Intra-familial language choice in two multi-generational Polish-Swedish-speaking families

ABSTRACT

Informed by Spolsky’s language policy model and the notion of audience design, this study addresses the under-researched context of the multi-generational family originating in the old Polish migration to Sweden. Two families were studied with a focus on (i) intra-familial language choice, and (ii) language policies derived from this choice and from individual reflections. Data were collected through an open-ended bilingual form and interviews, and then underwent descriptive, thematic and appraisal analysis. The findings suggest that family language policy is a heterogeneous social phenomenon. At the ideological level, Polish is the language of the family at home. At the level of practice, family members modify the policy in multiple ways. Language management is primarily verbalised as consequent usage of Polish within the family. Also, an agency belief is expressed, meaning that subsequent generations make independent linguistic choices. With respect to the influence of audience design, the families adjust to the language of the participating audience. With a non-participating audience, Swedish is a preferred or accepted choice. This paper concludes that there should be a follow-up study on the families presented here, which would further contribute to the still limited understanding of how family language policies are reshaped by later generations.

KEYWORDS:

• Polish in Sweden
• bilingualism
• language choice
• family language policy
• audience design
• appraisal analysis

Introduction

Despite the importance of studying family language policy in diverse contexts and family constellations (e.g. King, Fogle, and Logan-Terry 2008; Schwartz 2010; Spolsky 2012; Lanza and Li 2016; Schwartz and Verschik 2013; Lanza and Li 2016; Curdt-Christiansen and Lanza 2018; Curdt-Christiansen 2018; King and Lanza 2019; Lanza and Lexander 2019), the context of the multi-generational migrant family amongst the Polish migrants in Sweden has yet not received scholarly attention. This is surprising, given that Polish migrants comprise one of the oldest migrant groups in Sweden (Lubińska 2013) and constitutes the largest and oldest Polish concentration in the Nordic countries (Michalik 1997; Pettersen and Østby 2014). Studies of family language choice provide a window into family language policy (Spolsky 2004, 2009; Curdt-Christiansen 2018; Lanza 2020) and are one of the three major research areas within the field of family language policy (FLP) (Curdt-Christiansen 2018). Thus, I explore here intrafamilial language choice in oral interaction in two multi-generational Polish-Swedish speaking families. ‘Family’ might mean different things to different people (Canagarajah 2008; Hirsch and Lee 2018; Lanza 2020); here, it refers to a heterosexual couple and their children, as well as their children’s children. The context is that of Polish migrants in Sweden and, more precisely, the strata of educated, well-established migrants who viewed their move to Sweden as likely to be permanent (cf. Hirsch and Lee 2018). The two studied couples left Poland before the system transformed from communism and Soviet domination into democracy in 1989/1990, when there was very little option of returning. They have been managing their multi-generational family life for over 25 years, on average, at the time of data collection at the turn of the twenty-first century.

The research questions are as follows:

1. What are the reported patterns of language choice of the families within the family?

2. What kind of family language policies might be derived from the patterns and the family members reflections?

The context of Polish migration to Sweden

The current Polish language group in Sweden is the largest Polish concentration in the Nordic countries (Michalik 1997; Pettersen and Østby 2014), and, in general, migration from Poland has been substantial in Scandinavia (Pettersen and Østby 2014). Polish migration to Sweden can be generally divided into three waves: until the transition, 1989/1990 (hence the old migration); between the transition, 1989/1990, and Poland’s EU accession, 2004; and the post-accession migration (see Lubińska 2013 for details). I focus on the old migration here as the studied couples belong to it.

The old migration came into being in the aftermath of World War II. Over the course of the post-war era, until 1989/1990, the number of Polish migrants to Sweden increased significantly, both as a result of Poland’s political situation and Sweden’s immigration policy (cf. Iglicka 2001; see also Pettersen and Østby 2014). The most common reasons for this migration were humanitarian and political, but economic reasons – understood mainly as a quest for better opportunities for professional self-fulfilment – could also occur (Józefowicz 1996). These migrants did not usually settle in clusters; the majority, however, did settle in areas connected to Sweden’s three big cities: Stockholm, Göteborg, and Malmö (Michalik 1997). A typical characteristic of the old migration is its relatively high socioeconomic status in Swedish society (cf. Pettersen and Østby 2014; Lubińska 2013; see also Runfors 2020 on the cultural capital of children to these migrants). Most of the members of this group possess both high education levels and professional skills valued in Sweden; some of these migrants had, at the point of migration, qualifications almost directly transferable to the Swedish labour market, while others lost the status that their social positions guaranteed them in Poland, but retrained for the Swedish labour market (e.g. Michalik 1997). This group’s ethnolinguistic vitality has not been addressed overtly, but some studies have explored different aspects of social and cultural vitality (e.g. Chamarczuk 2003) and Polish language attitudes (Lubińska 2011, 2018). In the studies on attitudes, the generally positive Polish language attitudes correlated positively with the use of Polish (Lubińska 2011). It has also been suggested that the attitudes related to the maintenance of Polish, and the idea of Polish as a core value of culture (see Smolicz 1980, 1992; Smolicz and Harris 1977; see also Hofman and Cais 1984) played an important role by supporting and upholding these attitudes (Lubińska, ibid.).

Polish together with other migrant languages was admitted into the Swedish curriculum due to Home Language Reform in 1977. The aim of the reform was to provide mother tongue instruction to children of immigrants within the Swedish school system (see, e.g. Ganuza and Hedman 2015). In the attitude studies mentioned in the previous paragraph, allowing children to participate in this instruction seems to be an outcome of parental language maintenance efforts, even if the mother tongue language instruction at school isn’t perceived by the old migration as very well-organised (Lubińska 2018). This might be understood in the light of Ganuza and Hedman (2015) describing the mother tongue instruction as ‘(…) a peripheral subject in the Swedish curriculum’. (p.126) limited to only 40–60 min a week (see Ganuza and Hedman 2015 for further elaboration on the subject’s organisational problems).

Theoretical framework

Language choice and family language policy

Language choice or language practices in a migrant family have a potential to uncover the otherwise implicit and covert family language policy (cf. Curdt-Christiansen 2018). This idea can be traced back to Spolsky’s language policy model. According to Spolsky (2004, 2009), language policy in the family may be analysed as language practice, ideology, and/or management, and treated as if it were autonomous, i.e. mostly influenced by family-internal factors. According to Spolsky (2009), in many families there is no explicit language policy, which implies that language practices or choices of family members might offer the only way of understanding how migrant families manage their two or more languages in the family domain (cf. Spolsky 2009; Lanza 2020).

One of the important issues in a migrant family is who decides the policy (cf. Tuominen 1999). De Houwer (1999) refers to an aspect of parental language ideology that she calls an impact belief, which she defines as ‘the parental belief that parents can exercise some sort of control over their children’s linguistic functioning’ (p.83). However, several studies have shown that each member of a family may hold her/his own beliefs, and therefore may attempt to manage or influence the language practices and beliefs of other members. Parental influence is problematised, and obviously different generations in a family can contribute to the role of family language policy maker (e.g. Curdt-Christiansen 2009; Pillai, Soh, and Kajita 2014; Sevinç 2016). For instance, parents might express ideologies incongruent with their language practices, the same individuals in a family such as parents and grandparents can have conflicting ideologies, or different family members may express different ideologies or have different expectations regarding family language use (Curdt-Christiansen 2018; Zhu and Li 2016). Zhu (2008) illustrates how multiple forms of multilingual language use contribute to the emergence of new interpersonal relationships and values in migrant families. Obojska (2019) shows how recent Polish migrants in Norway construct Polish as a common family language, and how the parental generation policy as ideology can be connected to the Polish patriotic discourse on language maintenance and transmission. Thus, another important issue in a migrant family might also be home language maintenance, which will make the control of the home language environment crucial to the policy (Spolsky 2009). It has been shown that home language in a migrant family can serve as an important link between different generations, and its loss can have a negative effect on family relations and lead to intergenerational tensions (Tannenbaum 2005; Sevinç 2016). This issue is to some extent connected to language proficiency; language choices of family members may be determined by their proficiency or lack thereof (Spolsky 2009; Potowski 2013). The common recurrent pattern is that first-generation migrants – probably not least those who arrived during or after the critical period (cf. Abrahamsson, Hyltenstam, and Bylund 2018) – find learning the languages of the new resident country the most important and often challenging task, while the local-born generations face the challenge of maintaining the home language (Curdt-Christiansen 2018; Zhu and Li 2016; see also Fishman 2013; Spolsky 2009). In some communities, changes in language choice might already start in the first generation (cf. Li, Saravanan, and Hoon 1997), but often younger generations contribute vastly to language maintenance or shift, for instance, by refusing to follow adult practices for using the home language, which, in turn, influences language behaviour of the older generations (Kheirkhah and Cekaite 2018; Smith-Christmas, Bergroth, and Bezcioğlu-Göktolga 2019).

Language choice and audience design

Spolsky (2009) identified family members desire to benefit by using the dominant language and to accommodate to their audience as an important factor influencing family language policy. The impact of real or imagined individuals or groups on a speaker’s linguistic choices is an established concept in sociolinguistic research (cf. Blom and Gumperz 1972; Giles, Coupland, and Coupland 1991). Here, I use the notion of audience design (Bell 1984, 2001; cf. Goffman 1979; 1981; Clark and Carlson 1982) for the analysis of how the language choice of studied family members may be influenced by different interactional participants.

The audience is conceptualised by Bell (1984, 2001) by means of different persons/ roles. The first person is the speaker her-/himself. The second person is the known, ratified and addressed participant in the communicative act, referred to as addressee. The third persons are:(i) an auditor, who is part of the acknowledged audience in the speech context but is not directly addressed; (ii) an overhearer, who is a non-ratified listener but one the speaker is aware of; and (iii) an eavesdropper, who is any non-ratified listener of whom the speaker is unaware. In this study, the notions of addressee, auditor and overhearer are methodologically and analytically significant. According to audience design, the language choice of a bilingual individual is intended for and is in response to the audience. As Bell (2001) notices: ‘Individual speakers use style – and other aspects of their language repertoire – to represent their identity or to lay claim to other identities’ (163). Thus, studying language choice with audience design may shed light upon family language policy.

Methodology

The participating families

I targeted couples who migrated from Poland to Sweden prior to the 1989/1990 transmission, i.e. the old migration. In this non-probabilistic selection, I targeted couples from three-generational families, and contacted two couples who were interested in participating in the study. Despite this obvious limitation – my aim was to meet at least four three-generational families for a multi-case study (cf. Stake 2006) – I decided to proceed because of the mentioned paucity of sociolinguistic research on Polish migrants in Sweden. Thus, two multi-generational middle-class Polish-speaking families living in metropolitan Stockholm participated in the study. The two families consist of three generations, that is, the generation of grandparents who migrated to Sweden (generation 1); their children, who were either born in Poland or in Sweden (generation 2); and their grandchildren, who were born in Sweden (generation 3).

Data collection

The data was collected by means of a standardised open-ended bilingual form and by a subsequent interview. The form consisted of three parts. In part A, the background data was obtained. In part B, the participants were asked to rate their proficiency in both Swedish and Polish. They could indicate their proficiency on a scale of 1–5, where 1 was coded as excellent, 2–3 as good, and 4–5 as not good proficiency. In part C, the questions were organised around the family domain. Each question started with what language do you speak with …  followed by the relevant family member/role (cf. McGregor and Li 1991), and concerned home and outside of home settings. These situations were then grouped around audience types: auditor/overhearer. The answer options were: (i) only Polish, (ii) only Swedish, (iii) both Polish and Swedish, (iv) another language. The third option – both Polish and Swedish – might be interpreted in two ways, either as code-switching or as usage of one of the languages under study at time, in accordance with what is known about how bilinguals communicate (e.g. Muysken 2000). Here, a word on code-switching is in order. In this study, code-switching is used as a cover term ‘to describe a range of linguistic behaviour that involves the use of more than one language or language variety in the same interaction’ (Li 2013, 360). Following Li (2013), I also perceive code-switching to be a creative performance; according to this view, code-switching is ‘a creative and critical act that multilingual language users perform in specific social contexts for specific purposes’ (371). As research on bilingual communication has also shown that bilinguals are often unaware that they code-switch or how much they do so, the self-reported data in this study has to be treated with caution.

Regarding the interviews, the participants could choose whether they preferred to meet me or to be interviewed by phone. The option to be interviewed at phone was an adjustment to the families’ busy schedule. For family 1, one out of the seven participants agreed to an interview by phone; for family 2, three of seven agreed to be interviewed. The grandmother from family 2 met me for an interview, and this interview was audio-recorded; her two grandsons spoke to me on the phone. During the phone interviews, I took notes of what was said. Two participants from generation 2 – one in family 1, and one in family 2 – had Polish-speaking spouses who declined to participate in the study as a whole. In the case of the three youngest participants, the data was mainly collected through parents or grandparents, who spoke with the children and filled out the forms. Unfortunately, while all 14 participants who agreed to participate in the study filled in the form, interviews were conducted with only 4 participants (see the section entitled Analytical approach, for further elaboration).

The semi-structured interviews were partly meant for clarifications and verifications of the answers in the form and partly for specific questions that aimed at a deeper understanding of the interactional patterns in each family, such as: (i) what influences language choice in the family setting in general? (ii) are there any differences in language choice depending on which family member is addressed? what are the differences? what do they depend on? and (iii) does the topic have any impact on language choice? in what way? In the interviews, the participants were also asked to explain in greater detail what it meant for them to use both Polish and Swedish. The interviews were conducted either in Polish or in Swedish, or in both languages, and I addressed the participants in the language they used in the form.

Analytical approach

Out of the 14 participants in the study, only 4 agreed to be interviewed; due to this unexpected decline in participation, the amount of data for analysis was limited. Even though (a small) sample size in qualitative research does not have to be an obstacle, and a single example can be highly instructive (cf. Blaikie 2018), I expected to study more voices from the two families than just the four; this was especially important in relation to the second research question. In an attempt to counteract this limitation and reach as manifold understanding of the available data as possible, I analysed the interviews by means of two different approaches: thematic analysis (cf. Boyatzis 1998; Nowell et al. 2017) and appraisal analysis (cf. Martin and White 2005). Thematic analysis is a relatively accessible form of analysis that makes it possible to construct themes from and for data, or to look for themes that are possible from a theoretical point of view (cf. Blaikie 2018). Appraisal analysis draws upon a functional model of language and provides resources for analysing the interpersonal and the evaluative in language (Martin and White 2005; ; see also Halliday and Matthiessen 1999). Appraisal analysis deals with the linguistic resources by which a speaker expresses particular intersubjective and ultimately ideological positions (Martin and White 2005); it is reasonable to assume that such an analysis might expose ideology and management related to family language choice in greater detail.

Ethical statement

This study followed the Swedish Research Council guidelines for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Vetenskapsrådet 2002; 2017). All participants over 15 years gave written consent to their participation in the study. With respect to the participants that were 15 years or younger, parents’ written consent was obtained.

Findings

First, I present findings for family 1, and second – for family 2. The reporting of data from the forms and the interviews is merged, which allows for a coherent presentation of each family’s intra-familial language choice. As Tables 1 and 2 show, the reported language proficiency in both Polish and Swedish in both families seems to correlate, not surprisingly, with generational status (cf. Spolsky 2009; Potowski 2013). Generation 1 rates the level of Polish as higher than the level of Swedish, while generations 2¹ and 3 rate their Swedish proficiency as higher than the level of Polish.

Table 1. Background information for family 1.

ID	Age	GEN	Role	PL	SWE	Country of birth	Education
GP21	57	1	Grandfather	H	M	Poland	college
GP20	55	1	Grandmother	H	M	Poland	college
CH13	34	2	Daughter	M	M	Poland	high school
GCH4	15	3	Granddaughter	M	H	Sweden	primary school student
GCH1	9	3	Granddaughter	M	H	Sweden	primary school student
CH10	20	2	Daughter	M	H	Sweden	university student
CH7	17	2	Daughter	M	H	Sweden	high school student

GEN = generation; PL = proficiency level in Polish; SWE = proficiency level in Swedish.

Table 2. Background information for family 2.

ID	Age	GEN	Role	PL	SWE	Country of birth	Education
GP23	63	1	Grandfather	H	M	Poland	university degree
GP22	61	1	Grandmother	M	M	Poland	university degree
CH15	40	2	Daughter	M	H	Poland	university degree
GCH9	19	3	Grandson	M	H	Sweden	high school student
GCH3	13	3	Grandson	M	H	Sweden	primary school student
GCH2	12	3	Granddaughter	M	H	Sweden	primary school student
CH14	35	2	Son	M	H	Sweden	university degree

GEN = generation; PL = proficiency level in Polish; SWE = proficiency level in Swedish.

Family 1

The characteristics of family 1 are summarised in Table 1. When the original couple (GP21, GP20) moved to Sweden permanently, their oldest daughter (CH13) was 13 years old. The other family members were born in Sweden.

The analysis of language choice for family 1 at home suggests the policy for use of Polish at home. Language choice is almost entirely dominated by Polish for interactions between generations 1 and 2. The analysis of language choice and audience design (auditors) at home gives even greater support for this interpretation. Independently of the language of the auditor, the grandfather, his oldest daughter (CH13), and his youngest granddaughter (GCH1) use only Polish in this context: the grandfather speaks Polish to the granddaughters, and their mother (his oldest daughter) does, too. The younger daughter (GCH1) speaks Polish to her mother and her older sister (GCH4). The interview with the oldest daughter (CH13) confirms that that Polish, in principle, is supposed to be the language of the home between all family members; it is neatly summarised in the CH13’s appeal to her daughters (GCH1, GCH4): ‘We speak Polish at home, remember?’ (excerpt 1, line 10).

Excerpt 1: Interview with CH13, family 1.

Table

1	wie pani jak to nastolatki You know how teenagers are.
2	to trudny wiek It is a difficult age.
3	ja już nie mam na nią takiego wpływu jak na tą mniejszą I cannot influence her any longer in the same way as the little one.
4	zobaczymy jak to będzie kiedy ona będzie w tym samym wieku We will see how she [meaning the younger daughter, GCH1] will become when she turns this age.
5	my moi rodzice/ siostry i w zasadzie ich tata […] też We, my parents, my sisters, and basically their dad […] as well
6	my wszyscy rozmawiamy z nimi po polsku We all speak Polish to them.
7	ale koniec końców one i tak będą mówić w tym języku w którym im pasuje But in the end, they speak the language they want.
8	słyszę czasami że mówią ze sobą po szwedzku kiedy myślą że ich nie słyszę And I can hear them speaking Swedish to each other, when they think that I do not hear them
9	czasami im przypominam Sometimes I remind them.
10	w domu mówimy po polsku zapomniałyście We speak Polish at home, remember?
11	ale nie chcę z tym tak za bardzo przesadzać But I do not want to push too much.

The policy is, however, modified (cf. Curdt-Christiansen 2009; Pillai, Soh, and Kajita 2014; Sevinç 2016) by the members of the family born in Sweden, both from generation 2 (CH10, CH7) and from generation 3. While CH10 and CH7 speak Polish with their parents (GP21, GP20) and older sister (CH13), they speak both Polish and Swedish with each other. The analysis also suggests that, in family 1, there is a policy of Polish language maintenance within the family; CH10 and CH7 – the aunts of GCH4 and GCH1 – speak Polish with the two nieces, despite their using Polish and Swedish with each other. The Polish language maintenance and transmission is thus managed through a consequent use of Polish in the family. This view of language management is also expressed by CH13 in the interview (excerpt 1, lines 5–6). In generation 3, the modification of the policy takes place not only in sibling relations, but also, to some extent, in interactions with older members of the family. Admittedly, GCH1 and GCH7 speak Polish with their mother, but otherwise, the older girl (GCH4) speaks both Polish and Swedish with the rest of the family, even if generation 1 and 2 respond in Polish. Even if the language choice of GCH4 does not influence the language behaviour of generations 1 and 2, which may have occurred in previous studies (e.g. Kheirkhah and Cekaite 2018; Smith-Christmas, Bergroth, and Bezcioğlu-Göktolga 2019), GCH4 introduces multiple language choice in opposition to the family policy (cf. Zhu 2008). It is worth noting that family members who choose both Polish and Swedish or only Swedish for interactions at home also report lower proficiency in Polish. Based on the available data, it would be, however, premature to draw conclusions about the influence of language proficiency on the policy in family 1.

The choice of Swedish for interactions between GCH1 and GCH4 is not appreciated by their mother (excerpt 1, line 8). Despite CH13’s dissatisfaction with her daughters’ choice of Swedish for sibling interaction at home, her parental intervention does not always occur, as the use of the adverbial modifier czasami (sometimes) suggests (excerpt 1, line 8). CH13 reflects on parental influence regarding language choice (excerpt 1, line 3) by evaluating the state of being a teenager overtly as difficult (excerpt 1, line 2) and a period when parental influence cannot be exerted to the same extent as when the child is younger (excerpt 1, lines 3- 4). By this, CH13 means that despite the language management efforts of the whole family in form of consequently speaking Polish to GCH1 and GCH4 (excerpt1, lines 6–7), the final choice will be their own (excerpt 1, line 7). Here, CH13 expresses what I would like to call an agency belief (cf. De Houwer 1999 and her parental impact belief), meaning that subsequent generations make independent linguistic choices as they mature.

With respect to family language choice and audience design outside home, the modification of the policy of Polish as the family language takes place in all generations. In the presence of an auditor, the family speaks either Polish or Swedish, depending on the language of the auditor, thus adjusting to the auditor’s interactional language (cf. Bell 2001). In the presence of an overhearer, the language choices of family members suggest divergent individual identity claims (cf. Bell 2001). The grandfather speaks Polish to all family members, thus claiming his identity as a Polish speaker. The grandmother (GP20) speaks Polish to her husband, but both Polish and Swedish to her daughters and granddaughters, and the oldest daughter (CH13) speaks both Polish and Swedish to all family members. GP20 and CH13 claim their identity as speakers of two languages as a response to an overhearer.

Family 2

The characteristics of family 2 are summarised in Table 2. The grandfather (GP23) and grandmother (GP22) moved to Sweden permanently when the daughter (CH15) was pre-school age. Their son (CH4) and grandchildren were born in Sweden.

The analysis of language practices for family 2 at home suggests that Polish is the main language of interaction between the grandparents and their children. In the interaction between and within generations 2 and 3, Swedish seems to have a given place, too. The daughter (CH15) speaks both Polish and Swedish with her brother (CH14) and her children (GCH2, GCH3, GCH9). Her brother reports that he speaks Polish with her and the parents, but both Polish and Swedish with GCH2, GCH3, GCH9. One of the grandchildren – GCH3 – adds a refinement to the pattern of his uncle’s (CH14) language choice with generation 3; he reports that even if they speak both Polish and Swedish, Swedish is dominant in most situations. In the interview, the grandmother (GP22) says that the family speaks Polish to each other at home, as a principle, but GP22 also reports some switching to Swedish taking place for all generations, for instance, when generation 1 discusses topics specific to Sweden, thus suggesting a creative and critical use of the available language resources in the family (cf. Li 2013). Her son reports in Swedish a home language maintenance orientation (cf. Spolsky 2009) when he states: ‘I don’t have children yet, but I am expecting, and I intend to speak Polish with them.’

What seems to be influential to language choice in family 2 is language proficiency (cf. Spolsky 2009; Potowski 2013). The oldest grandson (GCH9) explains his Polish pattern with his grandmother, grandfather, and uncle as ‘self-evident’ and reports that ‘det har alltid varit så’ (it has always been this way). GCH9 speaks Polish with his little brother (GCH3) when they are engaged in ‘vanligt snack’ (an ordinary chat) between brothers, but switches into Swedish when something has to be explained and understood quickly: GCH9 explains that ‘det går fortare på svenska’ (it goes faster in Swedish). With his sister (GCH2), he speaks only Swedish, as she, according to him, understands Swedish better than Polish. In this way, he verifies what his grandmother reports in the interview (excerpt 2). The other grandson (GCH3) uses both Polish and Swedish with his mother as ‘Det bara blir så’ (it just gets this way), and he adjusts to his siblings, depending on which language they address him in. Like his older brother, in interactions in Polish, he sometimes uses Swedish for interactional efficiency.

Excerpt 2: Interview with GP22, family 2.

Table

1	Muszę ci powiedzieć, że czasami nie jestem pewna czy ona nas rozumie I must tell you, sometimes I am not sure if she understands.
2	mąż też nie And my husband says it too.
3	a ja chcę z nią mieć kontakt And I want to have this interaction with her.
4	więc czasami się poddaję i przechodzę na szwedzki chociaż mnie to krępuje So sometimes I give up and speak Swedish, even if I feel embarrassed.
5	mój szwedzki no wiesz to taka @invandrarsvenska My Swedish, you know, it is such a @invandrarsvenska [immigrant Swedish].
6	ja mam dość silny akcent i jestem przekonana że robię mnóstwo błędów I have quite a strong accent, and I am sure that I make a lot of mistakes.
7	ale czasami kiedy nie zacznę mówić do niej po szwedzku to w ogóle z nią nie porozmawiam But sometimes if I do not speak Swedish to her, I will not speak with her at all.
8	i to jest też niedobre And this is not good either
9	ważniejsze, żeby mieć dobrą relację It is more important to have a good relation
10	ale szkoda że ona tak słabo mówi po polsku Even if it is pity that she speaks so bad Polish
11	no bo mówi ale słabo Because she speaks [Polish], but bad Polish.
12	i jak my z nią po polsku nie będziemy rozmawiać to się lepiej nie nauczy And if we do not speak Polish with her, she is not going to learn it.
13	zupełnie inaczej niż z X It was different with X [referring to the oldest grandchild GCH9].
14	oni my konsekwentnie mówiliśmy z nim po polsku kiedy był mały They, we spoke only Polish to him when he was a child.
15	no i ojciec znaczy zięć on jest z Polski […] And the father [too], I mean the son-in law, he is from Poland.
16	i on mówi no muszę to obiektywnie powiedzieć And he [the oldest grandchild- GCH9] speaks, I must say this objectively.
17	on mówi naprawdę dobrze czasami lepiej niż Y. He speaks really well, sometimes better than Y [referring to her son, CH14].

Excerpt 2 illustrates the grandmother’s (GP22) concern about the granddaughteŕs (GCH2) proficiency in Polish. In family 2, GCH2 becomes a policy maker (cf. Curdt-Christiansen 2009; Pillai, Soh, and Kajita 2014; Sevinç 2016). Her perceived weak Polish proficiency (excerpt 2, line 11) influences (cf. Kheirkhah and Cekaite 2018; Smith-Christmas, Bergroth, and Bezcioğlu-Göktolga 2019) the grandmother to unwillingly (excerpt 2, lines 4–6) choose Swedish for interaction. GP22 is insightful (excerpt 2, lines 3 and 9), regarding the importance of relation-building between generations (cf. Tannenbaum 2005; Sevinç 2016), and pragmatically oriented towards good relations on the cost of home language maintenance (excerpt 2, lines 7–8). Despite this pragmatic orientation, there is also a covert negative judgment of the family’s collective responsibility for the poor Polish proficiency in GCH2; GP22 compares how the family maintained Polish by consequently using it with the oldest grandson (GCH9), which led to his high Polish proficiency (excerpt 2, lines 13–17). GP22 also reflects briefly on the potential scaffolding role of mother tongue instruction in the Swedish school system for the granddaughter’s Polish (excerpt 3), but she does not assign an important role to it (excerpt 3, lines 2–3) because of its known limited amount (cf. Ganuza and Hedman 2015).

Excerpt 3: Interview with GP22, family 2.

Table

1	Ona chodzi wprawdzie na ten @hemspråk She goes to @hemspråk [mother tongue instruction]
2	ale nie wiem czy tam tak dużo można zrobić but I don’t know, if they can do so much there
3	wiesz to trochę mało you know, it is rather little
4	nawet nie wiem dokładnie jak te lekcje wyglądają, ale słyszałam (…). I don’t even know what these lessons are look like, but I have heard (…).

With respect to family language choice and audience design outside home, the family members adjust to the language of the auditor, both at home and outside the home, and also use this language with family members. The grandfather stressed, however, that, depending on the situation, he sometimes addresses his wife in Polish, even if the auditor speaks Swedish. Otherwise, he states that it is important to assess the situation in such a way as to avoid being rude by choosing a language that someone in the context does not understand, thus expressing a courtesy orientation. In the presence of an overhearer, the language choices of family members suggest divergent individual identity claims (cf. Bell 2001). The grandfather speaks Polish to his grandchildren, even if he speaks both Polish and Swedish to his wife and his children; this suggests that he wants to claim Polish identity in front of his grandchildren. The daughter (CH15) speaks solely Swedish with her children, which, according to Bell (2001) could be interpreted as identity accommodation to the majority group.

Concluding discussion

To date, no systematic sociolinguistic study has investigated the multi-generational families of the old Polish migration in Sweden. Hence, the objective of the present study has been to rectify this lack.

Placing the findings within the theoretical framework of Spolsky (2004, 2009) reveals that the policy as ideology for the families studied here could be summarised in the following way: In principle, we speak Polish in our family. The available data demonstrate no ideological explanations for this policy that could be expected given previous studies on Polish outside of Poland. For instance, in the old migration in Sweden, language attitudes related to the idea of Polish as a core value of culture were suggested to play an important role in the formation of attitudes (Lubińska 2011; see Smolicz 1980; Smolicz 1992; Smolicz and Harris 1977). Recently, Obojska (2019) investigated relatively new, two-generational migrant families in Norway and suggested so-called patriotic orientation, especially in the parental generation. The lack of this kind of orientation here does not necessarily mean that Polish as a core value-orientation is absent in the studied families. Rather, it raises a new empirical question with regard to the extent to which divergent or convergent orientations might guide different Polish migrants, migrant groups and migrant families.

At the level of policy as practice, it is revealed that the policy is modified by all generations and for different reasons (cf. Zhu 2008; Pillai, Soh, and Kajita 2014; Kheirkhah and Cekaite 2018; Smith-Christmas, Bergroth, and Bezcioğlu-Göktolga 2019). For instance, some grandchildren use Swedish at home whenever they feel that their choice is outside parental control, despite knowing that this choice is appraised as undesirable. Even if it is believed by generations 1 and 2 that the family is the domain where Polish has to be used in order to be maintained, alongside this (grand)parental impact belief (cf. De Houwer 1999), there is also agency impact belief, meaning that subsequent generations will make independent linguistic choices as they mature. Perceived poor Polish language proficiency also contributes to the modification of the policy, i.e. choice of Swedish (cf. Spolsky 2009; Potowski 2013; Zhu and Li 2016; Curdt-Christiansen 2018). Even if the necessity of choosing Swedish is negatively appraised, the desire to develop good intergenerational relations carries more weight than Polish language maintenance, suggesting a pragmatic rather than ideological orientation.

Placing the findings within the framework of audience design (cf. Bell 1984, 2001) reveals individual family members having divergent accommodation tendencies towards majority language speakers. Swedish is often a preferred or accepted choice with a non-participating audience. With a participating audience, a courtesy orientation is expressed, meaning that choice of an excluding language is impolite. In sum, while home is ideologically attributed to Polish language choice, outside-home is attributed to bilingual or Swedish language choice in the family.

Given the limitations of this study, as addressed in detail in the methodological section, the conclusions here should be considered working positions for future research. For instance, a new study could focus on family members from generations 2, 3 and, possibly, 4, and their current daily language (choice) experience as well as on a retrospection on the families’ language policies. This could contribute to an understanding of how family language policies are reshaped by new generations. Curdt-Christiansen (2018) postulates that this type of research ‘entail[s] a critical understanding of family language planning as dynamic, fluid, and changeable in the life span of a given family’ (435).

Acknowledgements

I thank the two anonymous reviewers for their stimulating comments on an earlier version of this paper. Also, assistance provided by Dr. Joanna Kędra was greatly appreciated. I also thank Dr. Lamont Antieau for improving my English. Any remaining errors and shortcomings are mine.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dorota Lubińska

Dorota Lubińska is an assistant professor in language education/Swedish as a second language at Stockholm University. Among her research interests is the Polish language in Sweden. She is the author of a review article on Polish migrants in Sweden, an article on Polish language attrition, and a forthcoming review article on Polish language in Sweden. Currently, she is working on a project focusing on Polish language education in Sweden.

Notes

1 The pattern of equally lower language proficiency in both languages reported by the oldest daughter (CH13) in family 1 and the grandmother (GP22) in family 2 is in itself interesting for studies of multilingualism (cf. e.g. studies an L1 attrition, e.g. Schmid, Köpke, and Cherciov 2019), but any further discussion on it is beyond the scope of this study.