https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0277-2317
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ABSTRACT
The current study quantitatively applies Spolsky’s triangular framework of language policy, including beliefs, practices, and management, to the family domain by investigating language policy in multilingual families in Belgium’s Flemish Community. Firstly, we examine whether the three components in fact call for an independent description and examination. Secondly, we address the relationships between the components. To that end, we developed three scales for each of the language policy components according to Spolsky’s model, and we tested construct validity of these scales using confirmatory factor analysis. Respondents were 776 multilingual families in Belgium. The results of our analyses confirmed that language policy in the family domain is not a unitary construct and that even though the three components are interconnected, they can still be described independently from each other. Interestingly, while beliefs and practices, and practices and management, were strongly correlated, a similar relationship was not found for beliefs and management, a finding which goes against what was reported previously in more formal domains of language policy. We believe that the current study opens up a wide range of follow-up investigations that dig deeper into the differing dynamics between language policy components in formal institutionalised domains, and the informal family sphere.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful and valuable feedback.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Notes on contributors
Ily Hollebeke
Ily Hollebeke is doing a PhD in Applied Linguistics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. She is a member of the Centre for Linguistics and the Brussels Institute for Applied Linguistics. Her current research focuses on early multilingualism, multilingual families with young children, family language policies and implications. She was also involved in research on cognitive control in interpreting students and professional interpreters.
Victoria Van Oss
Victoria Van Oss is doing a PhD in Linguistics at Ghent University, Belgium. Her research interests include multilingualism, language policy and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). She investigates health care professionals’ language policy dynamics (i.e. beliefs, practices and management) in relation to multilingual families visiting Flemish (Belgium) infant welfare clinics.
Esli Struys
Esli Struys is a professor of Applied Linguistics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He teaches courses in the BA and MA programmes of (applied) linguistics on multilingualism (from cognitive and educational perspectives), psycho- and neurolinguistics, and interpreting studies. His research foci include the cognitive processes involved in second language acquisition, bilingualism, and interpreting; and multilingual education in family and school settings.
Piet Van Avermaet
Piet Van Avermaet is professor in ‘Language and Diversity’ in the Linguistics Department of Ghent University, Belgium, where he teaches ‘multicultural studies’, ‘multilingualism in education’, ‘language, diversity and globalisation’ and ‘language policy’. He is also director of the Research Centre for Diversity & Learning at the same University. He has a long-standing expertise in the field of diversity, language and social inequality in education.
Orhan Agirdag
Orhan Agirdag (Ağırdağ) is an associate professor of Education at KU Leuven, the University of Amsterdam and a member of the Young Academy of Belgium. Formerly, he was a Fulbright fellow at the UCLA. His research lab focuses on teacher education, early childhood education and multilingualism.