Language Management Strategies Research Articles

Language Management in Transnational Multilingual Families: Generation 1.5 Parents in Finland

In today’s globalized world, more children are born to parents who speak two or more languages between them. These families manage complex language dynamics, with diverse language practices influencing communication among family members. The complexity intensifies when multilingual and multicultural parents move with their children to a country with a new majority language, while keeping connections to their original society. In such cases, balancing heritage and host country languages affects both cultural preservation and integration into a new society. Based on semi-structured interviews with seven Generation 1.5 Russian–Hebrew bilingual parents living in Finland, this paper explores their strategies for managing their children’s multilingual development. The study poses two key questions: What are the language management strategies reported by the parents? What are the major challenges these parents face in maintaining heritage Russian and Hebrew languages in Finland? Thematic data analysis using ATLAS.ti software highlights the parents’ persistent commitment to maintaining multilingualism within their families, focusing on preserving existing social connections and fostering new ones for the entire family. The findings reveal key aspects of parental language management, parental involvement and home environments, along with reported challenges, both personal and institutional, in maintaining Hebrew and Russian as heritage languages in Finland. This study offers a new perspective on language management strategies in multilingual families, handling a less-explored language combination. By analyzing individual language management approaches, this study reveals common strategies used to support multilingualism and balance heritage languages with those of a new environment, thereby contributing to discussions on linguistic diversity and multicultural integration in transnational settings.

‘We are always planning trips to Poland’: the influence of transnational family life on the family language policy of Polish-speaking families in Ireland

ABSTRACT In the context of heightened global transnational movements and the proximate geographical positioning of Poland and Ireland, this study investigates the impact of the transnational nature of Polish families’ migration experiences in The Republic of Ireland on their family language policy. This research endeavours to address a gap in the literature surrounding the influence of transnationalism on family language policy within Polish-speaking migrant families in Ireland. Grounded in Curdt-Christiansen's [Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. 2018. “Family Language Policy.” In Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning, edited by J. W. Tollefson and M. Pérez-Milans. New York: Oxford University Press.] interdisciplinary model of family language policy, this investigation draws on an ethnographic inquiry into three Polish-speaking families in Ireland. The study focuses on families with first- and second-generation migrant children. Data were gathered through a combination of semi-structured interviews and children's reflective language diaries. The results depict the transnational nature of family life, with recurrent travel between Ireland and Poland evident across all three families. To sustain connections with Poland, parents implemented specific language management strategies. The study underscored the participants’ recognition of the interdependence between the use of the Polish language and the continuation of connections with Poland, as well as the capacity to uphold family life across Ireland and Poland.

Preserving Heritage Language in Turkish Families in the USA

A dearth of research concerning Turkish immigrant families in the United States exists, prompting this study’s focus. This research aims to illuminate the influence of parental language attitudes among Turkish immigrants on their motivation to foster the preservation of their heritage language (HL) in their children, alongside an exploration of the strategies employed for HL retention. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 parents (16 mothers and 4 fathers), with each interview spanning 15–20 min. The interviews, conducted individually by the primary author in Turkish and later translated into English, unveiled a spectrum of parental language attitudes, impacting their motivation to uphold HL. Variances in motivation were observed, intertwined with factors such as home and community environments, parental acculturation experiences, perceptions regarding the relationship between culture and language, and the perceived advantages of bilingualism for children’s cognitive development and future prospects. Despite differing motivations, all parents expressed a desire to preserve HL, prompting the deployment of diverse Heritage Language Management Strategies (HLMS). This study significantly contributes to the understanding of how parental attitudes shape HL preservation efforts within families, offering insights crucial to the field of HL and family language policy, thereby highlighting implications for practice and further research.

ENGLISH-CONFLICTING FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LANGUAGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

The English language is considered the global business language and a mutual language to provide communication and understanding in business. Learning foreign languages and implementing language management strategies enable cross-cultural communication, business growth and career enhancement. Drawing on this theory of business communication, this study explores the effects of language proficiency in business operations of Kosovan small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which intend to become integrated globally, by using mixed methods and the interpretation of business managers (Sample 1, N = 5), two pilot tests (Sample 2, N = 7 and N = 29) and an online questionnaire (Sample 3, N = 139). The role of English in business communication was interrelated with an analysis of other foreign languages, along with the implementation of language strategies and the effect of language skills on career development. This squares well with the proposition that these three aspects are consistent in their contribution to effective communication in business and convey richness on both an individual and a company level. The findings offer a new perspective on the effects of using foreign languages in business communication, which consequently contributes to internationalization, multilingualism and cross-cultural communication.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0011/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Family language policy in an endangered heritage language context: Gagauz mothers’ perspectives

ABSTRACT This paper investigates family language policy reported by Gagauz migrant mothers using a qualitative approach. The Gagauz language, the native language of the participants, is one of the languages which is at risk. Data were collected from 14 Gagauz mothers who were living in Turkey. Semi-structured interviews were held with the participants to examine family language practices, beliefs and management strategies. Although language beliefs about family language policy differ from each other, generally Gagauz mothers expect their children to speak Russian due to its status as a lingua franca in trade, education and employment in the post-Soviet context. Moreover, it was found that the Gagauz mothers employed a wide range of family language practices. Majority of participants reported that they spoke mainly Russian whereas others stated that they preferred Turkish at home. As for language management strategies, the lack of educational and audiovisual materials in the Gagauz language affected the Gagauz mothers’ family language management strategies in a negative way. Additionally, the Gagauz language has a symbolic function which is considered a part of Gagauz identity. The findings also revealed insights about Gagauz language maintenance and a shift in heritage context.

Language Management Strategies and Slovenian SMEs: An Update on Recent Developments

In line with numerous studies, export success of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could be considerably improved were companies aware of the importance of foreign language skills among their employees. In other words, many business opportunities are lost within the European Union because of the lack of language skills. Many authors report that adopting a language management strategy is linked to a significant increase in companies' export sales. The ELAN (Effects on the European Economy of Shortages of Foreign Language Skills in Enterprise) findings should also be considered because of the relatively high importance of SMEs in providing employment. This article investigates, by means of a questionnaire sent to 1499 Slovenian exporting SMEs from various industries, how aware these companies are of the ELAN findings, and which language strategies they have implemented in their business operations. The findings of our 2021 study revealed that Slovenian exporting SMEs are slowly becoming more aware of the benefits of language management strategies, but that some improvements are nevertheless still possible.

The Interrelationship of Family Language Policies, Emotions, Socialisation Practices and Language Management Strategies

Multilingual families in immigrant/minority language contact settings face various challenges that are related to their affective and emotional domains, as well as to their well-being. This study investigated the interrelationship of the family language policies (FLPs), emotions, socialisation practices and language management strategies of immigrant Russian and mixed-marriage families in Cyprus. The participants were eighty multilingual families from low-middle-high socio-economic backgrounds, including two- and one-parent families who resided in rural or in urban areas. Forty were mixed-marriage (Russian wife and Greek Cypriot husband) families and 40 were Russian-speaking (both spouses Russian) immigrant families who resided in Cyprus. Data sources included a questionnaire about the families’ general backgrounds, the parents’ socio-economic status, their linguistic behaviour and their children’s language proficiency, and semi-structured interviews with the mothers focused on their FLP, home language development and socio-emotional well-being. An analysis of the diverse family types revealed both differences and similarities amongst Russian speakers in Cyprus and their FLPs. Russian speakers incorporated a wide range of language repertoires in their everyday lives. Multilingualism and the maintenance of the Russian language and culture were usually encouraged, as was the development of the children’s Russian-language literacy, and the parents often used the one-parent-one-language (OPOL) approach at home. In many cases, FLPs were characterised by translanguaging to enhance dynamic multilingualism and emotional well-being at home. However, not all of the efforts resulted in successful language transmission, which may have been due to individual and/or societal differences and family configurations.

Family language planning strategies among Australian families of Arabic-speaking background

ABSTRACT This paper explores the language planning strategies employed by Australian transnational families of Arabic-speaking backgrounds to develop their children’s bilingualism in English and Arabic. The paper concludes that the families’ transnationalism and strong links with their countries of origin played a significant role in their language planning decisions. The study revealed that the mothers consciously developed their children’s bilingualism by means of both planned and spontaneous language management strategies. Semi-structured interviews and a focus group discussion revealed that the mothers used five main strategies, which comprised using the minority language at home, language mixing, reading stories, taking advantage of television shows and travelling to their hometowns. This paper discusses the validity and success of each strategy by comparing them with research findings on other transnational and migrant families around the world.

Countering linguistic violence by place-making in the public space

Abstract Much is discussed in the literature about the Arabization of Algeria’s public space since its independence from France in 1962. This privileging of the contest between Arabic and French eclipses the stake claimed by speakers of Tamazight, the Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the majority in the historic province of Kabylia, to the east of the capital Algiers. Taking the wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou, in the heart of Kabylia, as the focus for this article, we adopt a performative approach to exploring the making of place, and in particular a Tamazightophone space, by triangulating traditional Linguistic Landscape data, interviews with residents, and 200 years of competing language management strategies. In response to the linguistic violence perpetrated by French colonial powers and aggressive Arabisation policies, we investigate how the discourses of place, particularly Amazigh cultural and linguistic identity, challenge the double erasure of Tamazight.

Talking the talk: Considering forced language-switching in the workplace

In the modern global workplace, bilingual employees who speak a language in addition to the primary workplace language sometimes must switch between languages to bridge workplace language boundaries. This forced switching between languages often occurs without the bilingual employee getting credit, recognition, or training to do so. There is growing interest in language issues in business scholarship, however, prior work generally focused on language management strategies or singular foreign language use. The experiences of workers who must engage in multi-language use, particularly those forced to switch between languages, and implications for employers remain largely unexplored. Cognitive and emotional outcomes associated with the activity of switching between languages, both forced and voluntary, have been researched in fields such as experimental psychology, cognitive science, and applied linguistics. In the current paper, we integrate and apply this existing research in the context of the multilingual workplace. We present a novel, comprehensive theoretical model incorporating current findings from multiple fields and framing it within the theoretical foundation of Social Cognitive Theory. Finally, we discuss the implications of interdisciplinary findings regarding forced language-switching for the fields of human resources management and organizational behavior and suggest directions for future research.

Individual language management and language strategies of Hungarian students in Bratislava

Abstract The paper focuses on the individual language management of Hungarian minority students from Southern Slovakia who migrated to study at university in the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava. It presents language strategies of five students, based on their language biographies. Each student was interviewed three times during their first three years of study. The language problems of these students include maintaining their mother tongue and improving their skills in Slovak as well as balancing between the two languages in various spheres of life. Factors affecting the language use of the students are family, institutions, peer group and overcoming fear. The students deal with their everyday multilingualism according to several models, which can be described on the axis between Hungarian only to Slovak only, but the students mostly find themselves somewhere in between the two, depending on various spheres (family, university, jobs, peers).

Parents’ Perceptions and Management of Children’s Learning of Chinese as a Heritage Language: A Case Study of Cross-cultural Families in Australia

Parents play an important role in children’s learning of their heritage language (HL) in immigrant countries. Fostering HL learning is a hard task for parents, particularly in immigrant families, and this difficulty is exacerbated in cross-cultural families. The existing studies have not fully addressed the importance of consistent parental perceptions and language management in children’s HL learning. This gap is particularly clear in the research concerning learning Chinese as an HL among cross-cultural families’ children living in English-speaking immigrant countries such as Australia. The present qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to fill this gap by examining the perceptions and language management strategies of three cross-cultural families in Australia whose children are learning Chinese as one parent’s HL. The results suggest that, in English countries, Chinese-background and non-Chinese-background parents in cross-cultural families have quite different opinions about their children learning Chinese, which are reflected in their dissimilar language management strategies. The results highlight the importance and challenges of developing a stable family language policy in cross-cultural families in order to maintain their children’s HL learning.

Languages Connect and the languages of the new Irish

Ireland’s linguistic profile has been further enriched by the arrival of the New Irish. It is incumbent upon the higher education sector to harness and support this linguistic diversity to aid the social, cultural and economic development of Ireland and all its people. Therefore, consideration should be given to new degree programmes and to the inclusion of Language Management Strategies in existing programmes.

‘Only Tonga spoken here!’: Family language management among the Tonga in Zimbabwe

This article analyses language management strategies that are employed by Tonga parents towards the conservation of the Tonga language. Since Zimbabwe gained independence, Tonga, alongside a host of other previously designated minority languages has endured marginalisation in terms of use in public and official spaces, leading to language shift. In the presence of dominant endoglossic languages, Shona and Ndebele, within Tonga communities, Tonga speakers have found it difficult to maintain their language. In the context of family and societal bilingualism, parents, as the custodians of the home language are better placed to manage language use, for example, by encouraging and rewarding preferred language practices and sanctioning or punishing undesirable use. This study sought to understand some of the language management strategies that parents employ to promote the use of Tonga language at home. Deploying insights afforded by the language management approach, the reversing language shift theory and family language policy, the study reveals that Tonga parents have high impact beliefs regarding their potential to control their children’s linguistic behaviour in the home. These impact beliefs tend to inform parental language management strategies.

Impediments in promoting the functional status of African languages in higher education

This paper seeks to provide an analysis of obstacles that hinder progress in promoting the functional status of African languages in the South African higher education sector. African languages suffer marginalisation despite the existence of various empowering and restorative legislative provisions and policies. In this study, we argue that African languages have a central role in driving the transformation agenda in the South African higher education sector. In particular, marginalising African languages has disastrous implications for the achievement of social justice and cohesion, and the access to and success of indigenous African language-speaking students. A language management approach was adopted as a foregrounding theory for this paper. A language planning and policy framework was also employed as a complementary theory. The study is based on data collected through semi-structured interviews with academics in the college of humanities at a university in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The study revealed a number of challenges, ranging from negative linguistic ideologies, orthography, weak bilingualism, among other factors. In rising to these pertinent challenges, higher education institutions need therefore to consider language management strategies designed to address language problems, particularly in multilingual contexts.

Language policy evaluation in business settings

Globalisation and internationalisation are important considerations for companies. If they want to increase their export, recruit foreign employees or start a foreign subsidiary, they will need to think about a suitable language policy to establish an effective and efficient communication with and between their employees. In this article, we discuss recent research related to language policy in multinational companies. First, we list several language management strategies used in companies based on the research of Harzing, Koster and Magner (2011). We illustrate this list with recent case studies, which articulate a range of problems and situations that companies are confronted with. In the following section, we discuss the need for an evaluation of language policies within a business setting. We focus on the analytical framework of Francois Grin and Michele Gazzola, who have written several articles and books about this need. We connect these ideas to recent case studies in a business setting. We conclude our article with the suggestion that there is a research gap concerning the evaluation of language policies, especially in the context of multinationals.

Nahuatl in Coatepec: Ideologies, practices and management for linguistic and cultural continuance

Although more than a million people still speak Nahuatl, this number is rapidly diminishing. Historically, Nahuatl was the dominant language of Coatepec de los Costales, a small village in Guerrero, Mexico. The last 50 years have seen a pronounced shift there from Nahuatl to Spanish. The ultimate cause of language shift is a disruption in intergenerational language transmission as a result of often violent colonial encounters. Using a conceptual framework that combines (1) the primacy of Indigenous knowledge systems, (2) a critical sociocultural approach to language acquisition, (3) Bernard Spolsky’s definition of language policy as language practices, ideologies and management, and (4) the ethnography of language policy, this article explores, from a critical Indigenous perspective, the local dynamics and global influences that contribute to the endangerment of Nahuatl. More specifically, it examines the mechanisms through which language ideologies, family–community language management strategies and everyday language practices operate among people of different generations, thereby revealing socialisation practices and Indigenous systems of community-based learning. This work may assist other Indigenous communities in better understanding the multiple mechanisms at play in language loss and reclamation – spanning educational to environmental contexts.

Language Management Strategies in Austrian and Slovenian SMEs

According to the ELAN study and a substantial body of previous research, a significant amount of business is being lost in the eu due to a lack of language skills. In our article, we analyse how Austrian and Slovenian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMES) adopt language management strategies (LMSS). We investigate, by means of a questionnaire sent to Slovenian and Austrian SMES, how aware they are of the elan findings, what language strategies they have adopted and whether the knowledge of English is sufficient for their successful business operations on global markets. The findings show that Slovenian exporting SMES are not completely aware of the benefits a language management strategy could bring to their business operations on foreign markets. In contrast, Austrian exporting SMES are more likely to provide language training for their staff, employ native speakers, and use local agents for their language needs considerably more often, as well as use the services of professional translators and interpreters almost three times more often.

LANGUAGE SKILLS NEEDS IN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

In the article, results and findings of a survey aimed at identifying language skills needs of Slovak small, medium-sized and large enterprises operating mainly in agriculture and food processing industry are presented. An online questionnaire was constructed to collect data. 14 out of 50 selected companies responded. Our findings revealed the fact that the Slovak enterprises use mainly English and German when communicating with their headquarters, suppliers and customers. The respondents also require their employees to have the following special language skills: communicating on the telephone, conducting business negotiations and writing business letters in a foreign language. As for language management strategies, the enterprises organize language training courses for their employees within their premises or the employees have to attend language courses outside the premises. The results of the survey conducted in Slovakia and the EU surveys were compared. Based on the results, we suggest stronger cooperation between the SMEs and universities in Slovakia in production of graduates better equipped with the language skills required by the business environment.

‘it’s not written on parchment but it’s the way to survive’: Official and unofficial use of languages in MNCs

Abstract The globalization of economic activity and the escalating economic crisis impact on the expansion and shrinking of businesses along with their management of human resources and language management strategies. Struggling to remain competitive and survive, businesses resort to a range of language policies when employees make their own everyday language choices, a divergence that is worth investigating. Against this backdrop, this paper takes a mixed method approach and reports on the official and unofficial uses of English as a lingua franca and Greek as the local language in multinational corporations in Greece. According to the analysis, language choice is negotiated locally and strategically to the fallout of the economic crisis according to the employees’ post duties, the complexity of issues communicated, socialization with other employees, acting as unofficial default communication channels and safeguarding the privacy of email communication. Implications are discussed in relation to the teaching of foreign languages to meet the multivariate demands of workplace communication.