Family language patterns in bilingual families and relationships with children’s language outcomes

Abstract

Past research shows that family language patterns (i.e., which languages are spoken in the family and by whom) are associated with bilingual children’s language use. However, it is unclear how input properties such as input quantity, parental proficiency, and language mixing may differ across family language patterns. It is also unclear whether the effects of family language patterns on children’s language proficiency remain when differences in input properties are controlled. We investigated (i) which family language patterns occurred in bilingual families in the Netherlands (n = 136), (ii) whether input properties differed across patterns, and (iii) how patterns related to children’s proficiency, once input properties were controlled. Home language situations were assessed through a questionnaire, children’s proficiency in Dutch and the minority language through vocabulary tests and parent ratings. Three language patterns were found: one-parent-one-language, both parents mixed languages or used the minority language. The results showed differences in input properties across all patterns, as well as effects of these patterns on children’s proficiency in Dutch and the minority language that disappeared once input properties were controlled. These findings do not provide robust evidence that family language patterns predict children’s proficiency, but rather, that input quantity is crucial.

Trilingual families’ language strategies: potential predictors and effect on trilingual exposure

“…Some report that strategies that do not involve strict separation of languages by speaker, which we call mixed FLSs, are more frequent than those that do (Sander-Montant et al, under review;Slavkov, 2017). Others find the inverse (Verhagen et al, 2022), while still others find equivalent frequencies for these two types of FLS (Arnaus-Gil et al, 2021;De Houwer, 2007).…”

“…Two recent studies in the Netherlands (Verhagen et al, 2022) andin Canada (MacLeod et al, 2022) point to exposure as a possible mechanism for how FLSs relate to outcomes. In both, FLSs that excluded the community language at home were linked to higher HL exposure, and this effect on the quantity of exposure mediated, to varying degrees, the relationship between FLS and children's outcomes.…”

“…Studies have used different criteria to define FLSs, specifically, to determine what constitutes language use. For example, some studies ask about the languages used without specifying at what frequency languages should be counted (De Houwer, 2004, 2007, while others set a threshold, such as 5% or more of the time, for a language to be counted (Verhagen et al, 2022). These differences may affect the frequencies of FLSs.…”

“…Family language strategies (FLSs), also called family language use models or approaches, are principles that multilingual families adopt for language use within and outside their homes (Barron-Hauwaert, 2004;Slavkov, 2017). Among bilingual families, these strategies are linked to variation in the amount of exposure children get to each of their languages (MacLeod et al, 2022;Verhagen et al, 2022). For example, strategies that exclude the use of a community language lead to higher exposure overall to the heritage 1 language (HL), promoting outcomes in that language.…”

Competition of Ethnic and National Languages within the Home Domain: Insights from Multilingual Sasak Family Language Choice, Lombok – Indonesia

“…One domain is a group of speech situations where the people involved in a conversation are family members such as a conversation between a husband and his wife, a mother and her child, and a brother and his sister (Verhagen et al, 2022;Sun et al, 2020;Olson, 2016) which is referred to as the family domain. The social situation in the family domain is commonly found in the household environment where participants" social status is not very important when compared to other domains, and the participants" relational roles are determined by the position of each family member in a conversation, such as parents, children, grandparents, siblings, and others.…”