Great Aunt Edna’s Vase: Metaphor Use in Working With Heritage Language Families

Abstract

This article explores the use of a particular metaphor-Great Aunt Edna's Vaseas a means to facilitating multilingual families in contextualizing and engaging with complex emotional connections as linked to language, identity, and belonging. Building from the premise that language is linked to the construction of identity, but that individual family members will have different views and opinions on the heritage language within this context, the article highlights the use of metaphors in family work, before introducing the metaphor of Great Aunt Edna's Vase and situating it in relevant literature around language, heritage, and identity. The concepts introduced add to the existing body of literature in addressing the growing need for work specifically aimed at multilingual families, in a globally ever-morediverse society, highlighting the links between language and well-being, and making a contribution to the global knowledge necessary for practitioners and families to explore these links successfully.

‘Half of who you are’: Parent and child reflections on the emotional experiences of reversing familial language shift

“…may ultimately provide stronger emotional links to the heritage language than focusing on the heritage language as a means to strengthen familial ties (Tannenbaum, 2012), especially in families where the heritage language is not a vital component for family communication. In such families, encouraging the child to lead family language policy and work with their developing identity to collaboratively explore the heritage language may encourage the child to build their own, independently strong, emotional ties to the heritage language, rather than viewing it simply as part of their ‘inheritance’ (Little, 2019). As an autoethnographic study, this paper claims neither representativeness nor generalisability (see methodology).…”

“…Both negative and positive emotions can be utilised to guide family language policy development. In Toby's case, his frustrations linked to modelling (Lanza, 1997) and his preoccupation with 'correct' language were explored through a jointly reflective, communicative approach can assist with a 'fusion of horizons' (Gadamer, 1989), which we have come to call an 'un/familiar space' (Little and Little, 2022). Through this collaborative exploration, negative emotions were minimised as part of the joint development of family language practices, which enabled the diffusion of frustrating or angering experiences.…”

“…One frustration that is worthy of particular mention is linked to Toby's reaction to our discussion on 'modelling' (Lanza, 1997) versus 'correction', and his concern to use 'correct' language. When we discussed 'standard' language during one of our joint reflections, about a month into the research, Toby explained that he wanted to learn 'correct' German, which he seemed to loosely categorise as the German he encountered in books, i.e., 'standard' German.…”

“…This study uses the term ‘heritage language’, despite Blackledge et al (2008) pointing out that the term ‘heritage’ implies a certain sense of continuity–of context, culture, or values, for example. In the case of our family, we might speak of a ‘disrupted heritage’, since, as Bourdieu (2000) argues, heritage and inheritance are not inevitable, like any inheritance, it may be rejected (Little, 2019), either permanently, or, in Toby’s case, temporarily. The term ‘heritage language’ has been adopted here to illustrate a familial link, a connection–or the potential of one, through shared language, which, in our case, is only ‘inherited’ through one side of the family, since T’.s father is monolingual in English.…”

13 Social media and the use of technology in home language maintenance

“…For children inhabiting multiple "cultural niches" (Boyd, Richerson, and Henrich 2011), this inhabitation of multiple cultural and social spheres requires continual maintenance and effort, potentially involving a multiple workload, such as learning the names of all Pokémon in multiple languages, or learning multiple names of Harry Potter creatures or spells. While this, of course, also has multiple benefits, and maximises development of their social capital, not all children view the effort as worthwhile (Little 2019b).…”