Rationale
This paper discusses the preliminary findings of a transnational quantitative study that examines factors impacting home language transmission, focusing specifically on social and affective variables. Thus, the study contributes to the slowly growing literature adopting quantitative approaches in a field still dominated by small-scale qualitative studies with little generalisability and limited ability to disentangle the impact of various factors on home language transmission.
Background
Many studies on home language maintenance and development have used Spolsky's (2009) language policy framework in the context of the family. Like language policy more generally, family language policy was conceptualised around three interrelated but independent components that help account for language choices: language ideologies (beliefs about the value and status of languages), language practices (what people actually do in their daily lives), and language management (initiatives implemented by families to foster language maintenance and development). This framework, however, appears limited and needs to be supplemented by two additional components: On the one hand, family language policies do not exist in a vacuum but are affected by societal conditions. On the other hand, recent research (De Houwer 2020; Pavlenko 2004) has shown the strong impact of affect and emotions on home language transmission or its failure. Therefore, in addition to the above framework components, we incorporated social and affective factors in our study.
Methodology
In line with the rationale and background, we conducted a validated online survey covering the factors mentioned above as well as demographic variables. It was initially designed in English and piloted in Australia, with the idea of expanding it in a larger number of languages and countries at later stages. Survey questions included mostly closed questions, with the exception of questions on affective factors in which respondents were offered the opportunity to express their feelings in short open-ended responses in their preferred language. Statistical analyses explore the role and clustering of the different factors in home language maintenance and development.
Findings
The data collection is still ongoing, but we will present preliminary findings in this paper. In particular, we focus on factors that enhance language maintenance and development as well as families' reasons to transmit their language(s) or not to do so. Moreover, we investigate the affective impact these decisions have on parents and carers. Unlike most other studies in the field, the survey also targets parents and carers who decided not to transmit their language(s), who are usually not given a voice in these studies. The findings of this study will serve as a springboard for further cross-country comparisons as well as across selected diasporas.
References
De Houwer, A. 2020. Harmonious Bilingualism: Well-being for families in bilingual settings. In Schalley, A.C. & Eisenchlas, S.A. (Eds.), Handbook of Home Language Maintenance and Development: Social and Affective Factors (pp. 63–83). De Gruyter Mouton.
Pavlenko, A. 2004. 'Stop doing that, Ia komu skazala!': Language choice and emotions in parent-child communication, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25(2–3), 179–203.
Spolsky, B., 2009. Language Management. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
