Background: This study explores how family language policies (FLPs) in multilingual homes where isiXhosa is the primary language influence caregiver choices regarding children's language development and education. Objectives: The study aims to give insight on how non-nuclear family structures in a selected sample of Western Cape families are…

This paper provides fresh insights on how PIs (Polarity Items) in non-veridical contexts (questions and conditionals) are represented in the grammar of multilingual learners of Catalan at different stages of development. It explores how this non-native grammatical system interacts with other previously acquired systems of negation and the implicit…

This study explores the perspectives of the two authors, who have very different language backgrounds, reflecting the subtleties of first and additional language development. We distinguish between a 'literacy-track' (i.e. starting from written language) and an oracy track (starting from spoken language). We draw on duoethnography for our dialogic…

The research report describes the ability of Kazakh preschool children to tell narratives relating to mental states, and the connection with theory of mind tasks about false beliefs. Three groups of preschool children (N = 29; 3-, 4-, and 5- year-olds) from the city of Almaty were tested in the Kazakh language. The results show very high…

Background: The article critiques the monoglossic ideologies that dominate current educational practices in South Africa, which often marginalise indigenous African languages and fail to facilitate the dynamic multilingual realities of learners. It examines the impact of English language pedagogies in multilingual settings, particularly in South…

In this paper, the authors report the findings of a narrative review of extant international research literature to propose a conceptual model for how young children's language is entangled with place. Educational policy, curriculum documents, and speech and language therapy assessments in England tend to frame children as placeless and treat the…

This article examines multilingual language use in two groups of children, one group at a state school, and one at a private IB school. The IB school has earlier been assumed to reflect an 'elite' multilingualism. Three research questions are posed: to what extent is the children's language use multilingual, what are their typological profiles,…

To inform the design of humanizing pedagogies that draw on the whole of learners' linguistic resources, educators must come to know students as language users, and, more centrally, support students to become aware of the dynamism of their own linguistic repertoires. We highlight one instructional approach--"linguistic cartography"--for…

The interaction between multilingualism and emotions has so far mostly been researched in Northern contexts. The findings obtained suggest that the first language is typically preferred for emotional and mental activities (i.e. 'first language primacy'). In this article, we extend this area of investigation to Africa. We use the Bilingualism and…

The complexity of language contact and intercultural communication has generated various issues in relation to language use and education. As one of the many Chinese dialects ("fangyans"), the Chaoshan dialect ("Teochew") has been affected by the extensive promotion of Putonghua, the key lingua franca across China, and English,…

The dynamic nature of multilingual families and their language policies has been touched upon by numerous studies. Adding to the field, the present study assesses the stability of family language policy in a standardised and quantitative manner. To this end, a linguistically heterogenous sample consisting of 488 multilingual families raising young…

This dissertation is a quantitative analysis of language proficiencies through the lens of the dynamic model of multilingualism, using survival analysis to evaluate time until thresholds of foreign language proficiency are reached and nonparametric tests (Wilcoxon signed rank and Kruskal-Wallis) to compare proficiencies at distinct time intervals…

This book demonstrates the importance of raising multilingual children in the UK, both for the children's own benefit and for the benefit of society as a whole. Against the backdrop of both the rich linguistic diversity already present in the UK and the challenges faced by any languages other than a few major European languages to find any space…

Classrooms with multilingual students are rich spaces for enacting linguistically sustaining practices that encourage students to use all their language resources. When teachers have some knowledge of their students' home languages, they can facilitate making connections across languages which strengthens students' language development. In this…

The dissertation presents a pioneering investigation into child speech among Bikolano children. It aims to address the underdescription and underdocumentation of Child Bikol as spoken in the Philippines. Bikol, an Austronesian macrolanguage, often coexists with more dominant languages, making Bikolano children both emergent multilinguals and…