‘Are we on the same page?’: Parents versus children in shaping family language policy in the context of return migration
Journal cover Glottodidactica, volume 50, no. 1, year 2023

Mots-clés

heritage language maintenance
FLP
return migration
L2 loss
child agency

Comment citer

Wąsikiewicz-Firlej, E. (2026). ‘Are we on the same page?’: Parents versus children in shaping family language policy in the context of return migration. Glottodidactica, 50(1). Consulté à l’adresse https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/gl/article/view/36943

Résumé

ABSTRACT: Return migration has been probably granted the lowest attention in the field of family language policy (FLP). The current paper seeks to address this lacuna in research and explores the dynamics of FLP of a Polish family in the context of their temporary migration to Germany and return migration to Poland. The authors investigate how mobility affects FLP (RQ1), especially towards L1 (Polish) and L2 (German), and what the children’s role in shaping FLP is in the context of migration and return migration (RQ2). The study takes a qualitative, interview-based study design, supported by the Language Portrait technique. An analysis of the interview data has evidenced the parents’ strong support for the maintenance of L1 throughout the whole process of migration and return migration and the lack of it in the case of L2 after the return to Poland. The results have also evidenced that individuals in a family, including children, have significant autonomy and agency and might shape their independent FLPs, which are aligned neither with their parents nor siblings.

Références

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