Family Language Policy in the Context of Saudi Sojourner Families in the UK: Understanding the Complex Language Ideologies and Practices of Bilingual Speakers.

Abstract

Children of transnational families who live temporarily in a host country are raised outside of their parents’ home country during their developmental years. This has important implications for children’s language learning, potentially creating challenges for parents to maintain their children’s first language when confronted by the majority language. In this ethnographic case study, I examined Saudi academic sojourner families’ language policies (FLPs) based on Spolsky’s (2004) language policy model. I used semi-structured interviews with mothers (N = 6) and their children (N = 12), two focus groups, observations and self-audio recordings of the mothers’ and their children’s natural interactions. The findings suggested differences in the mothers’ and children’s ideologies. While the children appeared to construct a translingual identity (Hiratsuka & Pennycook, 2020), the mothers appeared to be influenced by monolingual ideologies. These monolingual ideologies were associated with purist language ideologies (Hill, 1985), Standard Language Ideology (Milroy & Milroy, 1985), and ideologies of authenticity and anonymity (Woolard, 2016). The mothers’ language ideologies regarding their children’s Arabic language were hierarchised based on Arabic forms and varieties that were associated with religion, symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 2000), education and social adjustment into the home. These ideologies influenced the mothers’ language- management strategies, including literacy development and perceptions of language practices. The mothers’ monolingual ideologies encouraged them to engage in formal and informal literacy activities and to employ monolingual language strategies at home. Despite the mothers’ monolingual ideologies, the families’ de facto language practices suggested that both the mothers and their children engaged in similar practices. These bilingual families’ heteroglossic communication practices can be understood via García’s (2009) translanguaging perspective (i.e. flexible bilingualism). The families’ actual language practices suggested that they deployed their linguistic repertoires strategically and dynamically to create meaning, thus challenging the mothers’ monolingual ideologies. Therefore, this study represents an advancement in empirical investigations of translanguaging, and offers new insights and approaches to understanding bilingual speakers’ complex language ideologies and practices.