Use of internet forums by multilingual families
Demographics and themes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jmtp.22893Keywords:
social media, multilingual families, online parenting, heritage languages, family language policyAbstract
Raising children in a multilingual family is a demanding task. Seeking support, many parents turn to the internet where they post questions eliciting advice and feedback to forums and blogs. In our study, we identify the most pressing issues around the practice of multilingual upbringing reported in this rich source of data from the perspective of parents themselves. We collected over 500 posts
from seven such forums, selected by purposive criterion sampling. We focused on characterizing users’ demographics and identifying most frequent themes. Our sample included mostly Western European and North American families with 2–4 languages each and 2–3 children up to 15 years old. The most frequent inquiries were from parents asking for language transmission strategies to support their minority language, which is especially salient among the children aged 4–6, coinciding with the start of full time schooling, but it lasts longer. Language mixing and finding resources are a concern for younger children but fade with age, although the former remains in the form of language preference by the children. Language mixing is disproportionally present for trilingual or multilingual children (children with three or more languages). Other categories include environmental criticisms, literacy, mobility, raising a child in a non-native language, language delays, linguistic insecurities, timing, and a (large) miscellaneous category.
References
Androutsopoulos, J. (2015). Networked multilingualism: Some language practices on Facebook and their implications. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(2), 185–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006913489198
Auer, P. and Wei, L. (2007). The handbook of multilingualism and multilingual communication. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Bello-Rodzen, I. (2016). Multilingual upbringing as portrayed in the blogosphere: On parent-bloggers’ profile. Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition, 2(2), 27–46.
Boix-Fuster, E. (2009). Català o castellà amb els fills? La transmissió de la llengua en famílies bilingües a Barcelona. Sant Cugat del Vallès: Rourich.
Boyd, d. (2007). Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenager social life. In D. Buckingham (ed.), Youth, identity, and digital media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Boyd, d. (2011). Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications. In Z. Papacharissi (ed.), A networked self. Identity, community, and culture on social network sites (pp. 39–58). New York, NY & London, UK: Routledge.
Boyd, d. and Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x
Blum-Ross, A. and Livingstone, S. (2017). “Sharenting”, parent blogging, and the boundaries of the digital self. Popular Communication, 15(2), 110–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2016.1223300
Caldas, S. J. (2012). Language policy in the family. In B. Spolsky (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy (pp. 351–373). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Castells, M. (2000). The rise of the network society. 2nd edition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Cummings, J. (2016). Teaching for transfer in multilingual school contexts. In O. García, A. M. Y. Lin and S. May (eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 103–115). Springer.
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (ed.). 2013. Family language policy. [Special issue]. Language Policy 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-012-9269-0
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2018). Engaging language policy from macro- to micro-level: Migration and language in Europe. Language and Education, 32(5), 391–393. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2018.1489830
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. and Lanza, E. (2018). Language management in multilingual families: efforts, measures and challenges. Multilingua, 37(2), 123–130. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2017-0132
Dean, J. (2006). Blogging theory. Bad Subjects, 75. Accessed on 19 April 2019 from http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2006/75/dean.htm
Dooly, M. (2005). How aware are they? Research into teachers’ attitudes about linguistic diversity. Language Awareness, 14(2–3), 97–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658410508668827
García, O. and Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Egginton, W. (2001). Unplanned language planning. In R. B. Kaplan (ed.), Oxford handbook of applied linguistics, 404–414. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gogolin, I. (2002). Linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe: A challenge for educational research and practice. European Educational Research Journal, 1(1), 123–138. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2002.1.1.3
Johnson, E. J. (2012). Arbitrating repression: language policy and education in Arizona. Language and Education, 26(1), 53–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2011.615936
Heyes, K. (2016). Using virtual ethnography to research vulnerable participants online: A case study of mental health online community support forums. Sage Research Methods Classes Publications. Accessed on 19 April 2019 from http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526403605
King, K. A. and Fogle, L. W. (2013). Family language policy and bilingual parenting. Language Teaching, 46(2), 172–194. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444812000493
King, K. A., Fogle, L. W. 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
Kirsch, C. (2012). Ideologies, struggles and contradictions: An account of mothers raising their children bilingually in Luxembourgish and English in Great Britain. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15(1), 95–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2011.607229
Lanza, E. (2018). Transnational families as public spaces: Multilingualism, ideologies and identity online. Paper presented at the Third International Conference Language, Identity and Education in Multilingual Contexts (LIEMC18), Dublin, IR, 1–3 February 2018.
Lanza, E. and Wei, L. (2016). Multilingual encounters in transcultural families. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(7), 653–654. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2016.1151198
Lee, C. (2011). Texts and practices of micro-blogging: Status updates on Facebook. In C. Thurlow and K. Mroczek (eds.), Digital discourse: Language in the new media (pp. 110–128). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
May, S. (ed.). (2014). The multilingual turn. Implications for SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education. New York: Routledge.
Morrison, A. (2010). Autobiography in real time: A genre analysis of personal mommy blogging. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 4(2). Accessed on 19 April 2019 from http://cyberpsychology.eu/view.php?cisloclanku=2010120801&article=1
Palys, T. (2008). Purposive sampling. In L. M. Given (ed.), The Sage Encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (vol. 2, pp. 697–698). Los Angeles: Sage.
Papacharissi, Z. (2009). The virtual geographies of social networks: A comparative analysis of Facebook, LinkedIn and ASmallWorld. New Media and Society, 1, 199–220. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444808099577
Romanowski, P. (2021). Family language policy in the Polish diaspora: A focus on Australia. London: Routledge.
Schalley, A. C. and Eisenchlas, S. A. (eds.). (2020). Handbook of home language maintenance and development. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. Routledge, New York.
Slavkov, N. (2016). Family language policy and school language choice: pathways to bilingualism and multilingualism in a Canadian context. International Journal of Multilingualism, 14(4), 378–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2016.1229319
Smith, N., Veenstra, T. and Aboh, E. (ed.). (2020). Advances in contact linguistics. John Benjamins.
Smith-Christmas, C. (2016). Family language policy: Maintaining an endangered language in the home. London: Palgrave Pivot.
Unsworth, S. (2013). Current issues in multilingual first language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 33, 21–50. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190513000044
Walker, J. (2005). Blog (weblog). In D. Herman, M. Jahn and M.-L. Ryan (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 45). New York: Routledge.
Walker Rettberg, J. (2008). Blogging (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Webb, L. M. and Lee, B. S. (2011). Mommy blogs: The centrality of community in the performance of online maternity. In M. Moravec (eds.), Motherhood online (pp. 244–257). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Webb, L. M. and Wang, X. 2013. Techniques for analyzing blogs and micro-blogs. In N. Sappleton (ed.), Advancing research methods with new technologies (pp. 206–227). IGI Global Publishing.
Wright, L. and Higgins, C. (eds.). (2021). Diversifying family language policy. Bloomsbury Publishing.