Festival of Ideas 23 October 2010
Bilingual families as social units Edith Harding-Esch
Key elements Parents’ language(s) Community’s language(s) Strategy adopted ( ‘sustainability’ ) Language of the person who will look after the Baby/ family ? Parents’ attitude to bilingualism and views re: their own language? Grandparents ? Their owns attitudes? Internet users?
1. One person-One Language
Parents: Different native languages, each having some degree of competence in the other’s language Community: The language of one parent is the dominant language of the community Strategy: Each parents speaks his/her own language to the child from birth.
Example: Taeschner (1983) German Mother, Italian Father, Italian community/ Leopold / Yip and Matthews, 2007
One person-One Language: Issues
‘Some degree of competence’ in the other’s language: ? very important: ‘as high as possible’ is the answerGranger, Colette A.( 2004) Silence in Second Language Learning: A psychoanalytic Reading, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters (Even if it may not seem important at early stages, children are very good at using language to play ‘mum vs dad’ to get their way)
The dominant language of the community. This is ambiguous: ‘the community’ in which the family lives may be different from the national community whose language is the medium of education.( one can live in Mexican Spanish in San Francisco)
Each parent speaks his/her own language to the child from birth: do not forget that there may be a several children in family.
2. Non-dominant home language
Parents: Different native languages Community: Language of one of the parents is dominant language of the community Strategy: Both parents speak the nondominant language to the child. Dominant language: acquired outside the home and in nursery school. Ex: Fantini (1985): Spanish mother, English father, English community. Harding-Esch
2. Non-dominant home language: Issues
Dominant language: may be acquired outside the home and in nursery school but:
It is also around in the media, TV, radio , in the home + visitors to your home etc. In nursery school, there may be children and/or staff who speak lots of other languages.
One needs to analyse what the actual situation is
3: Non-dominant home language without community support
Parents: share the same language Community: dominant language not that of the parents Strategy: parents speak their language to the child
Ex: Haugen (1953) Norwegian mother, Norwegian father, English community.(p.133)
3: Non-dominant home language without community support : Issues
Community: dominant language not that of the parents, but this does not necessarily mean that you’re isolated now that the internet makes it possible to exchange on a daily basis.
4. ‘Double non-dominant home language without community support’
Parents: Different native languages Community: dominant language different from either of the parents’ languages Strategy: Parents each speak their own language to the child from birth Ex: Elwert (1959) English mother, German father, Italian community.
5. ‘Non-native parents’
Parents: share the same native language
Community: dominant language same as parents
Strategy: One of the parents always addresses the child in a language which is not his/her native language.
Ex: Saunders (1982) English mother, English ( German) father, English community
5. ‘Non-native parents’ : Note Ex of successful case: Saunders (1982) English mother, English ( German) father, English community the languages concerned were not stigmatised and perceived as ‘socially desirable languages’
6 ‘Mixed Languages’
Parents: both bilingual Community: sectors of the community may also be bilingual Strategy: parents code-switch and mix languages Ex: Tabouret–Keller (1962) French/German mother, French/German father, French/German community
6 ‘Mixed Languages’: Major issue Bi-lingualism and bi-dialectalism to be distinguished. Parents’ level of education determinant Ex: *Tabouret–Keller (1962) French/ Alsatian German mother, French/German father, French/German community (working class background child). A lot of mixing. Awareness of being bilingual: late. NOTE: This is the most frequent case: multilingual communities are in the majority in the world=> individual and societal multilingualism coincide (Romaine, 2001)
7. Increasingly frequent types
Influence of social evolution in shaping new configurations, for ex:
‘Single parent families’ ‘Reconstructed families’
Also, evolution of technological environments influencing the range of strategies available
References
Elwert ,W.T.(1959) Das Zweisprachige Individuum: Ein Selbstzeugnis, Abhandlungen der geites-und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse, Nr 6, 265-344. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Fantini A. (1985) Language Acquisition of a Bilingual Child : a Sociolinguistic Perspective. San Diego: College Hill Press. Harding-Esch, Edith and Philip Riley (2003), The Bilingual Family, CUP Haugen, E. (1953) The Norwegian Language In America: A study in Bilingual Behavior, Philadelphia, U of Pennsylvania Press. Leopold, W, (1939) Speech Development of a Bilingual Child: A linguist’s record Vol. 1. Vocabulary Growth in the first two years. Evanston Illinois: Northwestern University Press. ---- (1947) Vol.2. Sound learning in the first two years. -----( 1949a) Vol.3 Grammar and General problems. -----(1949b) Vol.4 Diary from Age 2. Romaine, Suzan (2001): Bilingualism, Blackwells Saunders (1982) Bilingual Children: Guidance for the Family Tabouret-Keller, (1962) ‘L’acquisition du Langage parlé chez un petit enfant en milieu bilingue’, Problèmes de Psycholinguistique, 8, 205-219. Taeschner ( 1983) The Sun is Feminine: a Study on Language Acquisition in Bilingual Children. Berlin: Springer Yip, Virginia and Stephen Matthews (2007) The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact.Cambridge, CUP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Granger, Colette A.(2004) Silence in Second Language Learning: A psychoanalytic Reading, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters
