‘So, mein Deutsch ist schlecht … ’: echoes of societal attitudes and education language policies within the family language policies of second- and third-generation German speakers in Newcastle, Australia

ABSTRACT

Family language policy research often neglects the dynamic nature of FLP over time. Here, we interview second generation members of migrant families for their recollections as heritage language learners and their experiences setting their own FLP towards their children. We use a transdisciplinary oral history/narrative methodology to discern oscillating attitudes concerning language maintenance and acquisition as a function of changing societal and education policy. Participants are from three families originating in waves of German-speaking migrants to Australia between the 1930s and 1970s. We find that FLP only occasionally maps onto the stages of shifting ideology, highlighting individual agency of families in setting their own FLP, although sometimes remnants of bygone ideologies enter the family through marriage. Furthermore, while participants negotiated inconsistent impacts of education policies on the availability of German classes at school, to support their FLP, they utilise forms of language education outside the school system, including travel to the German-speaking ‘homelands’. These case studies underline the individuality of participants’ experiences of FLP, their autonomy, and success in shaping their own language policies. Overall, it is striking how much autonomy and agency individuals and families have, considering the external forces of language education policy and language ideology discourses.

KEYWORDS:

• Family language policy
• ideology
• education policy
• German
• migration
• Australia

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Considered here to include the local government areas of Newcastle, Maitland, Lake Macquarie, and Port Stephens

2 Here, ancestry is defined as the country of birth of one or both parents.

3 Data was unavailable for other German-speaking countries.

4 Interviews were jointly conducted by both authors. All interviewee names were changed to ensure anonymity.

5 All participants provided their preferred pseudonym (and spelling).

6 The Lutheran church (now the LifeWay Lutheran Church) was an important institution for some second wave German migrants, holding Saturday services in German, as well as a mixed language service on Christmas Eve. However, regular German-language services ceased in recent decades.

7 Interviewed separately

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Linguistics Society.