FLP and homescapes: Employing walking tour methodology in researching children’s and parents’ perspectives

Abstract

Children’s view of family language practices and their agency therein is regarded as important in the study of family language policy (FLP). This work extends the notion of the linguistic landscape to the private family domain and uses the innovative methodological approach of “homescape walking tour” to engage young children (6 to 7-years-old) in the data generation process. During the walking tours, children in Chinese-German families guided the researcher through their homes, taking pictures of objects containing “languages” and sharing their lived experiences with these resources. In a further step, parents were invited to share their opinions about their FLP and the objects photographed by their children. More than 120 pictures gathered from the walking tours and transcribed interviews were analyzed in order to comprehend the multimodal linguistic practices of the families and the individual experiences family members create with such practices and resources. The results show that the application of the concept of homescape with its discursive constructions from both “user” (the children) and “designer” (the parents) perspectives can powerfully open up spaces for the co-construction of the family spaces. The homescapes are represented both as opportunities for language learning and as identity presentation. While parents tend to emphasize the intention behind the design of the homescapes and their wishes for their children to learn languages, children concentrate on their way of using different linguistic resources and playful activities.