7 Intergenerational challenges: Of handing down languages, passing on practices, and bringing multilingual speakers into being

Purkarthofer, Judith

doi:10.1515/9781501510175-007

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…It seems a universal fact that parents from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds wish their language to be transmitted to their children and consider bilingualism an advantage. But, in immigrant and minority context, home language maintenance often comes with a social and psychological baggage of complex emotions in which negative feelings (e.g., anxiety, frustration, stress, sadness, and panic) predominate (Purkarthofer, 2020;Sevinç & Dewaele, 2018). In most cases, these language-related negative emotions in the home domain are often triggered by a parent-child divide in language use that results from their different forms of bilingualism.…”

Section: Emotionality In Heritage Language Maintenance Attemptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speaking Chinese or no breakfast: Emotional challenges and experiences confronting Chinese immigrant families in heritage language maintenance

Wang

2022

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims and objectives: This study aims to explore parental emotions in heritage language maintenance and to examine ways in which parents’ emotions interplay with their language ideologies, maintenance practices, and children’s language proficiencies. Methodology: I conducted an ethnographic qualitative study of 12 Chinese immigrant families including 13 parents and 13 children. The study focuses on parents who brought their children into Australia when they were between ages 3 and 9. Data and analysis: Data were collected through open-ended interviews, informal conversations, observations, evidence of literacy practices and postings on WeChat.1 Data were analysed using an inductive thematic approach. The generated themes relate to emotions, ideologies, practices, and proficiencies in heritage language. Findings/conclusions: Findings show that maintaining heritage language in immigrant and minority contexts is fraught with negative emotions such as irritation, regret, guilt, anguish, loss, insecurity, and shame, but this is complemented by a sense of accomplishment, fulfilment, and pride. Parental emotions, whether positive or negative, which are shaped by language ideologies of Chinese as identity, family tie, and profit, are often elicited by children’s language behaviours and their proficiency outcomes. The study suggests that children’s heritage language proficiencies are significant for the wellbeing of immigrant families. Originality: Emotion-relevant studies in heritage language research have largely focused on children and other learners in classroom settings, with heavy reliance on survey data and statistical analysis. Few studies have explored parental emotions regarding heritage language maintenance in the home domain or documented the relevant nuanced experiences. This study makes an in-depth ethnographic investigation of various types of emotions of family language policy (FLP) in parental discourses and situates parents’ emotions in their own language ideologies and their children’s language practices. Significance/implications: This ethnography fills a gap by providing a realistic understanding of the link between parental emotions, their language ideologies and maintenance practices, and their children’s language behaviours and proficiencies in transnational contexts. Children’s use of, and proficiency in, their heritage language is significant for the socio-emotional wellbeing of immigrant/minority parents and their families and has implications for language policy makers and heritage language education.

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Section: Emotionality In Heritage Language Maintenance Attemptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speaking Chinese or no breakfast: Emotional challenges and experiences confronting Chinese immigrant families in heritage language maintenance

Wang

2022

International Journal of Bilingualism

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“…FLP has been investigated in relation to the affective domain, ideologies, and the maintenance of the home language by various researchers (Hirsch & Lee, 2018;Sevinç, 2020;Zhu & Li, 2016). According to Tannenbaum (2012), emotions are one of the issues in FLP that should be addressed in depth and in explicit and implicit ways to enable families, particularly those in transnational contexts, to address the challenges and pressures of society and intergenerational tensions within a family regarding the choice of language, decisions about educational institutions for the children, language and cultural identities, emotions and well-being (Purkarthofer, 2020;Tannenbaum & Yitzhaki, 2016). Hollebeke et al (2020) suggested differentiating between linguistic and general socioemotional well-being.…”

Section: Socio-emotional Well-being: Positive and Negative Emotions O...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Karpava

2022

Journal of Home Language Research

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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-parentone-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.

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“…A negative emotion (e.g., anxiety) can result from language knowledge, multilingual repertoire, or multilinguals' lived experiences, while it can also be the factor that contributes to them (Sevinç, 2020). Multilingual families often forego home language maintenance due to the pressure on them to join the mainstream society (e.g., Canagarajah, 2008;De Houwer, 2020) and the need to resolve intergenerational conflict (e.g., Purkarthofer, 2020), which eventually leads to language shift. Yet, perhaps above all, this pressure elicits negative emotions (Sevinç, 2020).…”

Section: Theorizing Emotion In Multilingual Familiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions and multilingualism in family language policy: Introduction to the special issue

Sevinç

Mirvahedi

2022

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims: The primary aim of this special issue is to advance theoretical and empirical knowledge about the role of emotion in family language policy (FLP). To better capture the complexity and multiplicity of emotion, the issue brings together five articles that reflect on different aspects of emotions in multilingual families and approach the topic from different perspectives, methods, populations, and settings. Approach: In this paper, we first address the conceptual and theoretical grounds of emotions in multilingual families through an interdisciplinary perspective to integrate recent developments in emotion research in psychology of language learning into FLP framework. We present two distinct ways in which language and emotion intersect in different subdisciplines of linguistics and in various research contexts while we centre on the context of FLP: (1) the language of emotions and (2) emotions about language(s), linguistic repertoire, and language practices. We then introduce the articles in this special issue and address the implications for the pivotal role played by emotion in FLP and their social, cultural aspects (e.g., family ties, identity construction, agency, and socialization). Conclusions: We conclude with a discussion of implications for future research on emotion in the study of FLP and multilingualism. We emphasize the need to treat emotion as one of the individual components of multilingualism and FLP because of its critical role in multilingual parenting and/or caregiving. Originality: This special issue is devoted to a better understanding of emotion in FLP research.This introduction addresses key theoretical and methodological issues in the study of emotion in FLP. It contributes to the need for epistemological vigilance and methodological diversity in investigating emotions in multilingualism and FLP.

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7 Intergenerational challenges: Of handing down languages, passing on practices, and bringing multilingual speakers into being

Cited by 14 publications

References 45 publications

Speaking Chinese or no breakfast: Emotional challenges and experiences confronting Chinese immigrant families in heritage language maintenance

Speaking Chinese or no breakfast: Emotional challenges and experiences confronting Chinese immigrant families in heritage language maintenance

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

Emotions and multilingualism in family language policy: Introduction to the special issue

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