, they often favour one language and culture over another. They constantly contest norms and moral discourses in order to grant themselves a position among more authoritative speakers of the heritage or majority language. Sadly, this reveals some truth about ourselves. Educators, policy makers and parents alike often speak the language of "authoritative speakers" and impose this on the younger speakers. Social norms and unequal power relations embedded in language are being reproduced Thus, if policy makers and educators do not take time and effort to understand young migrants' experiences better and try to empower these children with legitimacy to be authoritative representatives of any language and culture that is part of their daily repertories, it will be impossible to create multicultural societies that are characterised by greater cohesion and multilingualism.
The findings of this study strongly support Cummins's (2000Cummins's ( , 2001 call for collaborative negotiation of power between the educators and the students in multilingual settings. The voices of the students in these "empowering" contexts are heard and represented, and "schooling amplifies rather than silences children's power of self-expression" by embracing their dual cultural and linguistic heritage (Cummins, 2009, p. 263). Polish children in Ireland should be supported on their way to bilingualism. Polish language tuition (along with the choice of other minority languages) as one of the mainstream curricular subjects would enrich and benefit not only Polish students but also Irish society in general. It would promote greater social cohesion by the simple fact of recognising the same socio-political value of each language that in turn represents the cultural heritage of newcomer children and their families. In this way, mainstream schools would become more representative and responsive to the needs of the community. Minority children would be empowered to share their cultural heritage with majority language students. As a result, there would be greater understanding of cultural values and norms among all groups of students without empowering one group over another. Thus, the findings of this study support the call of Kramsch (2010, p. 359) for the development of 'intercultural competence', a "third place", which is a metaphor for positioning the self both inside and outside the discourse of others. This would empower an individual to stand outside each culture to be able to see its values and norms, but not in terms of coercion but of equal value. These issues need to be addressed in the near future by Irish government policy makers, not only as a response to the growing Polish community in Ireland, but as a reaction to the great influx of immigrants to Ireland in general. Any country that opens its borders to the international community can expect to encounter the same linguistic and cultural challenges.