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Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper discusses the concept of child agency in home language maintenance in the context of transnational Polish-Australian families. Smith-Christmas’ (2022) model has been applied as a vantage point to present how the four intersecting dimensions of compliance regimes, linguistic competence, linguistic norms and generational positioning illustrate the dynamics of interactional practices in a family. To exemplify how complex and multi-layered child agency is, three conversational excerpts have been selected. While addressing the aforementioned dimensions, it occurred that children exerted agency through certain acts to shape language practices in the family. The four interrelated dimensions either unfolded individually to prove the children’s agentive use of language and/or behavior being a testimony to the fact that children are already fully-fledged actors in the family. On other occasions, the said dimensions transpired in the form of an exhaustive model, with all of them evolving in parallel, where compliance regimes, linguistic norms, linguistic competence and generational positioning showcased the multidimensional character of child agency.
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