ABSTRACT In South Africa there appears to be no published work on language policy in immigrant African families. This thesis, therefore, aims to understand the language policies and language practices of four immigrant families from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) living in South Africa (SA). These four families are presented as case studies and were chosen on the basis of their different ‘family language policies’: English-only, French-only, French-Tshiluba, Multilanguage. The study explores the underlying reasons for the choice of language/s in each family. The main research question is: What are the current language policies and practices of selected DRC immigrant families, and their implications for children’s schooling, for relations within the family and the DRC immigrant community, and for relations outside of these? This research is based on observations and recorded semi-structured interviews with the immigrant parents and children, principals, teachers, and the peers of two children from each family. A theoretical framework based on the work of Bernard Spolsky (2004) is used to understand and analyse the data in relation to: external forces such as power relations within and outside the family, the choice of language for the family, its regulation, and its identity effects. The analysis of data indicated four main findings. First, in all the research families, gender and patriarchy, together with ethnicity and external forces, play a crucial role in the choice of languages for a family’s chosen language policy. Second, the family language policy (FLP) emerges mainly as a consequence of anxiety regarding the marginalisation of immigrant families in their struggle to fit into the host society and to acquire material resources. Third, in three families whose policies restrict which languages may be used, other languages are spoken or heard in addition to the language(s) stated in the policy; only the Multilanguage family has a policy which allows members of the family to communicate in any language within the household. Fourth, this research confirms earlier research (Peirce 1995; Krashen 1982) on the importance of affective factors such as motivation, investment, self-confidence, and optimism, on the one hand, and fear or anxiety on the other, on learning the host society’s languages. In South Africa, ethnic enclosure and xenophobia prevent most immigrant family members (especially the mothers) from learning local African languages and English. Their exclusion (also self-imposed), together with unequal relations of power in South Africa, plays a crucial role in their interactions, thus limiting opportunities for learning local African languages. However, schooling enables immigrant children to integrate into the South African society. Regardless of the FLP, the immigrant children in the research families speak more English than the DRC languages which are showing signs of disappearing in their language repertoires. Based on these findings, my research contributes to a deeper understanding of the experience of immigration and sheds light on foreigner identities. As well, the present study is significant in that it contributes to the emerging scholarship on language policy in immigrant African families, given the dearth of information on language choice and use among immigrants in South Africa. This research also adds to the burgeoning literature on the relationship between language and ethnicity in the diaspora.

This research aims to examine how migrant families living in England establish their family language policy and practice. It is set within a context of increased levels of transnational migration and globalisation (OECD, 2015). The number of migrant families in which parents have different language backgrounds is increasing on a European level (Lanzieri, 2012) and in London one in three families is thought to be multilingual (OECD, 2010). This has implications for research into the role of languages for education of children from migrant families. According to the Department for Education (DfE, 2017) in England, the percentage of pupils who are believed to be exposed to a language other than English at home has been steadily increasing since 2006, and in 2017, 20.6 per cent of primary school pupils and 16.2 per cent of secondary school pupils had English as an additional language. While some research has investigated how children from migrant families succeed at school by measuring their educational outcomes, there are a lack of studies which explore what is happening within migrant families themselves: how and why do some migrant families in the same context practise and maintain their heritage languages, while others do not? (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009, 2016). To examine the ways in which migrant families in England decide on their family language policy and practice, this study adopts a coherent model which integrates two theoretical frameworks, namely Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977b) theory of social practice with its concepts of habitus, field and capital, and Family Language Policy (FLP). The aim of bringing together the two theoretical frameworks is to examine how family language policy and practice is mediated by the families’ subjective experience and the conditions in the objective social context of which they are a part. This study employs ethnographic methods of inquiry including interviews, participant observations and family self-audio recordings to allow for an in-depth exploration of the ways in which five migrant families in England set up their family language policy and practice. The mothers in the families are all Macedonian and the fathers are either English, Italian, Chinese, Scottish or Serbian. Ethnographic interviews were conducted with the parents in five migrant families, their children, grandparents and relatives, the parents’ and the children’ close social network of friends, the children’s mainstream school teachers and members of the Macedonian community in London. The analysis of each family case focuses on the family language policy and practice and the parents’ language ideologies and aspirations that underpin them. The study also analyses the ways in which the national language education policy context in England structures the family language policy and practice. The findings suggest that the family language policy and practice in migrant families is established based on the ways in which the parents mediate their past experiences including their family upbringing, education and employment as migrants in England (habitus) and the cultural, linguistic, social and economic resources they are able or unable to draw on (capital) within the context of national and local language education policies and practices in England (field).

Using transcribed data from six Spanish-English bilingual children (1;8 to 3;3) from the Perez corpus in the CHILDES database, this thesis examines Parental Discourse Strategies (PDS) used to influence child language use in a minority language context (Spanish in the United States). PDS (Lanza, 1992; 1997) are situated within a language socialization framework (Ochs & Schieffelin, 2011) and can be viewed as part of the emerging field of family language policy (King & Fogle, 2013; Schwartz, 2010). This study looked at the overall language use, including the frequency and complexity, of English, Spanish, and mixed utterances by each parent and child in the corpus. The presence and rate of use of the PDS was calculated, as well as their successfulness in encouraging the children to use the minority language, as measured by the language of response to each PDS found. These strategies have been placed on a monolingual to bilingual continuum (Lanza, 1992) based on their expected success in influencing a child to use the language preferred by their parent. Results from a descriptive quantitative analysis of the data at the group and individual levels generally support the Parental Discourse Hypothesis, that is, the claim that certain strategies are more effective than others. Interestingly, it was found that the more successful strategies were used less frequently by the parents, while the less successful ones were more common. This apparent contradiction can be explained by conflicting pressure on parents to promote minority language use while also keeping fluid communication and preserving family harmony. This is discussed and further supported by some qualitative observations of child responses within discourse samples, highlighting children’s role as agents capable of negotiating their own linguistic socialization.

combining approaches to family language policy with a language socialization approach, the present thesis examines family interoctions in five bi/multilingual lronian families in Sweden. The foci of the thesis have emerged from viewing and analyzing video-recordings of the families' everyday interactions, interviews and observations conducted during two phases of fieldwork. The thesis explores family - parents' and children's - language practices and the ways they contribute to the construction, negotiation and instantiation of family language policies. Considering children's active role in family interactions, it explores parents' heritage language maintenance practices and children's responses to these practices. In addition, the thesis examinas siblings' contribution to familial language choices and practices. The thesis documents parental strategies aimed at heritage language maintenance and children's bi/multilingual development. Recurrent interactional practices - through which parents attempted to enforce a monolingual, heritage language, context for parent-child interactions - were explored (Study Il. Through such exchanges the parents positioned themselves as "experts", insisting on the child's compliance, whereas the child's (affectively aggravated) resistance was frequent, and the parents recurrently accommodated the child's language choices by terminating language instruction. Such language maintenance strategies at times resulted in explicit and implicit language negotiations, and the child's growing resistance cantributed to changes in parents' language practices over time (Study Il). Siblings' contribution to shaping the language practices and language environment of immigrant families was explored in Study 111. It shows that siblings corrected each other's language use and choices and provided language instruction (in Swedish, English and heritage languages) when language-related problems occurred. By predominantly using swedish, siblings contributed to language shift. The thesis shows how family members' language practices contribute to heritage language maintenance or language shift and to shaping family language policies. / Denna avhandling använder och kombinerar språksocialisations- och språkpolicy-ansatser och undersöker återkommande samspelssituationer i fem flerspråkiga Iranska familjer i Sverige. Avhandlingens material är videoinspelningar av familjers vardagliga interaktioner, intervjuer och observationer insamlade under två perioder av datainsamling. I fokus för analyserna är familjers språkliga praktiker och hur föräldrar och barn etablerar eller förhandlar om familjers språkpolicy. Särskilt uppmärksammas barns aktiva roll i familjers interaktioner och det dynamiska samspelet mellan föräldrars försök att bevara hemspråket och barnens agerande och förhållningssätt. Vidare studeras syskonens roll i familjernas språkval och språkanvändning. Avhandlingen delstudier beskriver föräldrars strategier för att bevara hemspråken och för att bidra till barns flerspråkighet. Återkommande interaktionella praktiker som föräldrar använde för att upprätthålla en enspråkig hemspråkskontext för förälder-barn interaktioner beskrivs i studie I. Studien visar att barnet ofta gjorde motstånd mot föräldrars insisterande strategier. Motståndet resulterade i olika typer av explicita eller implicita förhandlingar. Barnens växande motstånd bidrog till att föräldrarna ändrade sina språkpraktiker över tid och delvis anpassade sig till barnens språkval (studie llJ. Syskonens bidrag till att utforma familjers språkliga praktiker undersöks i studie 111. Studien visar att syskon korrigerade varandras språkanvändning och språkval och initierade instruktioner på svenska, engelska och hemspråken när olika språkrelaterade problem uppkom. Syskonen använde svenska i stor utsträckning och bidrog på så sätt till språkskifte i familjerna.

Thesis advisor: María Estela Brisk / Linguistic assimilation has been historically regarded as a cornerstone for nationalistic sentiments in the United States. Schools have been utilized as influential filtering sites where non-English languages are marginalized, and then assimilated into the dominant American English ways of languaging (Crawford, 1992; Flores, 2014; Heath, 1976; Nieto, 1999; Wiley & García, 2016). Drawing on theories of language policy (Spolsky, 2004) and governmentality (Foucault, 1991), this dissertation examined the links between family language policies and educational language policies at two public elementary schools in the state of Massachusetts during its final year of enforcing an English-only educational policy (Chapter 71A of Massachusetts General Laws). The participants were four fourth grade children, four parents, and eight school staff at two public elementary schools in two different districts (one urban and one suburban). The families spoke Cape Verdean Creole, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish as their heritage languages. The study was designed as a qualitative multiple case study to conduct a multi-sited analysis of language policy. The data for the case studies were collected through surveys of parents, language logs filled by the children, interviews with the children, the parents, and the school staff, as well as weeklong school observations of each child. The units of analysis were family and school as two main language policy contexts the children regularly navigated. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The findings indicated that although the families and the schools seemed to appreciate bilingualism, they were still strongly influenced by the historical monoglossic ideologies of the society that convinced them to eventually conform to English in the name of ensuring success for the children. These ideologies were communicated between schools and families as “unspoken dialogues” through children who navigated language policies in both contexts. The findings highlight implications for teacher preparation, curriculum development, language policy research on schools and families, and educational language policies that impact children of immigrants. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Recent language policy and planning research reveals how policy-makers endorse the interests of dominant social groups, marginalise minority languages and perpetuate systems of sociolinguistic inequality. In the Castilian-dominated Galician linguistic landscape, this study examines the rise of grassroots level actors or agents (i.e. parents, family members, and other speakers of minority Galician) who play a significant role in interpreting and implementing language policy on the ground. The primary focus of this study is to investigate the impact of top-down language policies inside home domain, it looks at how the individual linguistic practices and ideologies of Galician parents act as visible and/or invisible language planning measures influencing their children’s language learning. However, these individual linguistic ideologies and language management decisions are difficult to detect because they are implicit, subtle, informal, and often hidden from the public eye, and therefore, frequently overlooked by language policy researchers and policy makers. Drawing from multiple ethnographic research methods including observations, in-depth fieldwork interviews, focus group discussions and family language audits with thirty-two Galician parents, this study attempts to ascertain whether these parents can restore intergenerational transmission of Galician and if their grassroots level interrogation of the dominant discourse could lead to bottom-up language policies.

Purpose: The present thesis aims to gain insight into parents’ perceptions of their children’s agentic role while raising them in Greek-bilingual families. The study was conducted within the field of family language policy and family bilingualism. Methods: A small-scale, qualitative study was designed, which included semi-structured interviews with parents of bilingual preschoolers, residing in Patras, Greece. Six participants were interviewed and audio-recorded. Then, the transcriptions were translated into English and finally analysed using thematic analysis. Parents were interviewed regarding their children’s use of languages concerning to the possibility to influence changes in their everyday lives as bilingual families. Results: According to the findings of this study, parents within Greek-bilingual families argue that their children negotiate their own language acquisition and the language use of the adults around them. Specifically, parents think that their children a) influence parents’ confidence in the chosen language policy, b) resist to inconsistent language use, and c) influence the parents’ language use. Conclusions: The present thesis highlights what parents within Greek-bilingual families think about their children’s agentic role regarding influencing changes in the family language policy and the socialization of members of the family. The small-scaled study entails that the results give the readers an insightful account, instead of absolute truth. Results of the study motivate further research on the agentic role of children in Greek families and its implementation on how childhood is experienced.

“Family language policy” (FLP) is the accepted term for the field of study of the explicit planning and practices concerning language within a family unit in a home. Previous research has shown that FLP aids in the bilingual acquisition of a child (DeCapua & Wintergerst 2009; Kayam & Hirsch 2014; King, Fogle, & Logan‐Terry 2008; Li 1999; Oh; Schwartz 2008). However, there has been little research providing answers to whether FLP has a direct influence on language maintenance in adulthood, especially whether they acquire and maintain a native or native-like accent in both languages. The purpose of this study is to determine if any and to what degree FLP influences the bilingual accent acquisition of Spanish/English heritage speakers in the United States. This is a qualitative case study performed through sociolinguistic interviews of three families containing now adult simultaneous bilinguals who learned Spanish and English throughout childhood. After obtaining information of each family’s FLP, each participant (n = 9) was asked to provide a speech sample in both English and Spanish (the heritage language). These samples were then rated by native speakers of English and Spanish respectively. Results suggest that the level of perceived foreign accent of the heritage language may be influenced by certain factors included in an individual FLP, as well as the speaker’s language confidence and individual differences including language aptitude.

No description available.

Based on the accounts by four elder speakers of the Swedish minority language Meänkieli, given in October 2020, this study investigates the attitudes and sentiments among elder speakers of Meänkieli towards the languages they speak. The participants have migrated as young adults from the Torne Valley, where Meänkieli is traditionally spoken, to places in Sweden where their language use has been restricted by the lack of Meänkieli domains. The testimonies have been collected via semi-structured interviews and analysed through thematic analysis, taking perspectives from theories on language ideology, linguistic identity and linguistic biography, revealing how the participants' linguistic personas and repertoires have taken form throughout their lives, alongside their life experiences.  The results show that the participants highly value their multilingualism, and that their language use is a deliberate as well as subconscious tool for expression and affirmation of identity and belonging. It is also shown that the languages often are associated with discrete chronological and geographical parts of the participants' lives. Furthermore, have the participants not passed Meänkieli on to their children, due to the lack of parental strategies and learner motivation, showcasing the importance of linguistic context and child agency in language acquisition. Future research would benefit from inclusion of a wider spectrum of social class, and from testimonies of the children of migrated Meänkieli speakers to complement the parental perspective, in order to further investigate the factors behind language shift outside of a minority language's domains. / Baserat på berättelserna från fyra äldre talare av det svenska minoritetsspråket meänkieli, givna i intervjuer i oktober 2020, undersöker denna studie äldre meänkieli-talares attityder och känslor gentemot de språk de talar. Som unga vuxna har studiens deltagare flyttat från Tornedalen, där meänkieli traditionellt talas, till platser i Sverige där användandet av meänkieli begränsats av förlusten av språkdomäner. Berättelserna är inhämtade genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer, och är analyserade med hjälp av tematisk analys med perspektiv hämtade från språkideologier, språklig identitet och språklig biografi, för att påvisa hur deltagarnas språkliga personor och repertoarer har formats under deras liv och genom deras upplevelser. Resultaten visar att deltagarna sätter stort värde på sin flerspråkighet, och att de både medvetet och undermedvetet använder språken för att uttrycka och befästa språklig identitet och tillhörighet. Vidare visas hur språken ofta associeras med väldefinierade kronologiska och geografiska delar av deltagarnas liv. Deltagarna har inte fört meänkieli vidare till sina barn med anledning av brist på strategier från föräldrarna och barnens motivation att lära, vilket belyser relevansen av den språkliga omgivningen och barnets delaktighet i språkinlärningen. För att ytterligare förstå drivkrafterna bakom språkskiften utanför ett minoritetsspråks domäner skulle framtida undersökningar gynnas av att ett bredare spektrum av sociala klasser inkluderas, och av att barn till utflyttade meänkielitalare får komplettera sina föräldrars perspektiv med sina egna skildringar.