Minority language maintenance or shift occurs at the individual, family, and societal levels through the interplay of psychological and social factors in the community in which the language minority members are situated (Spolsky 2004; Curdt-Christiansen & Huang 2020; Vuorsola 2022a). A range of factors influence language maintenance in diverse ways in different contexts; thus, it is impossible to formulate a single universally accepted theory that predicts whether language transmission will occur in any bilingual environment (Aalberse, et al., 2019). In recent years, the family has become the focus of attention in sociolinguistic studies on minority languages in the field of Language Policy (Curdt-Cristiansen & Huang 2020; Schwartz 2020).

In this study, we use Curdt-Christiansen’s and Huang’s (2020) Family Language Policy Model as our theoretical background. In this model, family language policies are influenced by external and internal factors: External factors are 1) socio-economic, 2) socio-political, 3) socio-cultural, and 4) socio-linguistic factors, and the internal factors are 1) emotional, 2) identity and 3) cultural factors, 4) parental impact beliefs and 5) child agency (Curdt-Cristiansen & Huang, 2020). However, the scope the current study does not allow for implementation of the entire FLP model and thus, we focus on the internal factors.

Although the sociolinguistic situation of Sweden’s national minority languages, Finnish, Meänkieli, Sami, Yiddish and Romany Chib, has improved slightly since Sweden ratified the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 2000 (SOU 2017:91), they are still under serious threat, partly due to the fact that teaching in these languages has not been organized sufficiently. Moreover, there has been a long-standing process of forced language shift and Swedishisation, which has led to a steady decline in the number of speakers of these languages (SOU 2017:91). Thus, in their daily lives, minority language families in Sweden often face the consequences of lack of adequate language policies in schools (SOU 2017:91) and negative attitudes towards minority languages in society in general (Vuorsola 2022b). Consequently, family language policy, family’s ability to resist external pressures to speak majority language with their children, and language practices and attitudes of family members are crucial factors in maintenance of heritage language. Although Sweden is committed to the preservation and revitalisation of minority languages in its minority policy and legislation, there are major shortcomings, particularly in the field of education, which has drawn criticism by the supervisory authorities of the Council of Europe (SOU 2017:91). Therefore, the families’ language policies still seem to determine the maintenance of minority languages in Sweden (King et al., 2008).

Sweden Finns are the largest national minority group in Sweden, and the number of those with a Finnish background is estimated to be around 800 000 (Salö & Milani 2023: 30). Although family language policies in different minority language groups and contexts have been studied in recent decades, there are only a few studies on the factors influencing the language policies of Sweden Finnish families over the past decade (see Lainio & Pesonen 2021). In this study, we examine Sweden Finnish heritage language policies and language practices through semi-structured interviews in 10 Sweden Finnish families where the Finnish language has been successfully passed on to the subsequent generation(s). The research question is:

How do the parents describe their language policies and how emotional, identity and cultural factors, as well as parental impact beliefs and child agency have influenced language practices in the Sweden Finnish families where the Finnish language has transmitted to the next generation(s)?

The data have been collected through individual semi-structured interviews in 2022–2024 in different parts of Sweden. The entire data set includes interviews with hundred Sweden Finns and Tornedalians as part of the project One hundred Swedish Finns and Tornedalian linguistic biographies, but this presentation only reports on interviews with family members of 10 families which were selected for this study on the basis that the Finnish language has been passed from parents to children (and in few cases also to grandchildren). The interview questions included questions about the family's language use and factors that they considered have influenced the language choices of the family and individual family members. The data collection, storing and processing follows the ethical principles outlined in the Ethical review in human sciences for research involving human participants drawn up by The Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK, 2023) and by the Swedish Research Council (2017), as well as those of the participating universities. In addition, the processing of personal data in the research complies with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU 2016/679) as well as the Finnish Data Protection Act (1050/2018). The participants, for example, gave their consent both orally and in writing to be part of the study. The data were analysed with the theory-driven content analysis (Krippendorff, 1980). To begin the qualitative content analysis the first author read the transcriptions of the interviews to gain an initial understanding of the data and to start to code the data based on Curdt-Christiansen’s and Huang’s (2020) Family Language Policy Model’s internal factors: 1) emotional, 2) identity and 3) cultural factors, 4) parental impact beliefs and 5) child agency. The suggested coding was then discussed among the three authors. If coded cases were unclear, the coding was negotiated and revised.

The preliminary results show that Finnish has been transmitted to the second and third generation through parents’ heritage language use and investment in the child's language learning, but also through child’s own agency. However, there can be remarkable differences between siblings in a family. Emotional aspect for maintaining Finnish language was strong in the narratives of the families, and they used strong descriptive language when describing decisions behind their language practices. Identity was also strongly included in the decisions concerning language maintenance, as families strongly identified themselves as Finnish speakers. Cultural factors were reflected e.g. in dedication to read Finnish literature. Parental impact beliefs were strongly present in the narratives: Parents had made a conscious and firm decision to systematically use only Finnish with their children, and they believed that the children would learn Swedish later at school, and that mixing languages at home would not be beneficial for their children’s language learning. Furthermore, the parents reported various ways of investing in their children’s Finnish language learning. Concerning child agency, children often shared their parents' desire to keep Finnish and Swedish separate from each other, but noted that siblings, friends and changing life situations remarkably affected their language practices. The results indicate that Finnish language had maintained its status as the home language due to more or less conscious family language policy planning. Moreover, the family language policies seemed to depend on the parents’ linguistic backgrounds and their beliefs and attitudes, but also on children’s own agency. The findings of this study are relevant in the European context since many heritage languages struggle in staying alive, and revitalisation of minority languages is needed in many countries (SOU 2017:91). Thus, awareness of aspects affecting maintaining heritage languages is essential.

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