Routledge Family Language Policies in a Multilingual World: Opportunities, Challenges, and Consequences (ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series)

Through case studies from around the world, this book illustrates the opportunities and challenges facing families negotiating the issues of language maintenance and language learning in the home. Every family living in a bi/multilingual environment faces the question of what language(s) to speak with their children and must make a decision, consciously or otherwise, about these issues. Exploring links between language policy in the home and wider society in a range of diverse settings, the contributors utilize various research tools, including interviews, questionnaires, observations, and archival document analysis, to explore linguistic ideologies and practices of family members in the home, illuminating how these are shaped by macro-level societal processes. Review "An important contribution to the new studies that help understand why the family is such an important site for the study of language policy. This interesting collection of cases makes clear the complex external influences and internal beliefs (some probably mistaken) that influence language choice in the family and neighborhood." Bernard Spolsky, Professor Emeritus, Bar-Ilan University, Israel "Family language transmission is closely intertwined with social and political macro developments. By shaping language transmission, families themselves act as political players, (un)consciously opposing or following power relations. This volume on family language choice thus provides invaluable perspectives on potential balance and power shifts within the near future and in different contexts around the world." Katharina Brizić, Professor, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany About the Author John Macalister is Associate Professor in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Seyed Hadi Mirvahedi is Lecturer at Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Iran.