Decolonizing family language policy, or reimagining family multilingualism as an inclusive field
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jmtp.27043Keywords:
decolonial approaches, family language policy, family multilingualism, multilingualism, southern perspectiveAbstract
As a commentary to a special issue dedicated to multilingualism within the family from southern and decolonial approaches, this article examines what it could mean to ‘decolonize the field of family language policy’ – or, rather, to reimagine this field in terms of the more all-encompassing label of family multilingualism. It draws on my own experience of the difficulty of fitting into a field configured in English, from my position as a French researcher working in the contexts of the so-called Global South and supervising students who come from backgrounds minoritized in France and who are personally involved in the subjects on which they work. This commentary has thus been written from relative marginality in this field and out of an experience of both familiarity and foreignness. By proposing four lateral moves, it adds to studies calling for viewpoints to be situated, for voices from the south to be included and for knowledge itself to be decolonized. These lateral moves form part of an attempt to decolonize this academic field if we are to take seriously the need to clean house within the academy itself so that knowledges rooted in western/northern experiences and traditions are simply part of the palette of knowledges.
References
Androutsopoulos, J. and Lexander, K. V. (2021). Digital polycentricity and diasporic connectivity: A Norwegian-Senegalese case study. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 25(5), 720–736. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12518
Barontini, A. (2014). Approches théoriques du processus de transmission linguistique: questionner la terminologie des générations. Cahiers Internationaux de Sociolinguistique, 6(2), 39–60. https://doi.org/10.3917/cisl.1402.0039
Besnier, N. (2015). Commentary: Intimacy through the ethnographic lens. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 33(2), 106–110. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26370584. https://doi.org/10.3167/ca.2015.330209
Biichlé, L. (2015). Ces familles bilingues qui nous entourent. Des pratiques langagières et de la transmission des langues et identités dans des familles ‘mixtes’ plurilingues de France. Cahiers internationaux de sociolinguistique, 7(1), 39–56. https://doi.org/10.3917/cisl.1501.0039
Bourdieu, P. (1982). Ce que parler veut dire. Fayard.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Homo academicus. Minuit.
Bourdieu, P. (1993). A propos de la famille comme catégorie réalisée. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 100, 32–36. https://doi.org/10.3406/arss.1993.3070
Calvet, L. J. (1993). La sociolinguistique. Que sais-je? Presses Universitaires de France.
Canagarajah, A. S. (2002). A geopolitics of academic writing. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies. Sage.
Connell, R. W. (2007). Southern theory: Social science and the global dynamics of knowledge. Polity Press.
Cook, E. and Alexy, A. (2018). Reflections on fieldwork: Exploring intimacy. In E. Cook and A. Alexy (eds), Intimate Japan: Ethnographies of closeness and conflict (pp. 236–259). University of Hawai’i Press.
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2009). Invisible and visible language planning: Ideological factors in the family language policy of Chinese immigrant families in Quebec. Language Policy, 8(4), 351–375. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-009-9146-7
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2013). Family language policy: Sociopolitical reality versus linguistic continuity. Language Policy, 12(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-012-9269-0
Dabène, L. and Billiez, J. (1987). Le parler des jeunes issus de l’immigration. In G. Vermes and J. Boutet (eds), France, pays multilingue (pp. 62–77). L’Harmattan.
de Singly, F. (2010). Sociologie de la famille contemporaine (4th ed.). Armand Colin.
Deprez, C. (1994). Les enfants bilingues: langues et familles. Didier.
Deprez, C. (1996). Une politique linguistique familiale: le rôle des femmes. Education et societés plurilingues, 1, 35–43.
Deprez, C., Varro, G. and Collet, B. (2014). Familles plurilingues dans le monde: mixités conjugales et transmission des langues. Introduction. Langage et société, 147(1), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.3917/ls.147.0007
Döpke, S. (1998). Can the principle of ‘one person – one language’ be disregarded as unrealistically elitist? Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 21(1), 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.21.1.03dop
Fogle, L. W. and King, K. A. (2013). Child agency and language policy in transnational families. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 19, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.5070/L4190005288
Fraser, M. and Puwar, N. (2008). Introduction: Intimacy in research. History of the Human Sciences, 21(4), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695108095508
Ghimenton, A. and Costa, L. (2016). Code-switching et socialisation plurilingue au sein de trois familles italophones en France. In M. Langner and V. Jovanovic (eds), Facetten der Mehrsprachigkeit / Reflets du plurilinguisme (pp. 95–118). Peter Lang.
Goury, L., Launey, M., Queixalós, F. and Renault-Lescure, O. (2000). Des médiateurs bilingues en Guyane française. Revue française de linguistique appliquée, 5(1), 43–60. https://doi.org/10.3917/rfla.051.0043
Grammond, S. and Guay, C. (2016). Les enjeux de la recherche concernant l’enfance et la famille autochtones. Enfances, Familles, Générations, 25. https://doi.org/10.7202/1039496ar
Haque, S. (2008). Différences de politiques linguistiques entre nation et famille: étude de cas de trois familles indiennes migrantes dans trois pays d’Europe. Suvremena lingvistika, 34(65), 57–72.
Haque, S. (2012). Etude de cas sociolinguistique et ethnographique de quatre familles indiennes immigrantes en Europe: pratiques langagières et politiques linguistiques nationales et familiales. PhD thesis, University of Grenoble. Retrieved on 4 November 2023 from http://www.theses.fr/170443930
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J. and Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
Héran, F., Filhon, A. and Deprez, C. (2002). La dynamique des langues en France au fil du XXe siècle. Population et Sociétés, 376, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.3917/popsoc.376.0001
Istanbullu, S. (2017). Pratiques langagières intergénérationnelles: le cas de familles transnationales plurilingues (Antioche, Île-de-France, Berlin). PhD thesis, INALCO.
Istanbullu, S. (2020). The language policy of trilingual transnational families living between Antioch, Paris and Berlin. Sociolinguistic Studies, 14(4), 459–481. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.39512
Istanbullu, S. and Léglise, I. (2014). Transmission de langues minoritaires dans la migration: le cas de communautés arabo-turcophones. Rapport de recherche remis à la DGLFLF. SeDyL, CNRS, INALCO, IRD.
Keim, W. (2016). La circulation internationale des savoirs en sciences sociales. Facteurs pertinents d’acceptation et de rejet des textes voyageurs. Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances, 10. Retrieved on 4 November 2023 from http://journals.openedition.org/rac/2855. https://doi.org/10.3917/rac.030.0001
Kerfoot, C. and Hyltenstam, K. (2017). Introduction: Entanglement and orders of visibility. In C. Kerfoot and K. Hyltenstam (eds), Entangled discourses: South–north orders of visibility (pp. 1–15). Routledge.
King, K. A., Wright Fogle, L. and Logan-Terry, A. (2008). Family language policy. Language and Linguistics Compass, 2(5), 907–922. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00076.x
Lambert, P. and Billiez, J. (2017). Mobilités et socialisation plurilingue: retour sur un mode de représentation ‘bio-graphique’. In M. Auzanneau, M. Bento and M. Leclere (eds), Espaces, mobilités et éducation plurilingues, Eclairages d’Afrique ou d’ailleurs (pp. 159–70). Editions des archives contemporaines.
Lanza, E. and Lomeu Gomes, R. (2020). Family language policy: Foundations, theoretical perspectives and critical approaches. In A. Schalley and S. Eisenchlas (eds), Handbook of home language maintenance and development (pp. 153–173). De Gruyter Mouton.
Lanza, E. and Li Wei (2016). Multilingual encounters in transcultural families. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(7), 653–654. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2016.1151198
Leconte, F. (1997). La famille et les langues. Une étude sociolinguistique de la deuxième génération de l’immigration africaine dans l’agglomération rouennaise. L’Harmattan.
Léglise, I. (2004). Langues frontalières et langues d’immigration en Guyane française. Glottopol, 4, 108–124. http://glottopol.univ-rouen.fr/telecharger/numero_4/gpl407leglise.pdf
Léglise, I. (2005). Contacts de créoles à Mana (Guyane française): répertoires, pratiques, attitudes et gestion du plurilinguisme. Etudes créoles, 28(1), 23–57.
Léglise, I. (2017). Multilingualism and heterogeneous language practices: New research areas and issues in the Global South. Langage et société, 160–161(2), 251–266. https://doi.org/10.3917/ls.160.0251
Léglise, I. (2019). Documenter les parcours de familles transnationales: généalogies, biographies langagières et pratiques langagières familiales. In S. Haque and F. Lelièvre (eds), Politique linguistique familiale / Family language policy: Enjeux dynamiques de la transmission linguistique dans un contexte migratoire/ Dynamics in language transmission under a migratory context (pp. 180–204). Lincom Europa.
Léglise, I. (2022a). Circulation of concepts, compartmentalisation and erasures in Western academic circles: Sumak kawsay/buen vivir and translanguaging. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 17(4), 284–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2023.2204840
Léglise, I. (2022b). Géopolitique et circulation des savoirs en sociolinguistique du multilinguisme et de l’éducation au Nord et dans le Sud global. Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, 41 (December), 213–238. https://doi.org/10.4000/rhsh.7720
Léglise, I., Bagga-Gupta, S. and Deumert, A. (2022). Transcending circulations of southern and northern concepts: Introducing mobile and dialogic perspectives on language. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 17(4), 273–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2023.2206385
Lomeu Gomes, R. (2018). Family language policy ten years on: A critical approach to family multilingualism. Multilingual Margins: A Journal of Multilingualism from the Periphery, 5(2), 50–51. https://doi.org/10.14426/mm.v5i2.98
Lüdi, G. and Py, B. (1995). Changement de langage, langage du changement. Aspects linguistiques de la migration interne en Suisse. L’Age d’Homme.
Luykx, A. (2003). Weaving languages together: Family language policy and gender socialization in bilingual Aymara households. In R. Bayley and S. Schecter (eds), Language socialization in bilingual and multilingual societies (pp. 25–43). Multilingual Matters.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548
Maseko, B. (2022). Family language policy in post-genocide Matabeleland: The case of a Ndebele family. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 40(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2021.1990093
Matthey, M. and Fibbi, R. (2010). La transmission intergénérationnelle des langues minoritaires. Travaux neuchâtelois de linguistique, 52, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.26034/tranel.2010.2809
Mignolo, W. D. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(1), 57–96. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-101-1-57
Pennycook, A. and Makoni, S. (2020). Innovations and challenges in applied linguistics from the global south. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429489396
Piller, I., Zhang, J. and Li, J. (2022). Peripheral multilingual scholars confronting epistemic exclusion in global academic knowledge production: A positive case study. Multilingua, 41(6), 639–662. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2022-0034
Purkarthofer, J. and Flubacher, M. C. (eds). (2022). Speaking subjects in multilingualism research. Multilingual Matters.
Sánchez Moreano, S. (2020). Análisis de la interacción social en contextos de movilidad transnacional y de superdiversidad. Iberoromania, 91, 28–51. https://doi.org/10.1515/iber-2020-0005
Santos, B. de S. (ed.). (2007). Another knowledge is possible: Beyond northern epistemologies. Verso.
Santos, B. de S. (2011). Épistémologies du Sud. Etudes rurales, 187, 21–49. https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesrurales.9351
Sarcinelli, A. S. (2018). Does love make a family? The politics and micro-politics of filiation among same-sex families. L’Année sociologique, 68(2), 367–392. https://doi.org/10.3917/anso.182.0367
Sherman, T., Hromadová, M. A., Özörencik, H., Zaepernicková, E. and Nekvapil, J. (2016). Two sociolinguistic perspectives on multilingual families. Slovo a slovesnost, 77, 202–218.
Siqwana-Ndulo, N. (1998). Rural African family structure in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 29(2), 407–417. https://doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.29.2.407
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1981). Bilingualism or not: The education of minorities. Multilingual Matters.
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). Zed Books.
Smith-Christmas, C. (2017). Family language policy: New directions. In J. Macalister and S. H. Mirvahedi (eds), Family language policies in a multilingual world: Opportunities, challenges, and consequences. Routledge.
Smith-Christmas, C. (2020). Child agency and home language maintenance. In A. Schalley and S. Eisenchlas (eds), Handbook of home language maintenance and development: Social and affective factors (pp. 218–235). De Gruyter Mouton.
Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge University Press.
Tabouret-Keller, A. (1988). La nocivité du bilinguisme, cent ans d’errance. In Congrès de la langue basque, III, 156–169.
Van Mensel, L. (2016). Children and choices: The effect of macro language policy on the individual agency of transnational parents in Brussels. Language Policy, 15(4), 547–560. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-015-9391-x
Van Mensel, L. (2018). ‘Quiere koffie?’ The multilingual familylect of transcultural families. International Journal of Multilingualism, 15(3), 233–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2018.1477096
Veronelli, G. A. (2015). The coloniality of language: Race, expressivity, power, and the darker side of modernity. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies, 13, 108–134.
Vorobeva, P. (2021). Families in flux: At the nexus of fluid family configurations and language practices. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2021.1979013
Wang, G. and Yang, S. (2022). Socializing strategies, family language policies, and practices. In J. Gube, F. Gao and M. Bhowmik (eds), Identities, Practices and Education of Evolving Multicultural Families in Asia-Pacific. Routledge.
Wang, N. (2019). Les politiques linguistiques familiales dans les familles mixtes: études de cas sur la transmission et la non-transmission des langues chinoises dans trois familles franco-chinoises en France. PhD thesis, University of Paris Est. Retrieved on 4 November 2023 from https://www.theses.fr/2019PESC0097
