Family language policy between the bilingual advantage and the monolingual mindset

Abstract

In contemporary Western societies, parenting has become the subject of a substantial body of advice and self-help literature. Within this literature, questions of bilingual parenting have begun to add yet another dimension to parental anxieties. Against this background, we examine how parents in a general Australian online parenting forum discuss the desires they have for their children's bilingualism and the challenges they experience to their bilingual parenting. We first demonstrate that individual bilingualism in the abstract is discussed in highly favourable terms and is widely conceptualised as a 'gift' from parents to children. However, posters' belief in the bilingual advantage does not easily translate into effective bilingual parenting practices. First, many posters are concerned that bilingualism in the early years might be jeopardising their child's English language proficiency and hence school success. Second, a very narrow definition of 'true' bilingualism is connected with a relatively dogmatic belief in the 'one parent, one language' parenting strategy. As a result, consecutive bilinguals, particularly migrant fathers, come to be perceived as both problematic bilinguals and problematic parents. We close with implications for family language policy and advocacy in the face of entrenched institutional English monolingualism.

‘She’s the big dog who knows’ – power and the father’s role in minority language transmission in four transnational families in Tallinn

“…In such cases minority-language parents rely on a supportive home environment that provides sufficient input in and exposure to the non-societal language (De Houwer 2007, Pearson 2007. Piller and Gerber (2018) have pointed out that when a strict version of the One-Parent-One-Language (OPOL) strategy (no mixing!) is presented in the popular literature as the 'gold-standard' for bilingual parenting, which then flows into the public psyche, the non-societal language can suffer, especially if the children's primary caregiver is an L1 speaker of the societal language, and it the nonsocietal language speaking-parent who spends much of working day outside the home (see Caldas 2006: 42).…”

Effects of language dominance on home reading practices of bilingual families

“…Many bilingual families have positive views of bilingualism and aim to support language and literacy development in both of the families’ languages, not just the majority language (Genesee, 2004; King & Fogle, 2006). Positive views of bilingualism have been reported by parents of Cantonese–English children in the United States (Leung & Uchikoshi, 2012), Turkish–Dutch children in the Netherlands (Backus et al, 2010; Bezcioglu-Goktolga & Yagmur, 2018), bilingual families in Australia (Piller & Gerber, 2018), and of particular interest to this paper, French–English families in Montréal (Ballinger et al, 2020). More specifically, parents of French–English bilingual children reported that they valued bilingualism both for their children to be able to communicate with family and friends, and for the potential advantages it might offer for education and future employment opportunities (Ballinger et al, 2020).…”

Family language policy, translingualism, and linguistic boundaries

“…The family is porous, open to influences and interests from other broader social forces and institutions’ (Canagarajah, 2013). Lanza and Svendsen (2007, p. 296), two scholars that create predictive models of language policies within multilingual families (that is, essentialist constructions of FLPs), even acknowledge that ‘the underlying motivations and expectations concerning multilingualism’ complicate ‘language choice and language maintenance.’ Motivations and expectations to use a language resource in a particular way are indeed varied, though families all seem to rely on notions of ‘success’ in their wish to develop multilingualism (Bae, 2015; King & Fogle, 2006; Piller & Gerber, 2018; Zhu & Li Wei, 2016). In other words, parents and caregivers want the best for their children, and make language policy decisions based on what they believe will maximize this ostensibly simple goal.…”