A deliberate language policy or a perceived lack of agency: Heritage language maintenance in the Polish community in Melbourne

Abstract

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.

Acehnese parents’ attitudes and their implications in the intergenerational transmission of the heritage language

“…He further postulated the crucial influence of parents' educational background in deciding on what language their children will be raised in. Similar findings were also found in the Acehnese context (Aziz et al, 2021;Fakhrurrazi, 2016;Yusuf et al, 2022), and some other previous studies in different language contexts (Gupta, 2020;Kheirkhah & Cekaite, 2015;Romanowski, 2021).…”

“…This is what has been concerned by Anderbeck (2012) that, nowadays, parents heavily rely on the environment for their children to learn their heritage language. Consequently, less intention of parents to speak Acehnese to their children has put the position of this language to be unsafe because Acehnese children are not able to speak it fluently as what has been found in several previous studies (Fakhrurrazi, 2016;Gupta, 2020;Ismail et al, 2021;Kheirkhah & Cekaite, 2015;Romanowski, 2021;Zhu et al, 2020). Ewing (2014) has also acknowledged that today, the traditional pattern of learning the heritage language has been disturbed among children because they no longer learn their heritage language from their parents in their homes.…”

“…Nevertheless, although speakers have a positive attitude to their vernacular languages, it is not a guarantee that the language is maintained because the positive attitude of the speaker does not guarantee that the speaker keeps using the language. The study conducted by Romanowski (2021) on immigrant parents from Poland residing in Melbourne confirmed that having a positive attitude of Polish parents toward their heritage language does not guarantee the process of heritage language maintenance. He highlights the discrepancies between parents' declaration and their actual practices.…”

Finding lost words: The ‘savings effect’ in the Irish language context

“…The low efficacious learners tend to avoid challenging or interactive L2 experiences, thus withdrawing from the acquisition and language maintenance process despite potentially having abilities or previous performance successes. Studies have shown how language self-efficacy negatively correlates with apprehension and performance avoidance (Pajares & Valiante, 2001), and more importantly, is emerging as a potential contributing factor in language attrition and maintenance (Romanowski, 2021). Graham (2006) has demonstrated how low efficacy language learners tend to make negative attributions to their academic outcomes, often claiming the language learning environment is uncontrollable and inaccessible, creating overall global assumptions of attrition.…”

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

“…Positive attitudes and beliefs towards the use, maintenance and transmission of the heritage language, interventions, planning, management, language choices and communication patterns, language ideologies, socio-political factors, language status and prestige, the size of the immigrant/minority community, linguistic and cultural identities, child and parental agency and emotions, family language socialisation are reflected in explicit and implicit FLPs. Furthermore, such factors as parental education, socio-economic status and prior language-learning experiences, as well as the broad social and cultural context of family life should be taken into consideration (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014Guardado, 2018;King & Fogle, 2013;Romanowski, 2021;Spolsky, 2012).…”