Abstract
ABSTRACT With a focus on an under-studied group of immigrants in the UK, this paper examines Iranian families’ language ideologies and practices at home in relation to Persian acquisition and maintenance for their children. Working within a family language policy (FLP) framework, we draw on sociolinguistic data from semi-structured interviews with eighteen mothers to understand how parental beliefs, their everyday language practices and the attempts they make to maintain, improve, or alter their language use will lead to their children’s heritage language acquisition and maintenance. The results of the study suggest that the success in heritage language development and maintenance boils down to parental pro heritage language ideologies and their everyday small-scale practices. It was also found that the interrelationship between language and cultural values and a successful FLP was further reinforced by the parents’ migration trajectory and proficiency in English as the societal language. This research also showed that the large size of this diaspora in the UK (particularly in London), their close-knit social network, availability of heritage language weekend schools and the possibility of frequent visits to the home country create a conducive situation for the Iranian diaspora to raise their children bilingually.
Highlights
The simultaneous and sudden surge of different waves of migrants into Europe since the 1960s, and the recent refugee influx since 2015, along with intra-EU mobility has made Europe ethno-linguistically and culturally superdiverse (Crul 2016; Scholten 2018)
Parental language ideologies are a central component of family language policy
The analysis of the mothers’ interviews suggested that the families’ success in bringing about bilingualism in Persian and English was rooted in a number of reasons related to the parents’ ideologies and diligent efforts as well as the home-external affordances available in the UK
Summary
The simultaneous and sudden surge of different waves of migrants into Europe since the 1960s, and the recent refugee influx since 2015, along with intra-EU mobility has made Europe ethno-linguistically and culturally superdiverse (Crul 2016; Scholten 2018). The United Kingdom is certainly no exception, and London alone projects an image of ‘the world in one city’ (Vertovec 2007) This rich multilingualism is attested by 2020 statistics issued by the Department of Education showing that one in three pupils in the UK primary schools (33.9%) are of minority ethnic origins and one in five of them (21.3%) have been exposed to languages other than English as their first language in the home (Department of Education 2019). What such bilingualism for those children and their families mean is that they have to juggle the public and private sphere of social life and the accompanying requirements of each. MIRVAHEDI and political system and the labor markets, and on the other hand, they may want to maintain their heritage language that is important to their national/ethnic identity or keeping in touch with the family members in the household or the home country
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
