Digital communication as part of family language policy: the interplay of multimodality and language status in a Finnish context

Abstract

While mobile app-mediated communication between children and members of their family represents a substantial part of contemporary family communication and language input, we still know very little about the role of these technologies in family language policy (FLP). With an explorative questionnaire survey, the current study set out to examine (1) how Finnish state and language-in-education policies intersect with how families make use of their languages in spoken and in app-mediated communication, and (2) to what extent app-mediated FL practices function as a space for spoken and literacy language development. 1002 nine to twelve year-olds in minority-language Swedish-medium schools in Finland responded to the survey. The results showed the dominance of the two national, high-status languages Swedish and Finnish in the families, with texting being the most common app practice. Languages other than Swedish and Finnish (LOTSF) were used in 17% of the families and to a great extent also in the family apps. While app-mediated family communications overall were shown to serve as significant spaces for language and literacy development, in some cases of LOTSF with a lower status and less educational support, and with linguistic and writing systems deviating from Swedish and Finnish, children refrained from texting in the apps. The findings suggest that the relationship between choice of modalities in language(s) of different status and educational support is complex and needs further attention in future FLP studies.

Heritage Hebrew in Finland: Insights from Multilingual Families

“…The educational management of HLs primarily occurred within the home environment, as institutional educational support was often unavailable or not tailored to the families' needs (Urdu, Haque 2011;Indonesian, Sholihat 2020;Persian, Mashayekhi 2023;46 immigrant languages, Nyberg 2021). In the research on 34 immigrant languages performed by Palviainen and Räisä (2023), the perceived status of the HL played a crucial role in decisions regarding its maintenance. In practice, many families experienced a shift towards using Finnish in children's language interactions, leading to reduced HL usage among the children (Haque 2011;Palviainen and Räisä 2023;Kumpulainen 2020).…”

“…In the research on 34 immigrant languages performed by Palviainen and Räisä (2023), the perceived status of the HL played a crucial role in decisions regarding its maintenance. In practice, many families experienced a shift towards using Finnish in children's language interactions, leading to reduced HL usage among the children (Haque 2011;Palviainen and Räisä 2023;Kumpulainen 2020).…”