As the first study addressing family language policy (FLP) in d/Deaf-parented families in China, the current research explores language ideologies, practices and management held by different members within the families. Children of d/Deaf adults (Codas) form an unusual bimodal bilingual group, and the study concerning this group prompts us to…

This study explores the language habitus and practices in one Vietnamese immigrant family in Melbourne. It contributes to research on family language policy in multicultural contexts. Using a Bourdieusian framework to explore the interrelationships between language beliefs, practices and management in a nuanced way, the article discusses how the…

This study investigated and compared family language policies (FLPs) from the perspectives of two groups of Singaporean bilingual children: 2,971 English-Chinese and 780 English-Malay children (aged 9-11 years). It also examined how different FLP components -- namely, language beliefs, practices, and management -- influenced their leisure reading…

Children and young people from migrated families often learn host languages faster than their parents might do, and from very young ages they help their parents, families or community members by translating or interpreting, known as child language brokering (CLB). Language brokers need to mediate with different languages in different contexts and…

Claiming to rely on "science," many well-intentioned "experts" offer advice on how to "close the gap"--word gap, language gap, achievement gap--between disadvantaged and advantaged children. Based on both research and personal experience, this advice promises magic solutions to apparently complex and intractable…

Informed by family language policy (FLP) as the theoretical framework, I illustrate in this paper how language ideologies can be incongruous and language policies can be conflicting through three multilingual families in Singapore representing three major ethnic groups--Chinese, Malay and Indian. By studying their family language audits, observing…

Purpose: The author investigated the language practices of 10 bilingual, Chinese/English-speaking, immigrant mothers with their children with autism spectrum disorders. The aim was to understand (a) the nature of the language practices, (b) their constraints, and (c) their impact. Method: The author employed in-depth phenomenological interviews…

Monolingual English-speaking children in the United States express social preferences for speakers of their native language with a native accent. Here we explore the nature of children's language-based social preferences through research with children in South Africa, a multilingual nation. Like children in the United States, Xhosa South African…

This special issue of "mediAzioni," the online journal of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies on Translation, Languages and Culture (SITLeC) of the University of Bologna at Forli, derives from the "Study Day on Child Language Brokering" held in Forli in 2008. The Study Day began with a morning session during which…

Children come to school with the language of their families and communities. For many children, this means that they speak a nonstandard dialect, an English dialect not used as the primary means of instruction in schools. Examples of dialects include African American English (AAE; i.e., Ebonics), Hawaiian Creole, Hispanic English, and Southern…

This study examined immigrants' perceptions of their native language and factors that enhance or hinder its use and maintenance. Participants (N = 208) included immigrants to the United States. Results showed that immigrants perceive their native language positively, desire that their children use it alongside English, and perceive negative…

In a study of people's responses to the allegedly sex-neutral terms "man,""mankind,""human being,""person," and "individual," 43 11-year-old boys and girls and 127 young men and women were asked to read sentences containing the terms and assign referents for each sentence. Referents were assigned by choosing from a group of pictorial symbols…

Three studies of language brokering among linguistic minority (LM) children are reviewed and discussed. In child language brokering, children act as linguistic mediators, not translators or interpreters, for their limited-English-proficient parents and relatives. The purpose of the studies was to describe brokering in LM communities and to examine…

Heritage languages (HL) are language spoken by the children of immigrants or by those who immigrated to a country when young. The purpose of this article is to briefly review what is known about heritage language development over time and to identify some gaps in people's knowledge. In this article, the authors consider three aspects: how much HL…

This essay contrasts two approaches to household bilingual education with respect to the notion of identity. The notion of lingualism is presented. Lingualism emphasizes the continuum between monolinguals and bilinguals through a nonquantifying understanding of language (including speech, writing, gestures, and language potential). Kouritzin's…