Family Language Policies: A Collective Case Study of Emergent Bilingual Parent Ideologies

• In Event: Parent Language Perceptions and Ideologies in Bilingual/Dual-Language Contexts

Abstract

Emergent Bilingual families play a critical role in the maintenance of their native language among their children, but the environmental influences of the dominant language permeate into the home, impacting how language(s) are positioned and thereby, constructed. Using Family Language Policy, this collective case study examines the roles grand/parents play in the maintenance, and development of their grand/children’s native language. Findings demonstrate that prevention of language shift is arbitrated by the use of ‘revuelto’ or the mixing of languages to develop and maintain Spanish. Families also sense that the ‘standard English’ language policies of schools reinforces the ideal of a preferred variety of Spanish, demonstrating constructions of folk (non-standard) and elite (standard) bilingualism among Emergent Bilingual families.

Authors

• Trish Morita Mullaney, Purdue University

• Anne Garcia, Purdue University

• Rong Zhang, Purdue University