“We Speak Pidgin!” – Family Language Policy as the Telling Case for Translanguaging Spaces and Monolingual Ideologies

Abstract

With the increase in global movement, both temporary (travel and transsettlement) and permanent (e/immigration), traditional conceptions of the linguistic processes rooted largely in the long-term translocation(s) or migrations are revisited through the study of family language policy. The present study of family language policy serves as a telling case (Mitchell, 1984) of (1) translanguaging (Williams, 1994) as a practical theory of language (Li, 2018), describing how the transnational individual experienced the construction of two intergenerational translanguaging spaces (Li, 2011): the family and the community and (2) how the phenomenon of monolingual ideologies infiltrates the translanguaging space of the family to exert its influences toward the standard, in this case the standard Russian dialect. Importance of increased mobility characteristic of contemporary times and the central role of temporality in linguistic processes and their disruptions are discussed in this article.