Characterised by media saturation and hypermobility, contemporary society has presented polymedia as an integral element of family life. The expansion and recognition of polymedia in language learning calls for exploring its role in heritage language (HL) maintenance. However, despite growing research interest in polymedia in diverse realms, there…

This paper reports a study that used a quantitative method to explore literacy planning in Chinese kindergartener families as well as the influences of socioeconomic status (SES) on it. The conceptual framework of family language policy (FLP), which consists of three components--language ideology, language management, and language practice, was…

Governmental language policies in China have varied across recent decades, including the intensive promotion of Mandarin as a language of unification and public championing of regional varieties. Concomitantly, increasing urbanisation, regional migration, and cross-linguistic marriage have led to greater use of Mandarin in private domains. Given…

This study explores the effect of different family compositions formed as a result of marriage patterns in today's Turkish immigrant community in Flanders on family language policies. Based on in-depth interviews with 26 families, grouped in three different family compositions (mixed-marriages, local intra-ethnic marriages and marriages through…

Despite the unique status of English as a super-power among foreign languages in Korea, and researchers' increasing interest in Korean parents' zeal for achieving their children's early bilingualism and willingness to invest heavily in private English education outside of school, insufficient attention has been paid to the role of parental…

This study aims to explore how ethnic identity, linguistic ideology, and family capital work in interaction in shaping Korean-Chinese migrant families' multilingual planning against the backdrop of China's rapid urbanisation and internal migration. A model of investment (Darvin and Norton [2015]. "Identity and a Model of Investment in Applied…

The present study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire assessing parents' beliefs about, and attitudes toward, supporting young children's English as a second/foreign language development -- Parent English Language Belief and Attitude Questionnaire (PELBA-Q). The PELBA-Q was piloted with 173 parents of kindergarten-aged children and…

In this study, the relationship between the family language practice and the level of linguistic (in)security of adolescent Gagauz speakers is examined in the context of an endangered language. To this end, a language-use questionnaire and linguistic insecurity scale were administered to 674 participants. The questionnaire included questions…

Based on Spolsky's (2004) tripartite framework for language policy, this study explores language practices, language ideology, and language management in relation to minority languages, Putonghua, and English in ethnic minority families in Yunnan, China. Through observations of and interviews with nine interethnic marriage families in Kena Village…

Drawing on data from a longitudinal linguistic ethnographic study of a trilingual (English, Japanese, Spanish) family in Australia, this paper suggests that rather than looking at their language use in terms of family language policy, better insights can be gained by exploring the translingual family repertoire. This repertoire is a central…

Limited research to date has addressed the language socialisation of transnational children during global movement with their parents. The aim of this study was to explore the complexity of language socialisation for a transnational child experiencing a multilingual environment both at home and in preschool. This transnational English- and…

Assessing vocabulary knowledge is an important part of establishing language proficiency in bilingual children. The crosslinguistic lexical tasks (CLTs) provide a framework for testing vocabulary development in three-to-six year-olds using a standard procedure and comparable items for multiple languages. This study describes the development of the…

Using census data from 2001 to 2016, we provide evidence that the French language is gaining ground in Quebec. We show that the apparent decline of French in Quebec is linked to a rise in multilingualism, especially when French is one of the multiple languages spoken. We argue that the census statistics are distorted by inter-linguistic marriages…

The younger generations are considered one of the principal agents in the maintenance or shift of any language. In the cycle of the language maintenance, children learn their mother tongue, and pass it on to the future generations. The cycle is broken when they no longer speak the mother tongue. The language choices they make are particularly…

This article examines the visibility of an African language, isiZulu, in the public domain of education in South Africa. It explores synergies and disjunctures in language use and exposure for children across the continuum from home to ECD centre and early primary school, and how they affect children's competence in reading in two languages by…