The South in the North: Raciolinguistic Perspectives on Family Language Policy in Sweden

Abstract

The thesis examines the FLP-making practices and multilingual familial experiences of some Southern migrant families in Sweden. Specifically, the thesis investigates (1) children’s voices and perspectives on their multilingual repertoire and multilingual familial experiences; (2) how family members experience the interplay between the majority and minority languages in their daily familial interactions, and (3) how individual FLP decisions and practices interact with the broader language-related discourses and ideologies in the majority society. The thesis employs multipronged methodological approaches, including language portrait methods of body mapping, space-mapping, post-mapping narration, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and media text analysis. The thesis is based on three articles, and the analysis draws on a multi-layered framework, which brings notions and approaches from different analytical traditions, such as child agency, language ideology, raciolinguistic ideologies and raciolinguistic perspectives, and critical discourse analysis, into productive dialogue. The results indicate that FLP experiences are filled with ambivalence and language choice dilemmas, influenced by both family-internal factors (such as family constellation, language proficiency asymmetry, competing linguistic demands and interests, and child agency), and also by family-external factors, namely racialized perceptions of languages and standard language ideology that appear to be internalized and enacted by family members, which affect their FLP decisions and language use practices. Overall, the results reveal that the process of language socialization in minority languages is not merely a matter of a private FLP decision that can be practiced based on individual dispositions and beliefs; rather, it appears to be shaped, in part, by prevailing language ideologies and identity-related discourses in society. This could be because communicative practice in a minority language is not only a means of fostering identity expression and continuity in the heritage language and culture, but also a linguistic practice contributing to the social positioning of otherness. Ultimately, the theoretical argument of the thesis is that understanding the FLP experience of Southern families in the Global North needs critical and social justice lenses since they are situated in a context where their racial and linguistic identities come into play against the monoracial culture of a monoglossic standard.