Family Language Policy Research Articles

(Nanny) State as family by proxy

In this article, we extend the boundaries of research on family language policy (FLP) by addressing the situation that occurs when the State takes over the care of unaccompanied minor refugees and asylum-seekers, thereby assuming by proxy the responsibilities normally assigned to families. We analyse media discourses involving unaccompanied minors (UMs) in Norway, a Scandinavian country perceived as having liberal policies, in a corpus of 30 articles published between 2016 and 2017, a significant period of immigration in a European context. Our analysis reveals a polarized debate around these children, often termed anchor children, who allegedly aim for future biological family reunification. Assuming the family role as proxy, Norway is referred to as a Nanny State, making decisions for the UMs regarding their well-being, education and language learning. Engaging with recent calls for decolonizing and southernizing critical discourse studies (CDS), we anchor our analysis onto decoloniality. We argue that this epistemological move allows us to identify opposing understandings of culture undergirding two competing sides in debates about UMs in Norway. The study has both theoretical and methodological implications for future conceptualizations of the family in FLP research.

Navigating language maintenance challenges with health professionals: Reflections from Spanish speaking families in Australia

ABSTRACT Parents often worry children will lose their heritage language when their spoken language develops and they transition to majority language environments. With a growing population of Spanish speakers in Australia, increased attendance at childcare and earlier and more frequent exposure to English, there is a need to understand what advice health professionals are imparting to support language maintenance amongst the Spanish speaking community. In this study, I interviewed 13 Chilean and Colombian mothers about the language maintenance challenges they encountered when their children transitioned to majority language environments. I also investigated if they had sought advice from health professionals, what advice they had been provided, and what impact that had on their family language policy. This study showed that parents often adopted different family language policies in spite of, rather than because of, advice from health professionals. The need for more nuanced and informed advice to support language maintenance in the early years warrants further research into professional development and training in multilingual development.

Exploring the Production Effect in Memory Reveals a Balanced Bilingual Advantage.

There is evidence suggesting that bilingual individuals demonstrate an advantage over monolinguals in performing various tasks related to memory and executive functions. The characteristics of this bilingual advantage are not unanimously agreed upon in the literature, and some even doubt it exists. The heterogeneity of the bilingual population may explain this inconsistency. Hence, it is important to identify different subgroups of bilinguals and characterize their cognitive performance. The current study focuses on the production effect, a well-established memory phenomenon, in bilingual young adults differing in their English and Hebrew proficiency levels, and the possible balanced bilingual advantage. The aims of this study are (1) to evaluate the production effect in three groups of bilingual participants: English-dominant bilinguals, Hebrew-dominant bilinguals, and balanced bilinguals, and (2) to examine whether memory advantage depends on varying degrees of bilingualism. One hundred twenty-one bilingual young adults who speak English and Hebrew at different levels participated. All learned lists of familiar words, in English and Hebrew, half by reading aloud and half by silent reading, followed by free recall tests. As expected, a production effect (better memory for aloud words than for silent words) was found for all groups in both languages. Balanced bilinguals remembered more words than did dominant participants, demonstrating a memory advantage in both languages. These findings support the hypothesis that the presence of cognitive advantage in bilingualism depends on the acquisition of a good proficiency level in each of the languages, with direct implications for family language policy and bilingual education.

Family language policy retention across generations: childhood language policies, multilingualism experiences, and future language policies in multilingual emerging Canadian adults.

Language policies in multilingual families refer to parents' decisions, whether explicitly articulated or not, regarding which languages will be used in which contexts. However, because most studies that explore language allocation focus on families with young children, they do not address how family language policies impact the retention of a home language through to the next generation. The present study investigates an important perspective on this issue, specifically how emerging adults' childhood experiences with their family language policy relate to the languages they currently use and plan to retain in the future. In all, 62 multilingual Canadian adults, aged between 17 and 29 years, participated in focus group interviews concerning their experience of language policies in their birth families, their current beliefs concerning language allocation and retention, and their plans about language policy in their future families. The data revealed that not only are most participants interested in retaining their home language, thereby continuing to speak the language in their future families, but most are also open to incorporating additional languages into their policies. The results provide insight into how to identify effective heritage language retention policies that transcend generations.

Changes in the immigrant Russian-speaking family language policy during the war in Ukraine.

The Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine had a significant impact on the Russian-speaking identity, reformulating existing linguistic and cultural boundaries and shaping Russian speakers' self-perception and vision of the world. We focus on families with children who are trying to balance their inner and outer life in order to stabilize the positive environment of the upbringing process and analyze how adults explain to the children the need to learn the Russian, Ukrainian and other languages. This can shed light on the challenges and strategies employed in alleviating prejudiced attitudes against immigrants' languages and cultures which can cause alienation from the roots in the one-and-a-half and second generation. The research questions were: How has the war altered language policies in families with different ethnic backgrounds? What changes in home language use strategies do parents propose? Material drawn from numerous posts of Facebook discussions have been analyzed with the help of thematic analysis. We observe that in many multilingual families with Ukrainian roots the war has led to a greater emphasis on the Ukrainian language use as an attempt to reinforce ties to their cultural heritage and express support for the country. Russian is increasingly viewed as the language of the aggressor; moreover, Russian culture is devalued and rejected. Some families have become more open to new language learning, especially the languages of their new environment, and try to identify themselves as multicultural and multiethnic personalities. On the other hand, in those families where parents work or study in the fields in which Russian is widely used, adults prioritize the development of Russian language skills in their children in order to improve their future educational and professional opportunities. We explore attitudes and challenges faced by parents in Russian-speaking families, as they demonstrate the complexities of identity formation and language transmission while making salient the interplay between parents' personal experiences, their aspirations for their children's cultural identity, and the pressures of integration into the local society.

The Polish Language in Georgia (U.S.)

Despite the number of people of Polish origin (approx. 9 million) and the long history of this diaspora in the U.S., there have been no in-depth comprehensive sociolinguistic studies devoted to their language situation and bilingualism. The states of the Southeast (including Georgia) are particularly under-researched. The article presents the results of the Polish part of sociolinguistic research on the situation of Slavic languages in Georgia, carried out in the summer of 2022. Since Georgia is rarely a destination for direct migration from Poland, its Polish community differs linguistically and socially from the more typically “Polish” states of the Northeast and Midwest. Based on questionnaire research and interviews, the spheres of use of Polish and English, the linguistic competence of Poles in both languages, and the shape and main motives driving family language policy are discussed.

Ml@h-methode in Nederlands-Poolse tweetalige opvoeding op een specifiek voorbeeld – een exploratieve case-study

The strategy of raising a bilingual child, also known as family language policy (FLP), has been the subject of linguistic, psychological or sociological research for many years. One way of raising bilinguals in a family environment is the minority language at home strategy (ml@h), which is often chosen by parents who live outside their home country and both speak a minority language. Parents speak to each other and to the child in their native language and the second language is acquired by the child in situations outside the home. In this article, I will present not only theoretical considerations of bilingual upbringing but also the perspective of a person who was raised bilingually (Dutch and Polish). Opinions and reflections gathered by an individual in-depth interview will provide a glimpse of growing up in a bilingual environment from the perspective of a now-adult child. In the case described, the strategy had a positive effect. This was influenced by the parents’ conscious choice of a bilingual upbringing strategy and its consistent application, supporting the child in learning the grammar and stylistics of the minority language and providing the child with contact with the minority language before going to school.

The Cultural and Linguistic Diversity of Migrants in South Africa

This article reflects on the position of migrants in a South African setting and on their integration in the host community, with attention paid to family religious affiliation. As an interdisciplinary contribution, it introduces the concepts of “language policy” and “family language policy” in reference to African migrants’ narratives of adults who recently moved to the Western Cape in search of security and better life chances. Multilingual repertoires shape social mobility options, and vulnerable people draw on religious ideas to interpret their life journeys while seeking a better future. Also, in maintenance of heritage languages, religion often plays a central role. The notion of “family” applied to migrant workers rarely fits traditional definitions. The paper attends to how migrants’ and refugees’ mobility affects their experiences in culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse communities. Finally—mostly embedded in a discussion of other pertinent themes—the article indicates how migrants refer to the role of church and religion in their itineraries.

“Maybe it was a shield, you know”: Exploring family language policy through the lens of perezhivanie

AbstractThe current study builds an argument for using Vygotskian perezhivanie as a theoretical perspective to explore the becoming and being of family language policy (FLP). We shift the focus from the three components constituting FLP – language beliefs or ideologies, language practices, and language planning or management – to the individual. Namely, we suggest focusing on the individuals who sift their explicit and implicit FLP decisions through their emotional lived experiences – perezhiviniya. The study draws on interviews with two single Russian-speaking mothers in Finland. It explores how they refract their experiences connected to language use (i.e., Finnish and Russian) through the prism of perezhivanie, focusing on individual dramatic events that shape family language policies. The analysis illustrates that participants attach different or even controversial, however, co-existing, meanings to their FLPs. Furthermore, it accentuates the non-linear nature of individuals’ development, and, as a result, the development of their FLP. Above all, tracing the two mothers’ development through the lens of perezhivanie allowed making visible the complex trajectories that led them, despite struggles and obstacles, to gain the volition to act and implement a bilingual language policy in their families.

Parental involvement in online education during Covid-19 lockdown: a netnographic case study of Chinese language teaching in the UK

Abstract This paper reports on a study of Chinese parents’ involvement in their children’s heritage language (HL) development during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK. Involving seven transnational families, we examined the roles parents played during the online learning sessions and the factors shaping their involvement. Employing a netnographic approach, this study incorporates online classroom observations, semi-structured and focus group interviews with parents, and analysis of their Instagram posts. The study underscores the critical role of parental involvement (PI) in enhancing children’s HL education, offering insights into distinct parental roles, including as emotional supporters, co-educators, teaching assistants, and technical supporters. The study introduces a three-dimensional PI model within the framework of family language policy (FLP), enhancing our understanding of FLP by concretely manifesting what, how and why parents get involved in their children’s HL development. This study contributes to the discourse on PI and FLP, shedding light on the evolving roles of parents and the complexity of their involvement during the unique circumstances of the pandemic.

‘Difficulties when learning, easiness when fighting’: Why do families in Latvia choose (pre)schools with a language of instruction other than their L1?

Aims and objectives: Language debates in Latvia often focus on the role of Latvian as official and main societal language. Yet, Latvian society is highly multilingual, and families with home languages other than Latvian have to choose between different educational trajectories for their children. In this context, this paper discusses the results of two studies which addressed the question of why families with Russian as a home language choose (pre)schools with languages other than Russian as medium of instruction (MOI). The first study analyses family narratives which provide insight into attitudes and practices which lead to the decision to send children to Latvian-MOI institutions. The second study investigates language attitudes and practices by families in the international community of Riga German School. Methodology: The paper discusses data gathered during two studies: for the first, semi-structed interviews were conducted with Russian-speaking families who choose Latvian-medium schools for their children. For the second study, a survey was carried out in the community of an international school in Riga, sided by ethnographic observations and interviews with teachers and the school leadership. Data and analysis: Interviews and ethnographic observations were subjected to a discourse analysis with a focus on critical events and structures of life trajectory narratives. Survey data were processed following simple statistical analysis and qualitative content analysis. Findings/conclusions: Our data reveal that families highly embrace multilingualism and see the development of individual plurilingualism as important for integration into Latvian society as well as for educational and professional opportunities in the multilingual societies of Latvia and Europe. At the same time, multilingualism and multiculturalism, including Russian, are seen as a value in itself. In addition, our studies reflect the bidirectionality of family language policies in interplay with practices ineducational institutions: family decisions influence children’s language acquisition at school, but the school also has an impact on the families’ language practices at home. In sum, we argue that educational policies should therefore pay justice to the wishes of families in Latvia to incorporate different language aspects into individual educational trajectories. Originality: Language policy is a frequent topic of investigation in the Baltic states. However, there has been a lack in research on family language policy and school choices. In this vein, our paper adds to the understanding of educational choices and language policy processes among Russian-speaking families and the international community in Latvia.

“I don’t want her to lose our mother tongue”: A multiple case study of the family language policies of Korean American families

In recent years, Family Language Policy (FLP) researchers have demonstrated the importance and necessity of revealing the language policies of immigrant families to investigate the language learning and maintenance processes of immigrant families and communities. This article contributes to a growing conversation of family language policies by presenting a multiple case study of three Korean American families, which conducted audio and video recorded participant observation and semi-structured interviews of family members. It examined the policies that families develop and employ in order to nurture and maintain their native language in monolingual contexts. Analyses of observations and interviews show that families developed family language policies that are resourceful and effective for language maintenance despite larger social institutions that favored monolingualism. The parents of all families pursued and maintained relationships with other Korean speakers in their extended families and church communities and created a home environment that invited and prioritized their heritage language. The article concludes with implications for immigrant families, communities, and teachers of immigrant-origin children.

‘I don’t want them to be monolingual like Americans’: family language policies of Turkish parents in the United States

ABSTRACT This phenomenological qualitative study explores the experiences of Turkish immigrant parents in the United States as they endeavor to maintain Turkish as a heritage language for their children. The study utilises the family language policy framework to investigate the array of language policies implemented by these parents. The findings uncover the varied approaches adopted by the parents to sustain Turkish as a heritage language. However, they also highlight significant challenges, including English-only policies in educational settings and a lack of sociocultural support for heritage language development. These results provide insights into the intricate dynamics of language maintenance within immigrant families and emphasise the need for targeted interventions and community support to promote the ongoing use and development of heritage languages in the context of immigration.

Family Language Policies of Multilingual Families during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Israel, and Sweden

This study explored the language and literacy practices of multilingual families in Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Israel, and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on the different roles of family members in language transmission in order to understand whether these practices might have been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to answer two key research questions: RQ1, whether and how the pandemic conditions affected the heritage language, societal language acquisition, and heritage language literacy learning environments in the five countries examined (Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Israel, and Sweden); and RQ2, what is the nature of child and parental agency in facilitation of the possible changes in the corresponding five countries? Fifty semi-structured interviews (ten in each country) were conducted. The data highlighted the factors that triggered changes in family language policy during the pandemic and the role of the child’s agency, parents, extended family, and social network during this period. Based on our findings, we argue that the pandemic conditions gave the children new opportunities for agency when it comes to language and literacy choice and communication with extended family members. This even facilitated new sources of input and suggested the active role of a child as an agent in shaping family language policy in the family.

Third Culture Kids in Denmark: exploring code-switching patterns according to interlocutors and topic emotionality

ABSTRACT This mixed-methods study is among the first to explore code-switching (CS) patterns within the broader context of translanguaging in a unique multilingual population, namely Third Culture Kids (TCKs), who are extensively socialised in English through schooling and the expatriate community. Data were collected from 188 TCKs enrolled in the International Baccalaureate Programme at the same international school in Denmark. Participants spoke 60 different languages, with 42 first languages (L1s). English represented the largest language group, with 30% first language (L1) users, and 70% acquired later in life (LX). Results showed that TCKs diverged from previous studies regarding the frequency and direction of CS, reporting a decrease in use as the topic became emotionally charged, with a reverse direction in the switch from L1 to LX (English). Additionally, bivariate analysis and multiple regression models were conducted to explore the role of sociobiographical, language profile, and family language policy (FLP) factors in CS frequency according to interlocutors (family and friends, schoolmates, and strangers) and topic emotionality (non-emotional, emotional). This study not only enhances our understanding of TCKs’ underexplored linguistic abilities, but also contributes to both micro- (TCK’s household) and macro-level (expatriate community and international school) CS studies recognising TCKs as unique multilingual individuals.

Aspirational family language policy

The current article applies interactional sociolinguistic discourse analysis to interviews with three parents of Ukrainian families living in New Zealand to further complexify what we know about Family Language Policy (FLP) and language transmission. More specifically, this article theorizes what we call “Aspirational FLP”—when the desired imagined language identities of family members will require families to adopt an FLP that goes above and beyond what might otherwise be considered practical. In the case of our participants, this involves Ukrainians living in the diaspora who discuss the homeland’s “changing your mother tongue” discourse (from Russian to Ukrainian) and what this means when it involves replacing one heritage language with another when both are minority languages in the hostland. Additionally, we consider the importance of both homeland and hostland sociopolitical contexts, as the interviews reflect dominant discourses from both. Finally, our interview data occurs twice with the same participants (2014 and again in 2021), therein allowing us to investigate the participants’ Aspirational FLPs diachronically, bringing further insight to the dynamism of FLP. Our findings show that participants’ Aspirational FLPs are connected to both homeland and hostland sociopolitical contexts, and as such are dynamic and shifting. Aspirational FLPs also shift differently as individual family members’ investments and imagined future identities also shift. Furthermore, the longitudinal nature of the data sheds light on how and why Aspirational FLPs become reality for some families while they remain aspirational for others. We conclude that both local contexts and wider world contexts are important to consider when investigating FLP, and diachronic research is highly valuable for uncovering factors that contribute to the complexity of FLP, both Aspirational and realized.

Space, family language policy and invisibility of languages

This paper draws upon arguments about spaces as a central idea in order to understand language inequality and invisibility through the framework of family language policy. Tracing the history of sociolinguistic studies, space occupies a pivotal role whose importance has been revealed making contribution to many useful theories. Family language policy is the private sphere within the concept of space, long neglected, but renewed interest over the past 20 years has demonstrated in a sustained manner the tussle over the maintenance of the heritage language in the face of the host language. Language invisibilization within the family domain is not confined to heritage language and its accents but also to other non-reported languages, such as secret language and sacred languages. More in-depth empirical observations with new innovative methodologies are needed to understand the inequality and invisibility of languages at micro-level. The importance of the Family domain as the first place of socialization for children, compels us to seek a better understanding of spatially organized language practices and beliefs which have an impact on the whole upcoming generation.

Korean mothers’ attitudes towards their dual heritage children’s maintenance of heritage languages in New Zealand

AbstractThis study investigates family language policy (FLP) in three dual heritage and interlingual families in New Zealand. It focuses on the language use of three Korean migrant mothers and their attitudes towards their children’s multilingualism and heritage languages (HLs). Each family’s FLP took a “one person, one language” approach, with the mothers consistently using Korean but occasionally switching to English. All three mothers in this case study showed positive attitudes towards their children maintaining their HLs, and used various strategies to encourage their children’s exposure to the HLs. However, each of the mothers conceptualized the positions of the children’s HLs somewhat differently, which influenced language socialization at home. Moreover, despite their strong commitment to bilingual or multilingual parenting, the mothers had low expectations for their children’s HL proficiency, reflecting the minority status of HLs in the wider society.

Family language policy in Chinese d/Deaf-parented families with hearing children: the interplay of multi-dimensional factors

Family language policy in Chinese d/Deaf-parented families with hearing children: the interplay of multi-dimensional factors

A collection of scholarly articles: In the Fields of Applied Linguistics

This collection of articles in applied linguistics is dedicated to Prof. Meilutė Ramonienė‘s anniversary. The book is compiled of papers written by her students, colleagues, and friends from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Switzerland. These texts are from various fields and subfields of applied linguistics, i.e., family language policy, national language policy, linguistic attitudes, motivation to learn a second language, linguadidactics, text linguistics, and linguistic impoliteness. In the preface, a short overview of Prof. M. Ramonienė‘s academic path and her as personality is given, and there is one more non-academic text that presents and highlights her long lasting fruitful contribution to the networking of the Baltic scholars.