Examining family language policy through realist social theory

Seyed Hadi Mirvahedi

doi:10.1017/s0047404520000287

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this article, I argue that one social theory that could help us better understand the interaction between social structure and human agency in the context of family language policy (FLP) research is realist social theory. FLP studies in multilingual contexts have shown that home often becomes a site where dominant societal ideologies and discourses of structuring nature compete with individual views and agency, ultimately informing language behavior. Realist social theory advocates the analytical separation of structure and agency and attributes causal powers to both social structures and individual agency. This conceptualization of structure and agency prevents us from falling into structural determinism or individual voluntarism. Through examining the linguistic ideologies and practices of thirteen mothers of young children in Tabriz, Iran, I illustrate how family language policy emerges in interaction with and response to structural powers. (Family language policy, realist social theory, Iranian Azerbaijanis, agency, social structures, language maintenance)

Highlights

Language policy and planning (LPP) scholarship has moved away from considering policy as exclusively one of the affairs of states to focusing on how a socially situated approach to language policy analysis could offer insightful information on the individual’s role in policy interpretation and appropriation in various domains and institutions below the state-level, and how this leads to the transformation or reproduction of certain social structures (Tollefson 1991, 2006; Hult 2010, 2017a; Johnson 2013; Lane 2015; Skerrett 2016)
As an offshoot of this shift to examining language policies at a micro level, a burgeoning area of research within LPP, namely family language policy (FLP), has evolved over the past two decades to shed light on what family members believe about particular languages, what they do with languages they know, and what efforts they make to maintain=alter the linguistic status quo within the family (Spolsky 2004, 2009)
While the primary focus of FLP research has been on the dynamics of language ideologies and language socialization inside the home and its impact on child licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 0047-4045/20 $15.00

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Language policy and planning (LPP) scholarship has moved away from considering policy as exclusively one of the affairs of states to focusing on how a socially situated approach to language policy analysis could offer insightful information on the individual’s role in policy interpretation and appropriation in various domains and institutions below the state-level, and how this leads to the transformation or reproduction of certain social structures (Tollefson 1991, 2006; Hult 2010, 2017a; Johnson 2013; Lane 2015; Skerrett 2016). Grounding FLP research within sociological realism allows us to argue that family language policy is ‘SELF-induced and SELF-policed’ (Blommaert 2019:5, emphasis added), it emerges in interaction with and in response to structural and cultural affordances and constraints. This contributes to our understanding of structural and cultural powers and how parents and children mobilize them, which shapes their linguistic ideologies and practices at home. I illustrate how parents’ views of linguistic issues in the home are affected and shaped in response to the social structures that define FLP in their homes

METHODOLOGY

Procedure

CONCLUDING REMARKS