A Case Study of Family Language Policy (FLP) in Diasporic Chinese Families in the Paris Region

Author(s):  
Xialing SHEN

Minority language maintenance and childhood bilingualism have attracted attention and generated a significant number of publications over several decades. As an emerging and increasingly critical domain which provides a microscopic view of daily interactions, family language policy (FLP) is still a relatively new field of study in Sociolinguistics in France. Very little research, in which field studies are included, has been carried out since 2000. This short article attempts to analyse first-hand data collected in 2019 from ten Chinese families living in the Île-de-France region. A mixed approach, including quantitative, qualitative and sociolinguistic ethnography, was adopted. Four of the ten families were selected for study in greater detail. Surveys, interviews, recordings and onsite observations are the main methods used to collect data for this paper. This FLP case study tries to gain an insight on how Sinitic languages are maintained and handed down in the Parisian Chinese diaspora; the results of this study are also compared to FLP studies carried out in other Chinese diasporas.

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 126-142
Author(s):  
Frederik H. Bissinger

Lithuanian language discourses and family language policies of Lithuanian families in Sweden: A case studyThis case study shares first insights of the family language policy of a Lithuanian family in Sweden. It identifies Lithuanian language discourses that might affect this policy and analyses discourse strategies applied by the family members. The aim is to shed some new light on the negotiation processes of family language policies that either support the maintenance of an ethnic language as the means of intra-family communication in immigrant contexts or, conversely, work against it. Applying a linguistic ethnographical approach, the study indicates that in this case the family language policy is mostly shaped by the mother in a protective and monolingual way in order to foster the maintenance of the Lithuanian heritage in anticipation of an external threat for Lithuanian language and identity. Litewskie dyskursy językowe a polityki językowe litewskich rodzin w Szwecji. Studium przypadkuNiniejszy artykuł przedstawia wstępne uwagi analityczne dotyczące polityki językowej litewskiej rodziny mieszkającej w Szwecji. Autor identyfikuje litewskie dyskursy językowe, które mogą mieć wpływ na jej politykę językową, i analizuje strategie dyskursu stosowane przez jej członków. Celem studium jest nowe spojrzenie na procesy negocjacji rodzinnych polityk językowych (family language policies), które mogą być pomocne w utrzymaniu ojczystego języka jako środka komunikacji w rodzinach emigrantów lub temu nie sprzyjać. Przedstawione badania opierają się na metodach etnografii lingwistycznej (linguistic ethnography) i wykazują, że w tym przypadku rodzinna polityka językowa jest kształtowana głównie przez matkę, jest jednojęzyczna i ma charakter ochronny – jest nakierowana na zachowanie litewskiego dziedzictwa kulturowego w związku z przewidywanymi zagrożeniami zewnętrznymi dla języka litewskiego i tożsamości litewskiej.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 295
Author(s):  
Rani Septi Sapriati ◽  
Soni Mirizon ◽  
Sary Silvhiany

A family has a role in supporting bilingual or multilingual children. In acquiring English for instance, family language policy is likely to shape the development of children bilingualism or multilingualism. Through a qualitative study in a case study design, the language ideologies of two bi-/multilingual families in Palembang were investigated and explored. The participants of this study were the Zahra and the Najwa families who brought up their children in more than one language including English. The data were collected through ethnographic interviews with the parents, grandmother, and children. Thematic analysis was used in analyzing the data of this study. The raw data were coded and classified into categories to derive big major themes regarding ideological factors that shaped language policy. The derived themes were then interpreted descriptively. The results indicated that there were some ideological factors found that contributed to the shaping of the language policy of those two families, such as social values, economical values, political values, cultural values, parents' knowledge toward language acquisition, and bi-/multilingualism. The findings of this study suggest that families need to provide support for their children in their bilingual or multilingual journey. Furthermore, stakeholders and professionals should play a role in the choice of language used in education as well as provide considerable support and assistance for language policy in family domain


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orly Kayam ◽  
Tijana Hirsch

Abstract Challenges of heritage language maintenance and benefits of bilingualism have been widely acknowledged. Heritage language maintenance research most oft en focuses on heritage languages in English-dominant societies. This paper presents a case study on family language policy experiences, strategies, and outcomes led by an American-born mother in her effort to maintain and promote English, her heritage language, within the home in the Hebrew-dominant environment in Israel


2019 ◽  
Vol 1/2019 (26) ◽  
pp. 169-184
Author(s):  
Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej ◽  
◽  
Hadrian Lankiewicz ◽  

Multilingua ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 653-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Antonina Obojska

Abstract Multilingual families and their language policies have attracted considerable attention in recent sociolinguistic work. Adding to this line of research, this article focuses on a case study of a transnational Polish family living in Norway and investigates the role adolescent children may play in the formation of family language policies. To this end the article analyses stances towards language practices at home taken in an interaction between the father and one of the adolescent daughters of the family. The article argues that the perspectives of adolescent children may be of crucial importance for the establishment of family language policies and thus deserve scholarly attention. Methodologically, the article draws attention to family interviews as a useful tool in generating sociolinguistic data for studies of Family Language Policies and advocates an interactional approach to interview data.


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