Family Language Policy and Language Maintenance among Turkmen-Persian Bilingual Families in Iran

Author(s):  
Seyed Hadi Mirvahedi ◽  
Mojtaba Rajabi ◽  
Khadijeh Aghaei
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


Author(s):  
Wang Xiaomei

AbstractFamily domain is crucial for language maintenance. It is also a critical avenue for children’s language acquisition. In Spolsky’s language management theory, family is one of the key domains for language management. In this study, we focus on family language management in Hakka families in Balik Pulau, Penang. Structured-interviews were conducted in November 2012. In total, 14 Hakka families were interviewed. In each family, one parent and one child were interviewed. This article examines family language policy from three perspectives: ideology, practice, and management. The results show that Hakkas in Penang give great importance to Mandarin and almost abandon Hakka in the family domain. However, they still have strong Hakka identity and some parents have restarted to speak Hakka with their children consciously. Multilingual capacity is a common expectation from parents. With multilingual input in the family domain, most of the children become passive bilinguals or multilinguals. The regional prestige dialect Hokkien is part of the repertoire of these Hakka families. However, there are no intentional efforts from the parents to teach Hokkien to their children. Conscious language management is only found for Mandarin and sometimes for English. This results from the parents’ language ideology that Mandarin is the most important language for Chinese Malaysians and English is an international language for their children’s future career. Findings from the current study contribute to the understanding of language maintenance and language shift in general.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110008
Author(s):  
Piotr Romanowski

Aims: By applying the tripartite framework of family language policy, this study seeks to gain insight into heritage language maintenance of Polish families in Melbourne. To this end, an integrative investigation of family language policy encapsulating the heritage language perceptions, practices and management will be employed. Methodology: Based on the data collected through the online questionnaire supplemented with in-depth interviews, quantitative and qualitative analyses have been conducted to obtain a sociolinguistic picture of the convoluted dependencies. Data and analysis: The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and coded according to the grounded theory approach. The recurrent themes were noted. The existing social patterns were conceptualised through the process of constant comparison. The excerpts selected for analysis illustrate how critical have been the informants’ beliefs and practices concerning heritage language maintenance. Findings and conclusions: The data analyses of the researched families disclose a wide range of practices where certain discrepancies are observed between declarations and the actual language behaviours. It also emerges that without parents’ reinforcement and establishing the heritage language as a default means of communication at home, children suffer from lower productive skills. Originality: This paper delves into how Polish is maintained as a heritage language by the second generation of Polish-speaking immigrants. It explores the Polish community, one of the well-established yet understudied groups that make up multicultural Australia. It unfolds an account of the dynamics of family language policy, illustrating how they are constantly negotiated, contested and formed by parents. Significance/implications: The findings contribute to the ongoing discussion of language policies and heritage language maintenance by demonstrating that the hardship and distress resulting from heritage language acquisition as well as language maintenance are incumbent primarily on family language policy. The researched group is an average-size immigrant community situated in the context with limited institutional support resolving down to Polish Saturday schools.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-75
Author(s):  
Teresa Wai See Ong

Family language policy comprises three components, namely, ideology, practice, and management. Using the conceptual framework of family language policy, this study draws on data from semi-structured interviews and participant observation to explore the role of mothers in the process of language maintenance and language shift in Malaysia. First, it investigates the language choices and ideologies of four Chinese single mothers from Penang that lead to speaking heritage languages and/or dominant languages with their children. Second, it examines the strategies for heritage culture maintenance adopted by these mothers. The study found that two of the mothers speak Chinese heritage languages with their children to reinforce emotional attachment and family cohesion. Conversely, two other mothers face socioeconomic and educational pressures in relation to maintaining Chinese heritage languages, which trigger a shift to using dominant languages such as Mandarin Chinese and English with their children. Nevertheless, all four mothers made efforts in exposing their children to ethnic Chinese cultures. The findings indicate that maintaining heritage languages in the current era has become a challenge for many families in Malaysia while speaking dominant languages is becoming a necessity.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Horia Siregar ◽  
Busmin Gurning

This study observed Siladang language maintenance in Desa Sipapaga. The objectives of the study are (1) to examine the factors affecting language maintenance (2) to find out the strategies in maintaining the Siladang language and (3) to find out the reasons of the Siladang people in maintaining their language. The method of this study was descriptive qualitative research. The participants were 20 Siladang people who live in Desa Sipapaga were taken by purposive random sampling. The research results are as follows (1) There are seven factors affecting Siladang language maintenance in Desa Sipapaga such as, Ethnolinguistic vitality, living together and see each other frequently, use of language in family domain (intra and inter marriage family, use of language in neighbor domain, use of language in religion domain, use of language in workplace domain, and practice traditional ceremony, (2) In maintaining the Siladang language, the Siladang people conducted some strategies such as; family language policy, using Siladang language in their daily life frequently, the using of Siladang language in cultural activity like in wedding ceremony. (3) The reasons of the Siladang people maintain their language are; they were proud of being Siladang people and speak Siladang language, and speak Siladang language shows their identity as Siladang people.   Keywords: language maintenance, Siladang


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