Situated within thet sociolinguistic subfield known as ‘Family Language Policy’ (‘FLP’), ‘Languages, Families and Society’ (LaFS) investigates how linguistic (in)equality is perpetuated or arrested along linguistic lines. In order to shed light on the complex relationship between the family and society, LaFS took a case study approach to examining the experiences of six families which embody different contexts for multilingualism in the family: an autochthonous minority language (in this case, families in which Irish was used as a home language); transnationalism (in this case, Polish-speaking families); and forced displacement (in this case, Syrian families who spoke Kurdish as a home language). LaFS augmented these case studies by research with various social actors who contributed to the families’ experiences of language in their everyday lives. In taking this approach, LaFS met its three key objectives: 1) to understand how families experience language policy in their daily lives and how this in turn impacts their family-internal linguistic practices 2) is to gain a better understanding of policymakers’ (government officials, support agencies, teachers, etc.) role in designing and implementing policy that affects linguistic minority families 3) to understand the gaps and mismatches between families’ experiences and policymakers’ perceptions and initiatives.
As LaFS is innovative in its approach to different contexts for multilingualism in the family, it is important for society because it highlights key ways in which meso- and macro-level policy can better support minority language-speaking families. Some of the key policy and practice implications which arose from LaFS were: 1) the need to question children with migrant backgrounds' exclusion from Irish language learning due to their age of arrival in Ireland 2) the need to offer support to parents of migrant backgrounds so they can acquire Irish language skills 3) the need for a more comprehensive English language support system and 4) the need for policy and discourse to valorise multilingualism instead of treating it as a burden. Although the LaFS was centred in an Irish context, these policy and practice implications resonate with other European nations, especially ones in which a minority language exists alongside of a majority language.
The main conclusions of the action were:
1)Despite the singular nature of each family’s experience with language, wider society plays a formative role in caregivers’ ability to maintain a particular minority language with their children. The clearest illustration of this emerged from comparing the families with migrant backgrounds: it emerged that the families who spoke Polish as a home language had much more success in transmitting the language to their children than the families who spoke Kurdish as a home language. This is explained by several key factors: a) The availability of Polish complementary schools in comparison to the lack of Kurdish complementary schools b) Perceived general societal acceptance of Polish, as Poles were among the first groups of immigrants to establish themselves in Ireland following the 2004 EU expansion c) The high availability of Polish language materials in supporting children’s literacy d) Prior to COVID-19, the relative ease of the Polish families to have extended visits in Poland.
2)Language is one key means by which inequality is perpetuated in society; however, as LaFS showed, language is often overlooked when it comes to issues of social justice, especially in comparison to more ‘visible’ markers of difference.
3)The families’ valuing of multilingualism, and especially treating all additional languages (including Irish) as an asset, is in opposition to wider discourses and policies which treat additional languages as a burden.
