Examining Korean American Parent-Child Relationships Through Bilingual Language Use

Abstract

Many Korean American (KA) families live at the intersection of two languages and two cultures. When considering how parent-child relationships are negotiated through daily interactions within perceived parameters of cultural norms and expectations, it becomes important to better understand which cultural norms and expectations are taken up by different family members who have access to different sets of cultural norms. Through the lens of positioning theory, this study analyzed home interactions of three KA families with children (ages 6–12) to investigate the relationship between bilingual use and parent-child roles. Parent-child interactions demonstrated complex negotiations around boundaries of parents’ authority through language shifts between Korean and English and speech-level shifts between formal and informal language in Korean. Family members displayed linguistic strategies that either broke away from traditionally hierarchical parent-child relationships by moving toward more friend-like horizontal relationships or reinforced expectations and norms associated with roles in the family. Findings illuminate changing patterns in norms and expectations of modern KA family relations.