‘I need to learn Vietnamese to speak to my grandma’: the place of family relationships in family language policy

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on family relationships and their potential to successfully impact family language policy. The interview data with two bilingual Vietnamese immigrant families in Australia were analysed to show examples of successful versus unsuccessful family language policy practices. Using Bourdieu’s (1986) notion of capital, the study explored the reciprocal relationships between family relationships (family social capital) and the children’s language competence (linguistic capital) through the families' accounts of their language use and practices, and the children’s aspirations for their future languageuse. Findings point to the significant role in fostering connectedness among family members, and its importance to home language interaction within immigrant families. The study reinforces the role of the family context as an important environment that influences immigrant children’s positive bilingual development.

KEYWORDS:

• Family language policy
• family relationships
• children’s voice
• capital

Introduction

Studies of language policy are concerned with the nexus between language ideologies and beliefs (defined as ‘what people think should be the language of the community’), language practices (defined as ‘the choices of language variety made by speakers in a community’) and language management (defined as the ‘efforts by people or institutions inside or outside a community to modify the beliefs and practices of members of the community’) (Spolsky, 2021, p. 9). Family language policy is a sub-domain of this research area.

Among the limited studies that discuss factors that influence family language policy, major attention has been paid to the role of macro factors such as socio-cultural, economic, geographical, political and socio-linguistic factors in shaping family language policy (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; Spolsky, 2021) or micro factors that are parent-centred such as parents’ expectations, education and language experience, and knowledge of bilingualism (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009). This body of work has made important contributions to the understanding of the different external and internal forces that influence family language policies. However, there is still a need for further studies about the role of non-linguistic aspects of family language policy (Palviainen, 2020). Specifically, as pointed out by researchers such as Palviainen (2020) and Smith-Christmas (2017), the role of psycho-emotional (or affective) factors such as family relationships in family language policy, the focus in this paper, warrant further investigation.

Family language policy is different from larger-scale language policy because the family is a unique, intimate domain that is attached to psycho-emotional dimensions; for example, emotions, desires and aspirations for the future, feelings of adoration, dislike, isolation or closeness (Palviainen, 2020; Tannenbaum, 2012). Further, as ‘family cohesion’ – the ties and bonds between family members – is an important characteristic of the family unit¹, the exploration of family relationships holds a central place in discussions of family language policy.

In this paper, we discuss the reciprocal association between family relationships and children’s language competence through an analysis of interviews conducted with the children and adults in two Vietnamese families in Melbourne. We seek to answer the following research question:

How do family relationships shape the children’s home language use and their aspirations?

The context

As a multicultural nation with a long history of migration, Australia is now one of the world’s biggest destinations for migrants with 7.7 million foreign-born people now residing in Australia [Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2023]. Once the ‘White Australia Policy’ was abolished in 1975, Vietnamese immigrants began to enter Australia in great numbers (D'Angelo, 1991). There were 270,340 Vietnamese-born people residing in Australia as of June 2020, an increase of almost one-third compared to the 2010 figure of 203,770 (Department of Home Affairs, 2022). The Vietnamese born population constitutes the sixth biggest immigrant group in Australia (Department of Home Affairs, 2022) and the second largest immigrant group in Victoria (ABS, 2022). A decade ago, Vietnamese was the second most common language in addition to English spoken by children aged 4–5 in Australia (Verdon et al., 2014). However, children remain at risk of not being able to maintain their home language as they enter primary education where the dominant language is English (Bui et al., 2022).

In turning to the issue of home language maintenance in the Victorian setting, a number of problems have created obstacles to successful home language maintenance. They include the neglect of home language support and offerings in mainstream settings (Eisenchlas & Schalley, 2019; Rubino, 2010), and issues that arise inthe Victorian Schools of Languages and Community Language Schools, or the institutions that offer extracurricular instruction in languages in Victoria. In some Community Language Schools, for example, a lack of trained teachers (Cruickshank, 2019) and teaching materials (Eisenchlas & Schalley, 2019) still persist. As well, a limited number of languages are offered in these institutions (Eisenchlas & Schalley, 2019). Therefore, investigations about family language policy and how children’s languages can be supported have a potential part to play by adding to understandings about both immigrant families’ language beliefs and what children and adult family members themselves report they do to maintain their home language as they interact with each other. Findings about these issues are important in supporting families to maintain, extend and support their children’s bilingualism.

Studies on the role of family relationships in home language maintenance

Children interact with their immediate family members on a day-to-day basis and develop their social and language skills (Paat, 2013), including their home language in the case of bilingual families. One area of research attention in bilingual families has been the role of family relationships and the positive roles of family members in fostering children’s attachment to the home language.

Prior research has discussed the impact of solid and affirming relationships between children and their parents on the development of children’s positive attitudes towards the home language. For instance, Tannenbaum and Howie’s (2002) study of 40 Chinese-Australian children aged 9–12, revealed that the children were more likely to use the home language if their families had close and less hierarchical family relationships. They emphasised the reciprocal impact of what they termed ‘a two-way relationship’, through which ‘close family relationships may increase language maintenance in children, but, at the same time, a high level of mother tongue maintenance by the child may contribute to family cohesion and to positive relationships’ (p. 420).

Tannenbaum and Berkovich’s (2005) study of 180 adolescent Russian-Israeli children aged 14–18, similarly uncovered an association between the children-parent relationships and the children’s attitudes towards home language maintenance. The study reported that the adolescent children who had strong bonds with their parents tended to have a positive attitude towards the home language. Melo-Pfeifer’s (2015) study of a Portuguese community in Germany that employed children’s drawings as a major method of data collection revealed that the minority language, Portuguese, was associated with the positive role of the children’s family members, especially grandparents, who were instrumental in facilitating the transmission of, and the positive affective attachment to the heritage language. Through attention to paternal roles and voices in children’s home language development, Romanowski (2022) reported that Polish – Australian fathers’ connections with their children and their investment in their children’s home language development regarding resources, time and motivation, resulted in positive bilingual childrearing. In a similar vein, (Wright, 2020) revealed how familyhood in single-parent families was constructed through parents’ and children’s everyday interactions in children’s home language.

While the above studies have underscored the positive affective dimensions of the home language, it is important to acknowledge that there are also negative dimensions. Research has reported the association between loose family connections and unsuccessful home language maintenance (Fillmore, 2000; Tseng & Fuligni, 2000). For example, Tseng and Fuligni’s (2000) large-scale study explored this reciprocal relationship when adolescents and their parents did not share the same language. This led to adolescents’ feelings of isolation and disconnection from their parents. Communication breakdown between parents and children who did not speak the home language has also been reported in Fillmore’s (2000) study of immigrant families in America. The continuing discussion of the tense and conflictive family relationships between children and parents due to language barriers is also echoed by De Houwer (2020). Beyond the nuclear family unit, Schecter and Bayley (1997) revealed a Mexican American grandmother’s feelings of desolation due to the communication breakdown between her and her granddaughters and characterised the home language as a ‘sweeter’ language for family conversations (p. 534).

Other researchers have also reported adults’ displays of their authority by scolding and disciplining their children in the home language (e.g. Luykx, 2003; Pavlenko, 2004; Smith-Christmas, 2014; Zentella, 1997). In some cases, these actions have hindered children from conversing regularly with their parents and from using the home language (e.g. Luykx, 2003; Smith-Christmas, 2014; Zentella, 1997). An example, from the children’s perspective, is Smith-Christmas’ (2014) study of a bilingual Gaelic-English family in Scotland. Smith-Christmas found that the children tended to use the home language (Scottish Gaelic) less often because their father disciplined them using that language.

Overall, the above-reviewed studies have touched upon the different aspects of the association between family relationships and home language maintenance in both positive and negative ways. While they have provided valuable scholarship on the link between adults’ connection with the children and the outcomes of home language maintenance, they have mostly relied on adults’ perspectives to report the findings. This is the gap that our study aims to fill. As a study of ongoing linguistic development and home language maintenance in Vietnamese Australian families, our work adds children’s perspectives to the existing research on the role of family relationships in family language policy. The study aims to uncover the nuanced transferability between family relationships in family language policy and children’s home language use and aspirations through Bourdieu’s (1986) notion of capital as the theoretical framing. It also extends Bourdieu’s notion of social capital which is more frequently discussed in terms of the larger society than within the smaller sociolinguistic domain of the family.

Theoretical orientation: Exploring family relationships through Bourdieu’s (1986) notion of capital

Bourdieu (1986) describes three main types of capital: economic, cultural and social. Economic capital refers to the material wealth that people possess. Cultural capital can be understood as the culture, knowledge, competence and other cultural fulfillments such as qualifications that a person can obtain. Social capital is associated with values attained by people’s connections and attachment to groups. It is noted that capital is interchangeable, which means one type of capital can turn into another (Bourdieu, 1986). The concept of social capital is the most relevant to our interest in the role of family relationships in shaping family language policy because it enables the exploration of social capital in relation to cultural capital (or in our case, more narrowly, children’s linguistic competence viewed as linguistic capital). It is noted that connections to a group do not exist as ‘a natural given’ that is created irreversibly by an act of endorsement; for example, through ‘the genealogical definition of kinship relations’ (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 249) within a family. It is through the limitless efforts and interactions of individuals that long-lasting and valuable connections are created and maintained. This may in turn lead to people’s other economic, cultural and social attainments. Bourdieu’s (1986) above-discussed notions of capital will be employed for data analysis to explore the role of family relationships in children’s home language use and aspirations.

Method

This study belongs to a larger research project, which was given ethics approval by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC). This study reported here is based on the analysis of interviews conducted with adults and children in two families as summarised in the table below.

Table 1. Participants’ demographic information.

Families^a	Adults’ age and occupation	All children	Participating child(ren)	Language use in the family
Family 1	Mrs Nghi, early 70s, retiree	Elly (12), girl, secondary student	Elly (12)	Sibling talk: English
	Mr. Duy, 40, businessman	Tilly (10), girl, primary student	Tilly (10)	Grandmother-children talk: Vietnamese
	Ms Ngan, 39, business woman			Parent-children talk: Vietnamese and English
Family 2	Ms Ha, 33, childcare worker	Andrew (11), boy, primary student	Andrew (11)	Sibling talk: English
	Mr. Dong, 39, handyman	Jimmy (7), boy, primary student	Jimmy (7)	Parent-children talk: Vietnamese and English
		Kelly (1), girl

^aPseudonyms were used for all research participants.

Family 1

Ms Ngan came to Australia in 2002 at the age of 22. Mr Duy accompanied his family to Australia at the age of 17 in 1996. Ms Ngan and Mr Duy have two children, Elly and Tilly who were born in Australia. Neither Elly’s nor Tilly’s school taught Vietnamese. Elly and Tilly attended after hours programmes in Vietnamese at a community language school near their house. Ms Ngan and Mr Duy run a clothing business, which has been passed down from Mrs Nghi (the children’s grandmother). Ms Ngan and Mr Duy rely on Mrs Nghi to look after their children during out-of-school hours. Mrs Nghi lived with the family when the children were young and they continue to have daily contact with her as she lives close by.

Family 2

Ms Ha and Mr Dong arrived in Australia in 2006 and 2005 respectively, and their three children (Andrew, Jimmy and Kelly) were born in Australia. Similar to Elly and Tilly’s case, neither Andrew’s nor Jimmy’s school offered Vietnamese. Andrew and Jimmy used to attend after hours programmes in Vietnamese at a community language programme for a year or two but could not maintain their attendance. The family have many Vietnamese relatives and friends in Australia with whom they socialise regularly.

Data collection methods

As stated earlier, the data for this paper is drawn from the interviews with the adults and children. In family 1, the grandmother (Mrs Nghi), the mother (Ms Ngan) and two children (Elly and Tilly) took part in the interview. In family 2, interview data with the father (Mr Dong) and his two children (Andrew and Jimmy) were analysed.

All the interviews were audio-taped, and the participants were invited to nominate their language of preference for the interview. All participants were interviewed twice except for Mrs Nghi and Mr Dong, who took part in one interview only. The analysis drew on approximately five hours of interview data. Each interview with the adults lasted from 30 minutes to one hour and with the children from 15 to 30 minutes. Transcription of the data was conducted by the first author – a proficient Vietnamese and English speaker, who also translated the interviews that were conducted in Vietnamese (i.e. interviews with Elly and Tilly, who chose to speak in Vietnamese). Verbatim transcription was employed to record what was said, and the transcriptions captured both the interviewer’s questions and the interviewees’ responses to retain the conversational quality and flow of the interactions. During the transcription process, participants were contacted for clarification when necessary. The completed transcripts were also sent back to research participants to review the content. The transcribed interview data were double-checked by a proficient English and Vietnamese user to ensure accuracy of the translations. The translations are presented in italics in the transcripts.

Interviews with the children

Being aware of the intricate nature of interviewing children, piloting of the interview questions for clarity and appropriateness was carried out with Author 1’s nine-year-old daughter, who was a Vietnamese-English bilingual. Before the first interview with child participants, Author 1, the interviewer, also gave a verbal explanation of the research project in simple language, upon which the children verbally consented to participate. During the interviews, the interviewer worked to create a comfortable atmosphere so that the children could regard it as a conversation rather than a formal interview. The children were also invited to seek clarification, ask additional questions and request adjustment of the speed of the interviews.

Researcher reflexivity

In this study, the first author, who conducted the interviews with the participants, is a married Vietnamese female researcher living in Melbourne. Thus, her positionality was both emic and etic. Her etic perspective was determined by her role as researcher, interviewer and observer of the phenomenon which required her to adhere to the research procedures and conduct the study in an ethical manner. Her emic perspective was determined by her membership of the social group under study (although she did not share the immigration experience of her research participants). The first author acknowledges that she may have brought her values into the research, and her interpretations of the researched issue may have been shaped by her cultural and historical background. This, however, was counterbalanced by the second and third authors’ positionalities who did not share the participants’ cultural background, even though their children are bilingual. The intersections in the positionalities were productively applied and emerged in identifying themes, in selection of extracts and in analysing the data.

Data analysis methods

To analyse the interview data, the six-step thematic analysis procedure as proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006, p. 87) was employed. Excerpts of the interview data from each of the families that discussed the children’s and adults’ perspectives on language use and how the adults and children perceived the different values of English and Vietnamese in different settings, were selected and then analysed and discussed by the three authors to explore the role of family relationships in family language policy. Bourdieu’s (1986) notion of capital as discussed in the theoretical framework was then applied to discuss the reciprocal association between family relationships and home language maintenance.

Findings

In exploring the reciprocal association between the relationships within the family and home language maintenance, we examine the interview excerpts with Elly and Tilly, Mrs Nghi and Ms Ngan from the first family and Andrew, Jimmy and Mr Dong from the second family. The central theme that emerged from our analysis of the two families was the role of family connectedness in the children’s attitudes towards speaking the home language as well as their aspirations for future language use. As will be seen in the discussion of the samples, while the children in the first family (Elly and Tilly) reported the importance of both English and Vietnamese in their present and future lives in Australia, the children in the second family (Andrew and Jimmy) reported greater attachment to English. Analysis and discussion begin by examining the interviews of Family 1.

Elly and Tilly: Living in a close-knit family

In the following interview excerpts, while recognising the importance of the mastery of the majority language – English for their future – Elly and Tilly invoked their future selves as bilinguals by explicitly expressing their desire to still be able to speak Vietnamese in future for communicating with family.

Excerpt 1 (Interview with Elly, aged 12, discussing aspirations for language learning, 2nd interview)

Table

1.Interviewer:	Con mong muốn thế nào về việc mình có thể nói được một vài ngôn
2.	ngữ?
	Would you like to be able to speak several languages?
3.Elly:	Dạ, con rất thích điều đó ạ.
	Yes, I would like it a lot.
4.Interviewer:	Vậy khi con lớn lên con hy vọng sẽ sử dụng tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt,
5.	hoặc những thứ tiếng khác con biết như thế nào?
	When you grow up, how do you think you will use English, Vietnamese or other languages you know?
6.Elly:	Dạ con cần phải học tiếng Việt để nói chuyện với bà. Với tiếng Anh thì
7.	thường xuyên con phải xài vì ở đây là Úc con phải nói tiếng Anh.
	Yes, I need to learn Vietnamese to speak to my grandma. For English have to use it often here, because this is Australia, I need to speak English.

Excerpt 2 (Interview with Tilly, aged 10, discussing her aspirations for language learning, 2nd interview)

Table

1.Interviewer:	Khi con lớn lên con hy vọng sẽ sử dụng tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt, hoặc
2.	những thứ tiếng khác con biết như thế nào?
	When you grow up, how do you think you will use English, Vietnamese or other languages you know?
3.Tilly:	Lớn lên thì con muốn dùng tiếng Anh nhiều hơn. Còn tiếng Việt thì con
4.	còn muốn nói được để nói chuyện với ba mẹ, với dì, với bà.
	When I grow up, I want to use more English. For Vietnamese, I still want to be able to use it so that I can talk to my parents, my aunts and my grandma.

In both excerpts, the preservation of the connection among the family members was stated as a goal for maintaining Vietnamese by the sisters để nói chuyện với bà (to speak to my grandma) (line 6, Elly, excerpt 1), để nói chuyện với ba mẹ, với dì, với bà (talk to my parents, my aunts and my grandma) (line 4, Tilly, excerpt 2). In excerpt 2, we note Tilly’s choice of còn muốn nói được (still want to be able to use Vietnamese) (line 4), which invokes a future use of the language. Tilly’s and Elly’s Vietnamese at the present time was good enough for them to communicate well with their relatives.² Yet, both girls wanted to maintain a level of competence in Vietnamese in the future to continue to converse well with their grandmother and, for Tilly, other close relatives. For Elly and Tilly, Vietnamese is constructed as linguistic capital that carries important values for their present and future lives in preserving their family social capital in the future.

Living in an extended family was construed as having a particularly significant influence on the children’s home language use. It was found to contribute to the shaping of Elly’s and Tilly’s appreciation towards the home language, and by extension, ultimately to their competence in the home language. The interviews with Ms Ngan and Mrs Nghi highlight the extended family as an important social domain that Elly and Tilly have engaged in since their early childhood.

Excerpt 3 (Interview with Mrs Nghi, the grandmother, discussing reasons for Elly’s and Tilly’s Vietnamese competence)

Table

1.Interviewer: Bác ơi, cháu được 2.biết bác có 6 cháu đúng không ạ? 3.Trong cháu của bác thì tiếng Việt 4.của Elly và Tilly là tốt nhất đúng 5.không bác?	Mrs Nghi, I heard that you have six grandchildren. Among them, Elly and Tilly speak Vietnamese the best, is that right, Mrs Nghi?
6.Mrs Nghi (nods)
7.Interviewer: Theo bác, vì sao 8.tiếng Việt của Elly và Tilly lại tốt 9.như vậy ạ?	Why do you think Elly’s and Tilly’s Vietnamese is so good?
10.Mrs Nghi:Có thể tại vì nó cũng 11.ở gần bác nhiều. Nó ở gần bác 12.nhiều, nó sanh trước thì các bác 13.của nó vẫn còn ở đó, nó gọi là 14.Ba Dũng cũng sống gần thì 15.cũng nói tiếng Việt. Mọi người 16.đều nói tiếng Việt. Rồi mấy 17.năm sau này thì mới sanh ra 18.những đứa kia thì nó không có 19.được gần gũi được chung vì tụi 20.nó ở nhà khác […] nên tụi nhỏ 21.không có nhiều cơ hội nói tiếng 22.Việt.	Possibly because they lived close to me. They were close to me, she [Elly] was born first, so at that time her aunt and uncle were still living in the same house with us. There was her uncle whom she called ‘Daddy Dang’ living there. All of us spoke Vietnamese. Some years later the other grandchildren were born; they were not so close [to me] because they lived in different houses […] so they didn’t have much opportunity to speak Vietnamese.

As can be seen, Elly and Tilly grew up in a Vietnamese linguistically-rich family environment in which all the adults spoke Vietnamese – các bác của nó vẫn còn ở đó … Mọi người đều nói tiếng Việt (her aunt and uncle were still living in the same house with us. … All of us spoke Vietnamese) (lines 12–16). The close bonds between the family members have reinforced their practice of speaking Vietnamese in the home domain, which in turn helps increase their linguistic capital. As well, it further shapes their appreciation of the home language. In particular, the close ties with Mrs Nghi, their grandmother, who lived with them from birth and continued to live close by, have given Elly and Tilly ample opportunities to practise and improve their Vietnamese, opportunities which their cousins did not have – Có thể tại vì nó cũng ở gần bác nhiều. Nó ở gần bác nhiều (Possibly because they lived close to me. They were close to me) (lines 10–11). Here we can see the transferability from family social capital to children’s linguistic capital. Notably, for long-lasting and meaningful connections to be created, the interactions between the family members have to be consistently maintained (Bourdieu, 1986). Mrs Nghi’s account construes the role of the family as a nurturing environment in promoting the children’s use of the home language and their desire to maintain it. Her role in supporting their home language maintenance is further confirmed in the following interview excerpt with the children’s mother, Ms Ngan.

Excerpt 4 (Interview with Ms Ngan, discussing parental roles in home language maintenance, 2nd interview)

Table

1.Interviewer: Chị nghĩ cha mẹ có vai 2.trò gì trong việc duy trì tiếng mẹ đẻ cho 3.con mình?

What do you think about the role of parents in maintaining children’s home language?

4.Ms Ngan:Ôi, cha mẹ thì đóng vai trò 5.quan trọng lắm trong cái việc bảo tồn 6.ngôn ngữ chứ, tại vì cha mẹ là người 7.gần gũi với nó nhất, nhưng ở đây mình 8.vẫn giữ cái truyền thống của người 9.Việt là thường thì mình phải sống với 10.ông bà, mà không có sống riêng giống 11.như người Tây thì những gia đình có 12.ông bà sống chung thì tụi nhỏ có thể 13.nó sẽ nói tiếng Việt được nhiều hơn 14.trong cái thời gian từ nhỏ tới lớn lên.

Oh, parents play a very important role in maintaining their children’s home language because parents are the closest to their kids. But here, we still keep the Vietnamese traditions, that is, the children living with their grandmother, not like the Westerners living as a nuclear family unit. In the families that live with grandparents, the children can speak more Vietnamese in the home from a young age.

Ms Ngan acknowledges her own role in maintaining her children’s home language – Ôi, cha mẹ thì đóng vai trò quan trọng lắm trong cái việc bảo tồn ngôn ngữ chứ, tại vì cha mẹ là người gần gũi với nó nhất (Oh, parents play a very important role in maintaining their children’s home language because parents are the closest to their kids) (lines 4–7). At the same time, she emphasises the significant role of grandparents in helping the children speak more Vietnamese in the family – những gia đình có ông bà sống chung thì tụi nhỏ có thể nó sẽ nói tiếng Việt được nhiều hơn trong cái thời gian từ nhỏ tới lớn lên (In the families that live with grandparents, the children can speak more Vietnamese in the home from a young age) (lines 11–14). As can be seen, the bonds and interactions between the children and their grandmother from a young age have created additional opportunities for Elly and Tilly to speak Vietnamese, thereby maintaining its vitality. Notably, while the interview question only focused on Mrs Ngan’s role in maintaining her children’s home language, she elaborates her response to bring attention to the differences between a nuclear family and the continuing Vietnamese tradition of living as an extended family. This aligns with Mrs Nghi’s account (excerpt 3), and gives salience to the women’s point about the extended opportunities for Elly and Tilly to practise and use their home languageon a daily basis, opportunities that might not be available to the same extent in a nuclear family.

In brief, the selected excerpts about Elly’s and Tilly’s language experiences in the family have drawn attention to the participants’ accounts of the important role of positive family relationships in nurturing the children’s desire for and competence in the home language and draws attention to the ways in which the family as a micro sociolinguistic domain intersects with the larger sociolinguistic domain of the Australian society. The intersection is reflected in participants’ accounts of the past, present and future.

The following section presents a different situation in Andrew and Jimmy’s family.

Andrew and Jimmy’s family: Distance between father and children

In Andrew and Jimmy’s family, the participants reported spending less time in interacting with their children. As a consequence, there were fewer opportunities for the home language to be practised and used. The following excerpts have been chosen to illustrate this point.

Excerpt 5 (Interview with Jimmy, aged 7, expressing language practices and communication preferences at home, 2nd interview)

Table

1.Interviewer: Jimmy, in what language do you speak to your parents? 2.Jimmy: Vietnamese and English. 3.Interviewer: Let’s say, your dad, what language do you usually speak to your Dad? 4.Jimmy((smiles.)): I don’t usually speak to him a lot. 5.Interviewer: You don’t speak to him a lot. Why? 6.Jimmy: He’s rude to me and Andrew.

Excerpt 6: (Interview with Andrew, aged 11, expressing language practices at home, 2nd interview)

Table

1.Interviewer: When you play with your brother, what language do you use? 2.Andrew: English all the time. 3.Interviewer: So when you speak to your Mum and your Dad, English only or … ? 4.Andrew: Vietnamese. 5.Interviewer: Does your mum ask you to speak Vietnamese? 6.Andrew: Yeah but I speak English. 7.Interviewer: What did she say after that? 8.Andrew: She says, ‘Why didn’t you speak Vietnamese?’ 9.Interviewer: Really, is your Dad the same? Does he speak in Vietnamese to you? 10.Andrew: Yes. 11.Interviewer: And do you reply in English too? 12.Andrew: Yes … but I don’t speak to my Dad much. 13.Interviewer: Can I ask why? 14.Andrew: Mostly I feel like he doesn’t understand English a lot, that’s what I think.

As observed in excerpts 5 and 6, Jimmy reported that he did not speak very much to his father, illustrated in the statement: I don’t usually speak to him a lot … He’s rude to me and Andrew (lines 4 and 6) (Jimmy, excerpt 5). Andrew also confirmed the infrequent father-son exchanges in another interview excerpt (not shown) and offered an explanation: Mostly, I feel like he doesn’t understand English a lot, that’s what I think. (line 14) (Andrew, excerpt 6).

The father is the main speaker of Vietnamese in the family. His reported taciturn personality as well as his limited English have created an unfavourable set of communicative circumstances in the family that hindered Andrew and Jimmy from engaging with him. To Andrew and Jimmy, Vietnamese may not have much symbolic value in the family because it is possibly associated with having to communicate with a disagreeable family member (their father). The reported strained father-son relationship suggests limited social capital, defined by Bourdieu (1990, p. 35) as the ‘effective possession of a network of kinship (or other) relations capable of being mobilized or at least manifested’. Here Andrew’s and Jimmy’s lack of harmonious relationships with their father (in other words, their limited family social capital), in conjunction with their limited Vietnamese linguistic capital, has possibly resulted in their pro-monolingual practices in favour of English. When combined, these two reasons could explain their preference to speak English despite their mother’s efforts in urging them to speak Vietnamese in the home.³

In seeking to explore whether language may have been a barrier for the reported strained father-son relationship and to further understand the context leading to the infrequent father-son exchanges, as reported by Andrew and Jimmy, Mr Dong was interviewed regarding the family's language practices.

Excerpt 7: Interview with Mr Dong, discussing father-son language practices

Table

1.Interviewer:	Hà nói với em là anh là hàng ngày anh đón các cháu đi học về đúng
2.	không ạ, chẳng hạn các cháu ngồi trong xe nói chuyện với nhau thì anh
3.	có hay hỏi các cháu về ngày học ở trường không ạ?
	Ms Ha told me you pick up the children from school every day right? In such situations, do you talk much to Andrew and Jimmy about their day at school?
4. Mr Dong:	Không.
	No.
5.Interviewer:	Không nói nhiều hả anh?
	You don’t talk much to them?
6.Mr Dong:	Dạ, không có can thiệp vô nhiều.
	Yeah, I don’t interfere into their business.
7.Interviewer:	Không có can thiệp vô nhiều tức là các cháu cứ nói và anh không hỏi
8.	đúng không ạ?
	Does it mean that Andrew and Jimmy talk in English and you don’t ask what they talk about?
9.Mr Dong ((nods)):	Dạ, không hỏi.
	Yeah, I don’t ask.
10.Interviewer:	Anh có thỉnh thoảng hỏi là các cháu học gì ở trường không anh?
	Do you sometimes talk to them about what they learn at school?
11.Mr Dong :	Ít lắm, tại khi hỏi hắn nói lại mình đâu có hiểu đâu mình hỏi làm cái gì
12. ((laughs))	cho nhọc.
	Rarely, because if I ask them, when they answer I can’t understand, so there is no point in asking them.

In the above excerpt, we identified two issues. First, Mr Dong confirms the infrequency of exchanges with his sons, even in situations that tend to create opportunities for parent-child interaction such as picking up children from school (lines 1–9). Second, his reported limited English acts as a barrier that prevents him from communicating with his children. This is revealed in his statement, tại khi hỏi hắn nói lại mình đâu có hiểu đâu mình hỏi làm cái gì cho nhọc. (because if I asked them, when they answer I can’t understand, so there is no point in asking them) (lines 11–12). Here Mr Dong echoes what Andrew and Jimmy had reported about his limited English, as well as the infrequent father-son exchanges as discussed above. In this case, his limited proficiency in English has resulted in his avoidance of communicating with his children, who mostly speak English. In turn, because of the limited father-son connection, there are fewer opportunities for language practice. Thus, in this case, Mr Dong, Andrew and Jimmy have missed the potential opportunities for the boys to practise Vietnamese as a result of their lack of communication with each other. This example reinforces Bourdieu’s (1986) notion that capital is interconvertible: social capital could have been converted into linguistic capital, or competence in Vietnamese, for the boys.

Discussion

Our study has highlighted one important finding about how family connectedness plays a crucial role in successful home language maintenance. In uncovering the pro-monolingual practices in Andrew and Jimmy’s family and the pro-bilingual practices in Elly and Tilly’s family, our study has given prominence to family social capital to underscore how family relationships play an important part in shaping successful family language policy.

The bonds between the children and adults in Elly’s and Tilly’s family, or their rich family social capital, played a key role in shaping and nourishing the children’s understanding of the need and motivation to communicate in their home language. In contrast, Andrew’s and Jimmy’s restricted family social capital and limited Vietnamese linguistic capital, evidenced in their stated distant relationship with their Vietnamese only speaking father, as well as the father’s own recount of the rare father-son exchanges, led to fewer interactions. As a consequence, this may have further contributed to shaping their monolingual practices in favour of English by giving less weight to the importance of Vietnamese.

These findings align with previous research about the significance of family ties in family language policy, and the connection between a nurturing environment and positive language use in the home as discussed by Curdt-Christiansen (2020) and as shown in empirical studies based on the analyses of the interactions between family members (e.g. Filipi, 2015; Said & Zhu, 2019; Wright, 2020) as well as positivist approaches (e.g. Tannenbaum & Howie, 2002). As noted, Tannenbaum and Howie (2002), for example, mentioned a two-way relationship between close family relationships and home language maintenance. They claimed that a strong family relationship may support language maintenance among children, but reciprocally, that children’s highly developed home language competence may lead to positive family relationships. Our findings on the family dynamics and language use of Elly’s and Tilly’s family members align with these findings and respond to the need for empirical studies on the harmonious development of the languages of children in bilingual families as advocated, for example, by De Houwer (2015, 2020). On the other hand, while our finding on the reciprocal relationship between a language gap and the emotional distance between parents and children (as revealed in Andrew’s and Jimmy’s case) echoes what has been reported in the literature (e.g. De Houwer, 2020; Tseng & Fuligni, 2000; Wong Fillmore, 2000), our study has captured both the perspectives of the father and of the children to report this conflictive bilingualism (or the more negative bilingual experiences in the family).

In addition, by examining the language beliefs held by the children and adults in an extended immigrant family, our study also concurs with prior research that has highlighted the significant role of grandparents in helping to maintain the children’s home language (e.g. Braun, 2012; Clyne, 1982; Melo-Pfeifer, 2015; Rubino, 2010; Smith-Christmas, 2014). Braun (2012), Clyne (1982) and Rubino (2010) have each drawn attention to the extended family as a particularly important context for home language development and maintenance. As Clyne (1982, p. 30) states, the ‘extended family structure may be more conducive to language ecology than the nuclear family’. Elly’s and Tilly’s continuing strong relationships with their grandmother beyond early childhood provided the motivation to speak Vietnamese, pointing to the central role that rich, regular communication over time plays. The regularity of communication, according to Carreira and Kagan (2011), is one of the most influential incentives for home language learning. In extending prior research, our study has added the importance of the long-lasting experiences in the development of such motivations by enabling participant accounts of how past early childhood experiences are connected to continuing present language use and to aspirational use in the future.

In sum, we hope to have made a contribution to the existing research on family language policy in the following ways. First, the exploration of the children’s perspectives on their languages and the affective dimension of language use alongside those of the parents, has permitted moving away from a reliance on the adults’ voice in family language policy and added to the small body of work (e.g. Bui et al., 2022; Palviainen, 2020; Smith-Christmas, 2017) on children’s voice. Second, we hope to have shown how Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of capital can add a nuanced lens to the interpretation of family language policy in exploring the subtle transferability between family relationships and children’s home language use and aspirations. In taking such an approach, our study has shown the importance of the relationships developed in strengthening children’s positive affect in the home language. As exemplified in Family 1, the nurturing of family relationships from a young age was shown to have a long-lasting impact on the children’s present and future language use and investment in their bilingualism. In turn, our study extends the evidence on the importance of social capital – formed within the sociolinguistic domain of the family – on children’s harmonious bilingual development.

Conclusion

Drawing on both adults’ and children’s voices, the analysis has highlighted the reciprocal nature of relationships and language use found in the family. The study has illustrated how children’s exposure to a linguistically-rich and closely-connected environment at home in a supportive family environment, contributed significantly to shaping their appreciation of the importance of communicating in the home language. Relatedly, it has shown how a family environment, in which the reported bonds between particular family members are not strong, can have a negative impact on children’s uptake of the home language and their desire to speak it. We have also provided further evidence to support Bourdieu’s (1986) claims on the nature of capital by attending to the family as a context. We have uncovered how children’s sound linguistic capital turns into rich family social capital, and on the reverse side, how limited family social capital turns into limited linguistic capital. Despite the small scale nature of this study, it is hoped that the findings have provided some insights on the importance of strong family relationships to children’s ongoing home language use beyond early childhood. Further studies are needed to explore how significant others beyond the family unit can also support children’s motivations and desire to speak the home language.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to convey their sincere thanks to the research participants for their generosity in participating in the research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The family unit is commonly characterised by two features: family cohesion and power distribution (Tannenbaum & Howie, 2002, pp. 409–410). The former refers to the ties and bonding that family members have with each other while the latter refers to the more powerful roles of some members in the family compared to others (Tannenbaum & Howie, 2002).

2 Further evidence is provided in Tilly (and Elly’s) choice of Vietnamese in the interview.

3 Ms Ha’s language management efforts were revealed in the interviews with Ms Ha (data not shown).