Family language policy: sociopolitical reality versus linguistic continuity

Abstract

Family language policy (FLP) has received increased attention over the last decade as researchers seek to understand questions such as: why (and how) do members of some transnational families maintain their language while members of other families lose their language? How is it that some children, growing up in a largely monolingual society, become bilinguals while other children, growing up in a bilingual environment, become monolinguals? What policies and practices do parents implement to promote or discourage the use and practice of particular languages? And how are these language policies and practices negotiated in private domains, and concomitantly, related to broader ideologies of language and language education policies? While emphasizing close analysis of family domains and relationships, FLP also recognizes the relevance and influence of economic, political and social structures and processes in a given society. In a complex nested relationship, FLP interacts with a wide range of socio-historical, political, cultural and linguistic variables and factors (Spolsky 2012; King and Fogle 2013). As such, the study of FLP not only contributes to our understanding of the processes of language shift and change, it also sheds lights on broader language policy issues at societal levels. Most importantly, the study of FLP can make visible the relationships between private domains and public spheres and reveal the conflicts that family members must negotiate between the realities of social pressure, political impositions, and public education demands on the one hand, and the desire for cultural loyalty and linguistic continuity on the other. FLP draws on theoretical frameworks of language policy, language socialization, literacy studies and child language acquisition (Caldas 2010; Curdt-Christiansen 2009, 2012a, 2012b; De Houwer 2009; Gafaranga 2010; King and Fogle 2006,