Session Information
31 SES 10, Understanding Home Language Use in Multilingual Families and its Implications for Education Research
Symposium
Contribution
The concept of home language use in multilingual families has been theoretically conceptualized and methodologically captured in manifold of ways, depending on the discipline at hand and the purpose of the empirical endeavour. Its consideration is rooted within two existing paradoxes that are both ideological and research-driven. On the one hand, and due to an increase in globalization movements, most European countries growingly experience migration-induced diversity (Vertovec 2007), leading also to a multiplication of the languages spoken by these migrants. On the other hand, the significance and role of these languages currently bounces between an assimilatory claim for a quick acquisition of the host community languages in detriment of the home languages (Esser 2006) and an acknowledgement of migrants’ linguistic repertoires and practices as societal and educational resources (Gogolin & Neumann 2009). Despite of the fact that what exactly is meant by “home language use” is still blurred by the multiple perspectives adopted to capture it (Duarte et al. 2014), the concept is often used in quantitative surveys of educational performance (such as PISA; OECD 2012) as a proxy variable included as predictor in multilevel analyses. Specifically, it takes into account the most frequently spoken language(s) at home as a proxy for language use within the families.
The main objective of the symposium is to examine different operationalizations of the concept of home language use in migrant families and concretely address the disparity between quantitative forms of measuring language use of multilinguals and the complexities of multilingual language practices. The symposium is designed as an interdisciplinary endeavour, including educational, sociological and linguistic perspectives. Furthermore, it is linked to a second symposium aimed at focussing on the longitudinal aspect of language use and competences.
Apart from the issue of the quantity of language use within multilingual families, which is often the object of quantitative measurement, other aspects have been taken into account when investigating home language, by using qualitative methods such as ethnography or interviews. One perspective refers to the sort of parental input patterns and the consequent language competencies they might generate in bi- or multilingual children. Research has show that multilinguals exposed to two or more languages from an early age on do not necessarily speak these languages even if having a parent who speaks them (Yamamoto 2001). Annick De Houwer presents results from two quantitative studies addressing the issues of parental input and language development and adding a longitudinal perspective to illustrate the dynamics of change within home language use.
Another focus of research lays within the investigation of possible determinants for home language use. Jean Conteh will look at south Asian heritage families in England and specifically at the change in family involvement in and attitudes to home language as influenced by wider community and society contexts as well as mainstream education policies and practices.
Whether the gathered information obtained in surveys on home language use is disparate or overlapping when using different methods, will be looked at by Joana Duarte and Irina Usanova. In a first step, they investigate to what extent the results from a questionnaire on home language use conducted with both multilingual adolescents and their parents overlap. Secondly, they match this data to that obtained from the same families but using half-structured interviews.
The last contribution by Marina Trebbels builds the bridge to the follow-up symposium by introducing the aspect of longitudinal measurement of home language use as a predictor of language development of children in different age cohorts.
The discussion will both focus on implications for educational institutions as well as for the empirical measurement of home language use in multilingual families.
References
Duarte, J., Gogolin, I., Klinger, T. & Schnoor, B. (2014). Mehrsprachige Kompetenzen in Abhängigkeit von familialen Sprachpraxen. Stuttgart/Weimar: J.B. Metzler: 66-85. Esser, H. (2006). Sprache und Integration. Die sozialen Bedingungen und folgen des Spracherwerbs von Migranten. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus Verlag. Gogolin. I. & Neumann, U. (Eds.) (2009). Streitfall Zweisprachigkeit - The Bilingualism Controversy. Wiesbaden:VS-Verlag. Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, 6 (2007): 1024-1054. Yamamoto, M. (2001). Language use in interlingual families: A Japanese-English sociolinguistic study. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
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