Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T09:02:18.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Establishing and Maintaining a Multilingual Family Language Policy

from Part Three - Family Language Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2022

By
Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen  and
Baoqi Sun
Edited by
Anat Stavans  and
Ulrike Jessner
Anat Stavans
Affiliation:
Beit Berl College, Israel
Ulrike Jessner
Affiliation:
Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Austria
Get access

Summary

As an increasingly established research field, family language policy (FLP) provides a very useful lens to view how bi/multilingual home language-use patterns are influenced by socio-political ideologies and economic factors at the macro level and by family members’ language ideology at the micro level. This chapter starts with an introduction to FLP and outlines the development phases of the field. It then provides a discussion of the major research contributions to the field. Following that, it provides a synthesis of the extant research on how FLP is established and maintained in a range of countries and contexts, particularly in multilingual families. The synthesis focuses on internal factors, such as emotion, identity and cultural practices, and child agency in the negotiation of a family language policy. Lastly, insights gleaned from the more diverse range of social contexts are taken into consideration when making implications for parents, educators, and policy makers and a call for future research.

Keywords

family language policylanguage socialisationlanguage ideologyheritage languagelanguage maintenance
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Childhood Multilingualism , pp. 257 - 277
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bezcioglu-Goktolga, I., & Yagmur, K. (2018). Home language policy of second-generation Turkish families in the Netherlands. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 39(1), 44–59.Google Scholar
Caldas, S. (2006). Raising Bilingual-Biliterate Children in Monolingual Cultures. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canagarajah, A. S. (2008). Language shift and the family: Questions from the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora 1. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(2), 143–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chevalier, S. (2012). Active trilingualism in early childhood: The motivating role of caregivers in interaction. International Journal of Multilingualism, 9(4), 437–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2009). Visible and invisible language planning: Ideological factors in the family language policy of Chinese immigrant families in Quebec. Language Policy, 8(4), 351–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2013a). Family language policy: Sociopolitical reality versus linguistic continuity. Language Policy, 13(1), 1–7.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2013b). Negotiating family language policy: Doing homework. In Schwartz, M. & Verschik, A., eds., Successful Family Language Policy: Parents, Children and Educators in Interaction. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 277–95.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2014). Family language policy: Is learning Chinese at odds with learning English in Singapore. In Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. & Hancock, A., eds., Learning Chinese in Diasporic Communities: Many Pathways to Being Chinese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 35–58.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2016). Conflicting language ideologies and contradictory language practices in Singaporean bilingual families. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(7), 694–709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2018). Family language policy. In Tollefson, J. & Perez-Milans, M., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 420–41.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L., & Huang, J. (2019). Factors influencing family language policy. In Shalley, A. & Eisenchlas, S., eds., Handbook of Social and Affective Factors in Home Language Maintenance and Development. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 174–93.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L., & LaMorgia, F. (2018). Managing heritage language development: Opportunities and challenges for Chinese, Italian and Urdu speaking families in the UK. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 37(2), 177–210.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L., & Lanza, E. (2018). Multilingual family language management: Efforts, measures and choices. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 37(2), 172–76.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L., & Wang, W. (2018). Parents as agents of multilingual education: Family language planning in China. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 31(3), 235–54.Google Scholar
Danjo, C. (2018). Making sense of family language policy: Japanese-English bilingual children’s creative and strategic translingual practices. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24(2), 292–304.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A. (1990). The Acquisition of Two Languages from Birth: A Case Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Houwer, A. (1999). Environmental factors in early bilingual development: The role of parental beliefs and attitudes. In Extra, G. & Verhoeven, L., eds., Bilingualism and Migration. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 75–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2007). Parental language input patterns and children’s bilingual use. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(3), 411–24.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2009). Bilingual First Language Acquisition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2017). Bilingual language acquisition. In Fletcher, P. & MacWhinney, B., eds., The Handbook of Child Language. Malden: Blackwell, 219–50.Google Scholar
Dekeyser, G., & Stevens, G. (2019). Maintaining one language while learning another: Moroccan children in Belgium. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 40(2), 148–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eversteijn-Kluijtmans, N. I. M. (2011). ‘All at Once’: Language Choice and Codeswitching by Turkish-Dutch Teenagers. Doctoral dissertation, Tilburg University.Google Scholar
Flowerdew, J., & Miller, L. (2008). Social structure and individual agency in second language learning: Evidence from three life histories. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 5(4), 201–24.Google Scholar
Fogle, L. W. (2012). Second Language Socialization and Learner Agency: Adoptive Family Talk. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Fogle, L. W., & King, K. A. (2013). Child agency and language policy in transnational families. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 19, 1–25.Google Scholar
Fogle, L. W., & King, K. A. (2017). Bi-and multilingual family language socialization. In Duff, P. A. & May, S., eds., Language Socialization. Cham: Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02327-4_7-1.Google Scholar
Gafaranga, J. (2010). Medium request: Talking language shift into being. Language in Society, 39(2), 241–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Garrett, P. B. (2011). Language socialisation and language shift. In Duranti, A., Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B., eds., The Handbook of Language Socialization. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 515–35.Google Scholar
Garrett, P. B., & Baquedano-López, P. (2002). Language socialization: Reproduction and continuity, transformation and change. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31(1), 339–61.Google Scholar
Guo, Z. (2014). Young Children as Intercultural Mediators. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Gyogi, E. (2015). Children’s agency in language choice: A case study of two Japanese-English bilingual children in London. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(6), 749–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hines, J. M. (2017). An overview of head start program studies. Journal of Instructional Pedagogies, 18, 1–10.Google Scholar
Hirsch, T., & Lee, J. S. (2018). Understanding the complexities of transnational family language policy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 39(10), 882–94.Google Scholar
Hornberger, N. H., & Johnson, D. C. (2007). Slicing the onion ethnographically: Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly, 41(3), 509–32.Google Scholar
Kang, H. (2015). Korean families in America: Their family language policies and home language maintenance. Bilingual Research Journal, 38, 275–91.Google Scholar
Kheirkhah, M., & Cekaite, A. (2015). Language maintenance in a multilingual family: Informal heritage language lessons in parent–child interactions. Multilingua, 34(3), 319–46.Google Scholar
King, K. A. (2013). A tale of three sisters: Language learning and linguistic identity in a transnational family. International Multilingual Research Journal, 7, 49–65.Google Scholar
King, K. A. (2016). Language policy, multilingual encounters, and transnational families. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(7), 726–33.Google Scholar
King, K. A., Fogle, L., & Logan-Terry, A. (2008). Family language policy. Language and Linguistics Compass, 2(5), 907–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, K. A., & Lanza, E. (2019). Ideology, agency, and imagination in multilingual families: An introduction. International Journal of Bilingualism, 23(3), 717–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuczynski, L., ed. (2002). Handbook of Dynamics in Parent–Child Relations. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Lane, P. (2010). ‘We did what we thought was best for our children’: A nexus analysis of language shift in a Kven community. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 202, 63–78.Google Scholar
Lanza, E. (1997/2004). Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lanza, E. (2007). Multilingualism in the family. In Auer, P. & Wei, Li, eds., Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 45–67.Google Scholar
Lanza, E., & Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2018). Multilingual families: Aspirations and challenges. International Journal of Multilingualism, 15, 231–32.Google Scholar
Lanza, E., & Li, W., eds. (2016). Multilingual encounters in transcultural families. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37, 653–54.Google Scholar
Leopold, W. F. (1939–49). Speech Development of a Bilingual Child (Vols. I–IV). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Little, S. 2017. Whose heritage? What inheritance? Conceptualising family language identities. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(2), 1–15.Google Scholar
Luykx, A. (2003). Weaving languages together: Family language policy and gender socialization in bilingual Aymara households. In Bayley, R. & Schecter, S., eds., Language Socialization in Bilingual and Multilingual Societies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 10–25.Google Scholar
Luykx, A. (2005). Children as socializing agents: Family language policy in situations of language shift. In ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism. Somerville: Cascadilla Press, pp. 1407–14.Google Scholar
Meyer Pitton, L. (2013). From language maintenance to bilingual parenting: Negotiating behaviour and language choice at the dinner table in binational-bilingual families. Multilingua, 32(4), 507–26.Google Scholar
Morales, A., & Hanson, W. E. (2005). Language brokering: An integrative review of the literature. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 27(4), 471–503.Google Scholar
Mu, G. M., & Dooley, K. (2015). Coming into an inheritance: Family support and Chinese heritage language learning. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(4), 501–15.Google Scholar
Ó hlfearnáin, T. (2013). Family language policy, first language Irish speaker attitudes and community-based response to language shift. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 34(4), 348–65.Google Scholar
Orellana, M. F. (2009). Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language, and Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Parade, M. (2013). Sibling variation and family language policy: The role of birth order in the Spanish proficiency and first names of second-generation Latinos. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 12(3), 299–320.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2004). ‘Stop doing that, La Komu Skazala’: Language choice and emotions in parent–child communication. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25(2–3), 179–203.Google Scholar
Piller, I. 2002. Passing for a native speaker: Identity and success in second language learning. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6(2), 179–206.Google Scholar
Revis, M. (2019). A Bourdieusian perspective on child agency in family language policy. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 22(2), 177–91.Google Scholar
Ronjat, J. (1913). Le Développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue. Paris: Champion.Google Scholar
Said, F., & Zhu, H. (2019). ‘No, no Maama! Say “Shaatir ya Ouledee Shaatir!”’ Children’s agency in language use and socialisation. International Journal of Bilingualism, 23(3), 771–85.Google Scholar
Schwartz, M. (2008). Exploring the relationship between family language policy and heritage language knowledge among second generation Russian–Jewish immigrants in Israel. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 29(5), 400–18.Google Scholar
Schüpbach, D. (2009). Language transmission revisited: Family type, linguistic environment and language attitudes. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 12(1), 15–30.Google Scholar
Shohamy, E. (2006). Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith-Christmas, C. (2014). Being socialised into language shift: The impact of extended family members on family language policy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 35(5), 511–26.Google Scholar
Smith-Christmas, C. (2016). Family Language Policy: Maintaining an Endangered Language in the Home. London: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Smith-Christmas, C. (2018). ‘One Cas, Two Cas’: Exploring the affective dimensions of family language policy. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 37(2), 211–30.Google Scholar
Spolsky, B. (2004). Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Spolsky, B. (2009). Language Management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spolsky, B. (2012). Family language policy: The critical domain. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(1), 3–11.Google Scholar
Stavans, A. (2012). Language policy and literary practices in the family: The case of Ethiopian parental narrative input. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(1), 13–33.Google Scholar
Stavans, A. (2015). Enabling bi-literacy patterns in Ethiopian immigrant families in Israel: A socio-educational challenge. International Journal of Multilingualism, 12(2), 178–95.Google Scholar
Surrain, S. (2018). ‘Spanish at home, English at school’: How perceptions of bilingualism shape family language policies among Spanish-speaking parents of preschoolers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24(8), 1163–77.Google Scholar
Tannen, D. (2006). Language and culture. In Fasold, R. & Connor-Linton, J., eds., An Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 343–72.Google Scholar
Tuominen, A. (1999). Who decides the home language? A look at multilingual families. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 140(1), 59–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valdés, G. (2002). Expanding Definitions of Giftedness: The Case of Young Interpreters from Immigrant Families. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Van Mensel, L. (2016). Children and choices: The effect of macro language policy on the individual agency of transnational parents in Brussels. Language Policy, 15(4), 547–60.Google Scholar
Van Mensel, L. (2018). ‘Quiere koffie?’ The multilingual familylect of transcultural families. International Journal of Multilingualism, 15(3), 233–48.Google Scholar
Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30, 1024–54.Google Scholar
Wang, W., & Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2019). 方言代际传承中的父母媒介转译行为. Parents as Medium Translators in Intergenerational Transmission. 语言战略研究. Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning, 20, 12–22.Google Scholar
Yamamoto, M. 2001. Language Use in Interlingual Families: A Japanese–English Sociolinguistic Study. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Zhu, H. (2008). Duelling languages, duelling values: Codeswitching in bilingual intergenerational conflict talk in diasporic families. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(10), 1799–816.Google Scholar
Zhu, H., & Li, W. (2016). Transnational experience, aspiration and family language policy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(7), 655–66.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×