Mindsets and family language pressure: language or anxiety transmission across generations?

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses language anxiety and monolingual mindsets not only as they relate to family language use, but also to divergent social, cultural, and emotional domains of family language policy (FLP) decisions. It explores associations between language practices within the family, beliefs about multilingualism and language ability (language mindsets), family relations, and negative emotions such as anxiety. Based on interview data from two Turkish families in the Netherlands with high levels of language anxiety, this paper demonstrates how anxiety plays a central and unavoidable role in FLP, influencing family language practices and language development unfavourably. Furthermore, it illustrates how parental anxiety about monolingual language norms among first- and second-generation immigrants affects children’s language use and development. The transmission of anxiety across generations can be prevalent in multilingual, transcultural families due to ‘fixed monolingual mindsets’, negatively influencing multilingual language practices in and outside the family. Anxiety and pressure in regard to monolingual mindsets influence family communication and bonding as well as immigrants’ social interaction both in the host and so-called home country. FLP, when it is built on monolingual mindsets, pressure and anxiety, therefore, has not only linguistic but also social and psychological costs for individuals, families, and society.

KEYWORDS:

• Anxiety and pressure
• family language policy
• monolingual norms
• language mindsets
• fixed monolingual mindset
• growth multilingual mindset

Introduction

Multilingual parenting can be a source of immense anxiety due to contradictory ideologies (King and Fogle 2006), misconceptions or discouragement received from the environment pertaining to multilingualism (De Houwer 2009). Maintaining both the heritage language (HL) and the majority language (ML)¹ can cause much stress for transnational families, so much so that family members deliberately cease learning or using one of the languages (De Houwer 2020; Little 2020). When the drive to avoid anxiety becomes intense, transnational families may decide to forego HL maintenance, believing that abandoning the HL is the quickest way to alleviate their anxiety (Sevinç 2020). This tricky transition in family language decisions often results in families giving up multilingualism.

For young generations of immigrants, the HL is more likely to be abandoned, and this eventually leads to language shift. As a result of a lack of exposure to the HL, immigrant children often feel incompetent in their HL, and they are likely to experience difficulty communicating with monolingual speakers of the HL or other multilinguals more proficient in the HL, including their parents and grandparents (Braun 2012). A shift to the ML among young-generation bilinguals not only causes anxiety for them, but can also cause intergenerational tension in transnational families (Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Sevinç 2016), particularly when it is associated with identity shift. Language shift can also generate anxiety in communities with a strong sense of norms, such as the Turkish immigrant community in the Netherlands (cf. Extra and Yağmur 2004), in which shifting from the HL is likely to be linked to losing a sense of identity or is considered to be an act of disloyalty to the heritage culture and country (Sevinç and Backus 2017).

In regard to language maintenance and/or shift, negative emotions, such as anxiety, are most likely to be shaped by the family, society, and/or culture in which one lives. Relevant to immigrant, or minority, contexts, language anxiety can also be exacerbated through a ‘monolingual mindset’ or ‘aggressive monolingualism’ (Sevinç 2020), the perception that monolingualism is the social norm (Clyne 2005). Anxiety about monolingual norms and aggressive monolingualism spreads from one generation to the next, particularly when intergenerational tension and sociolinguistic and emotional pressure to conform to monolingual norms prevail within the family. The transmission of anxiety across generations becomes prevalent in multilingual, transcultural families when certain mindsets are formed at the individual level (i.e. a fixed language mindset) and the social and organisational level (i.e. a monolingual mindset) which lead to fixed monolingual mindsets in the long run, negatively influencing multilingual language practices both in and outside the family.

Bringing together research on family language policy (FLP), mindsets, and language anxiety, I argue for a greater integration of insights from educational psychology into multilingualism and FLP studies. Through an interdisciplinary perspective, I consider the application of established concepts in educational psychology and instructed SLA² (i.e. mindsets and anxiety) to FLP research, which has to date been mostly limited to the field of sociolinguistics. As part of this endeavour, I begin with a discussion of the key concepts of language mindsets, aggressive monolingualism, and anxiety, as well as the links between these concepts and multilingual family contexts.

Language mindsets and aggressive monolingualism

A mindset is defined as ‘a set of core beliefs about the nature of ability and its role in successful learning within a specific domain’ (Ryan and Mercer 2012, 9). Although the concept of mindsets has received considerable attention in educational psychology (see Dweck 2006), there has been remarkably little attention paid to the investigation of mindsets in language acquisition (Mercer and Ryan 2010).

Lou and Noels (2017) describe language mindsets as a lens through which learners view language challenges as either a deficit of their own potential for learning languages (i.e. entity beliefs) or an opportunity to improve their language skills (i.e. incremental beliefs). Recent research in the field of instructed SLA has begun to emphasise that language mindsets play an important role in language learners’ motivation and resilience in language classrooms (Mercer and Ryan 2010; Lou and Noels 2016). Two basic language-learning mindsets have been proposed by Noels and Lou (2015): (1) fixed mindset – ascribing successful language learning to a natural talent that cannot be further developed (associated with entity beliefs) and (2) growth mindset – believing that language intelligence is a flexible ability that can be improved (associated with incremental beliefs). In contrast to a growth mindset, which has been found to have a long-lasting positive impact on individuals’ motivation, resilience, and achievement in the general academic domain (Noels and Lou 2015), a fixed language mindset influences children’s beliefs about their bilingualism in a negative way (Lou and Noels 2017). Bilinguals with fixed language mindsets are more likely to attribute failures to their lack of aptitude (e.g. to their multilingual potential), and they often set performance goals (e.g. to look competent or avoid situations that make one look incompetent). Thus, they feel more anxious when they recall or expect failure, such as negative feedback and rejection from interlocutors (Lou and Noels 2016). In contrast, learners with growth mindsets are more likely to set mastery goals (e.g. to focus on the learning process and progress), attribute failures to their lack of effort, and expect to overcome setbacks with hard work.

Mindsets not only influence people’s learning experience but also their social experience (Carr, Rattan, and Dweck 2012). Mindsets are essential in understanding the social and interpersonal process of intercultural interactions and cultural adjustment among immigrants, since they are closely linked to majority group members’ stereotypes and prejudices towards minority members, as well as to discrimination and language-based rejection (Carr, Rattan, and Dweck 2012; Lou and Noels 2017). Negative experiences such as discrimination and social exclusion can solidify fixed mindsets and exacerbate sensitivity about rejection, whereas positive contact with majority group members and majority language use can promote incremental beliefs and growth mindsets (Lou and Noels 2017).

Mindsets do not only pertain to the development of a foreign language at an individual level. They also concern core beliefs and goals about multilingualism in a broader institutional and societal context. The ‘monolingual mindset’ (a public monolingual ideal) and ‘aggressive monolingualism’ (Clyne 2005) permeate transnational contexts, as does the tension between a monolingual mindset and widespread de facto multilingualism (Piller and Gerber 2018). Multilinguals are often understood as composite individuals made up of multiple monolinguals who are expected to function with the ‘nativeness’ of a monolingual in every language they have acquired (Grosjean 2008). Such monolingual mindsets pose linguistic, social, and psychological challenges for members of an immigrant community in their daily lives (Baker 2000; Goulbourne et al. 2010). As Piller and Gerber (2018) note, the dominance of institutional English monolingualism, along with a belief in the necessity to strictly separate languages, conspires to make bilingual parenting difficult.

Thereby it can be relevant to propose new concepts such as ‘fixed monolingual mindsets’ and ‘growth multilingual mindsets’³ to studies of language mindsets particularly in highly multilingual or immigrant contexts. Monolingual mindsets based on standard norms (e.g. nativeness in a monolingual way) at family, and societal levels can particularly lead bilingual children to develop a ‘fixed monolingual mindset’ undermining their full multilingual potential and repertoires, which can foster negative emotions such as anxiety, shame, and disappointment.

Anxiety in an immigrant context

Anxiety is the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the automatic nervous system (Spielberger 1972). It has been one of the most widely documented psychological phenomena in language-learning situations, most likely because it is both an intense and frequent experience in that context (MacIntyre 2017). Anxiety is widely accepted as a situation-specific psychological phenomenon and is often associated with the formal learning of a foreign language in a classroom setting (Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope 1986). Compared to the sizable literature on instructed SLA (see Gkonou, Daubney, and Dewaele 2017 for an overview), few studies have investigated language anxiety outside classrooms, in the daily lives of immigrants in transnational families.

With a special focus on language anxiety in an immigrant context, Sevinç (2016, 2017, 2018), Sevinç and Dewaele (2018), and Sevinç and Backus (2017) extended the conventional scope of language-anxiety research from the microcosm of the classroom to immigrants’ daily lives, combining questionnaire, interview, and physiological data (i.e. two measures of electrodermal activity: skin conductance level and skin conductance response). These studies indicated that language anxiety was pervasive among three generations of Turkish families in the Netherlands in two different forms, either as majority language anxiety (MLA), anxiety when using the language that has official status in the national context, or heritage language anxiety (HLA), anxiety when using the language that has a minority status.

Relying on questionnaire data, Sevinç and Dewaele (2018) determined that levels of HLA and MLA differed across three generations as well as across three social contexts – family, friendships, and interactions with native speakers. First- and second-generation immigrants typically experienced MLA, while second- and especially third-generation immigrants suffered from HLA. First- and second-generation immigrants experienced MLA most often when speaking Dutch with/around Dutch people. Second-generation immigrants also experienced high levels of MLA when speaking Dutch with their parents. Some third-generation participants reported experiencing MLA only when speaking Dutch with their grandparents. Regarding HLA, third-generation bilinguals experienced it in all three social contexts, including the family context, when speaking Turkish with/around Turks in Turkey and with Turkish friends in Turkey, yet also when speaking Turkish with their grandparents and their fathers.

As Machan (2009) indicates, language anxiety sometimes causes individuals to avoid the issues they find disturbing; when speakers worry about grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary, the real source of their anxiety is often not the language itself but issues such as their transnational status, ethnic background, immigration, or social instability. Particularly in transnational contexts, language anxiety often has negative linguistic and socioemotional consequences at individual, family, and societal levels. For instance, due to language anxiety, transnational families may give up on using their HL, which leads to language shift. As proposed by Sevinç and Backus (2017), there is a ‘vicious circle’ that connects immigrants’ language knowledge, language use, and language anxiety. Turkish-Dutch bilingual children ultimately avoid using the language about which they feel anxious, which, in turn, elicits additional anxiety and reduces proficiency in the HL.

Findings of these recent studies are pivotal, as they draw attention to language anxiety experienced by transnational families. However, they overlook the role of FLP in language anxiety and vice versa. This article, therefore, aims to place a greater emphasis on the link between the dynamics of family relations, FLP, and language anxiety.

Family context: language or anxiety transmission?

A growing body of research in family psychology yields ample evidence that parents play an important role in shaping their children’s social confidence or anxiety (Aktar et al. 2018). Parents may genetically transmit anxious temperaments (Hettema et al. 2005), but they also pass anxiety on to their offspring through so-called social fear learning, that is, modelling anxious behaviour or verbally communicating anxiety to their child in social situations (Creswell, Cooper, and Murray 2010; see Aktar et al. 2018 for a review). Although previous research on social learning in the family has exclusively focused on mothers’ anxious behaviour, recent research on mother–child and father–child dyads has revealed that exposure to a father’s anxious reactions contributes to anxiety transmission as much as exposure to a mother’s (Aktar et al. 2018). In many cases, anxiety paralyses both parents and child, making children fearful and stifling their curiosity and development (Newman 2015). In bilingual families, parental anxiety due to monolingual mindsets and aggressive monolingualism can limit children’s opportunities to indulge in healthy activities that enhance their language development, such as playing outside with other children away from their parents’ watchful eyes (see also Piller and Gerber 2018 for a discussion on FLP and monolingual mindsets).

Language transmission can provoke intergenerational conflict and ambiguities beyond the parent–child relationship (Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Canagarajah 2008; Purkarthofer 2020). Recent studies in FLP touch upon the significant, positive role that grandparents play in HL language maintenance and shift (Braun 2012; Ruby 2012; Quay 2015), but surprisingly little is known about how grandparents also have a detrimental effect on bilingual children’s language use and knowledge. Grandparents may induce language anxiety in their families when ethnicity, religion, and identity are firmly attached to immigrants’ language use and knowledge. In such a context, abandoning one’s ethnic language is associated with abandoning one’s ethnic identity. The fear of losing ethnic identity or religion in the process of language shift can create socio-emotional pressure in immigrant families (Sevinç in press). Such fear-based anxieties of first-generation immigrant parents can be transmitted to their children and impact second- and third-generation children’s relationships with their parents and grandparents negatively.

Monolingual mindsets, the pressure for immigrants to join mainstream society, the need to resolve intergenerational conflict, and the drive to reduce anxiety may cause some families to forego HL maintenance. Recent studies in the field of FLP have investigated various aspects of HL maintenance from sociocultural, educational, emotional, and cognitive perspectives (e.g. Spolsky and Shohamy 1999; King and Fogle 2006; Curdt-Christiansen 2009; Li 2012; Tannenbaum 2012; Lanza and Li 2016; Lanza and Curdt-Christiansen 2018; see Curdt-Christiansen 2018 for a detailed review). However, the role and influence of anxiety in HL maintenance and in FLP are still among the questions remaining to be answered. As noted by Piller and Gerber (2018), there is often a gap between parents’ desire to raise their children bilingually and their success in this endeavour, and I argue in this article that anxiety and mindsets are two significant reasons for this gap.

The current study

FLP research has mostly focused on language ideology, language management and linguistic practices of transnational families and communities (Spolsky 2012). Arguably, there is a lack of focus on ‘the diversity of experiences with multilingualism within … families’ (Hua and Li 2016, 665). Hua and Li (2016), in their study of Chinese speakers in the UK, demonstrate that different generations, and even individuals within the same family, experience multilingualism differently. They conclude that multilingualism need to be studied as experiences, which need to be studied holistically and multidimensionally. The FLP conceptual framework should, therefore, account for the diversity of experiences in transnational families in relation to multilingualism (see also Hirsch and Lee 2018).

Following this trend in FLP research, this article pays special attention to the diversity of experiences of two Turkish families living in the Netherlands with regard to anxiety, language practices, language mindsets, and aggressive monolingualism, rather than the overall patterns of language maintenance and language shift in the Turkish immigrant community in the Netherlands (see e.g. Extra and Yağmur 2010; Backus 2013; Yılmaz and Schmid 2015; Sevinç 2016; Yağmur 2016 for a review of the existing literature on this community). By doing so, the article also brings together research on FLP, language mindsets, and anxiety, which has been underexplored in FLP studies. The purpose is to identify associations within families between language practices, beliefs about multilingualism and language ability (e.g. monolingual mindsets, and language mindsets), family relations, and negative emotions (e.g.anxiety, fear and shame). A special focus is placed on possible transmission of language mindsets and anxiety within the family.

Methodological framework

The present study is part of a larger project called ‘Language Anxiety in an Immigrant Context: An Interdisciplinary Perspective’, which addresses differences across three generations of the Turkish immigrant community in the Netherlands. It takes into account their language anxiety both in the HL (Turkish) and ML (Dutch), language competence, language practices, and socioemotional experiences, as well as their physiological responses related to these aspects. The project relies on a mixed-method approach that integrates an extended questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and an experiment in which physiological responses (i.e. electrodermal activity) are measured during a video-retelling task conducted in monolingual and bilingual modes. The data for this article are drawn from semi-structured, open-ended interviews conducted in 2015 with 30 bilinguals (21 female, 9 male) from 11 families with high level of anxiety, but the article focuses on interviews with the two families that reported the highest levels of anxiety, in order to pay deeper attention to the diversity of experiences with high levels of anxiety within the family. Interviews were conducted with the mothers⁴ and the two children of each family. See Tables 1 and 2 for demographic information on the interviewees.

Table 1. Interviewee demographic information

	F1M	F1C1	F1C2
Age	43	23	14
Gender	Female	Female	Female
Country of birth	Turkey	Netherlands	Netherlands
Anxiety type	MLA	MLA/HLA	HLA

F1M: Mother of Family 1, F1C1: eldest daughter, F1C2: youngest daughter.

Table 2. Interviewee demographic information.

	F2M	F2C1	F2C2
Age	47	26	26
Gender	Female	Female	Female
Country of birth	Turkey	Turkey	Turkey
Anxiety type	MLA	MLA/HLA	MLA/HLA

F2M: Mother of Family 2, F2C1: twin daughter 1, F2C2: twin daughter 2.

The interviews were designed to delve deeper into bilinguals’ language history and linguistic dominance, and language practices and choices within the family. They also provided a means to explore the story behind bilinguals’ experiences of their family’s FLP, family communication and relations, beliefs about multilingualism and language ability (language mindsets), and emotional associations with their language knowledge, with a focus on anxiety. There were two interviewers, one of Turkish origin and one Dutch, and the subjects could choose whom they wanted to be interviewed by. The rationale was that giving interviewees freedom to select their interviewer would help create a stress-free atmosphere, and thus result in more reliable information. The interviewees from the two families all choose the Turkish researcher. They were informed that their language performance would not be evaluated or scored and that they could mix their languages freely during the interviews if that would make it easier to explain themselves. Each interview lasted between 40 min and one hour. With the family’s permission, interviews were taped. Interviews were transcribed verbatim. The researchers read the transcripts several times to identify central themes. These themes were then allocated to categories, including FLP and family relations, childhood history, the immigrant experience, language mindsets, and anxiety. For the purpose of this article, recurring patterns, similarities, and differences were identified across the two family members.

Family 1: language mindsets, grandparents and pressure

The mother (F1M, 43 years old) in Family 1 is a first-generation immigrant who came to the Netherlands at the age of 19 through marriage migration. She completed elementary school in Turkey. Her husband migrated to the Netherlands at an early age in the early 1970s with his parents and finished elementary school in the Netherlands. He works in construction in the Netherlands, while F1M works as charwoman. They have two daughters. The elder one (F1C1, 23 years old) grew up with her grandparents around; they all lived in the same house until she was ten. The younger daughter grew up with her parents and her elder sister. Table 1 summarises the demographic information of interviewees in Family 1.

When asked about language history and language use at home, both F1M and F1C1 said that they had mostly used Turkish at home when they lived with the grandparents, but currently they mixed Turkish and Dutch when speaking with F1C2. The grandparents expected the children to speak pure, ‘standard’ Turkish, but no explicit strategies used at home in order to support the children’s bilingual language development. For instance, reading books in Turkish or in Dutch to the children was never a part of the family’s FLP, while watching Turkish TV channels was the primary medium for F1C1’s Turkish development. F1M described the monolingual setting for her elder daughter and dominating role of grandparents in their family as follows:

Excerpt 1 (translated from Turkish)⁵

 

F1M:

My elder daughter grew up with my husband’s parents. At home, their rules prevailed. They [grandparents] would interfere with anything. We couldn’t even watch Dutch TV channels. My husband’s Dutch is good, but he was mostly at work. That’s why my elder one was unfortunate, she grew up with pressure, she couldn’t even go out of the house without her grandfather’s permission. She didn’t have Dutch friends. The neighbour’s daughters [also Turkish] would come, and they watched TV [Turkish channels] at home. For example, the little one is very different. She learned Dutch early and has more Dutch friends than Turkish. Her elder sister helped her with Dutch too. That’s why, I mean, her Dutch is better than her Turkish.

In this excerpt, F1M illustrates the rules and prohibitions imposed by the grandparents in her family, as well as the pressure they applied. Through their monolingual norms and mindsets (only Turkish at home, only Turkish friends, and no Dutch channels), the grandparents enforced their own FLP rules in the family. F1M also points out the variation within her family, where her youngest daughter was exposed earlier to Dutch and with more intensity with the help of her older sister and through the changes in their FLP over time: F1C1 started elementary school with no preschool experience, while F1C2 went to kindergarten for two years.⁶

With respect to F1M’s beliefs about bilingualism and her language competence, excerpt 2 below demonstrates that, for F1M, language learning was a fixed ability that could not be improved after a certain age. She also believed that in order for an individual to be a bilingual, they should be able to speak both languages adequately and without difficulty.

Excerpt 2 (translated from Turkish)

 

Interviewer:

Well, as a bilingual, do you think it is advantageous to speak two languages?

F1M:

I can’t say that I am a bilingual [that I speak two languages]. I still have difficulty in speaking Dutch. I speak it inadequately, you know. I didn’t get a chance to learn Dutch because of housework and kids. It’s also impossible to learn it after this age.

F1M’s fixed language mindset led her to take the approach of ‘the younger the better’, assuming that older individuals cannot learn languages as accurately and easily as younger ones. Surprisingly, her elder daughter, F1C1, also held the same belief and mindset, as evinced in the excerpt below.

Excerpt 3 (translated from Turkish)

 

F1C1:

It [MLA] is certainly related to my experiences, as I said, I applied for the police academy and took the exams. For instance, these Dutch people have words used with de, het, een [articles] written with ‘d’ and ‘t’, etc. As these words don’t exist in Turkish, I make a lot of mistakes with them. … Because of these words, I mean because of this, I failed the exams several times, I couldn’t be a police officer. Now, I am scared of using them, whenever I need to use [them], I hesitate. I even took additional Dutch courses after school [to fix the wrong article use] but I couldn’t fix it. Cause it no longer sticks in my brain. When you learned it wrong once, you know, in no way you can fix it, especially after this age.

As Table 1 illustrates, both F1M and F1C1 reported a high level of MLA, specifically when they spoke Dutch with or around Dutch people. This leads us to the broader question of this article regarding the possible transmission of fixed language mindsets and anxiety within the family. Additionally, it is worth noting that both F1M1 and F1C1 avoided speaking Dutch with Dutch people as a result of their anxiety when speaking Dutch. This avoidance most likely influenced their language competence and practices and also their social experiences.

F1C1 experienced HLA as well, mostly when she spoke Turkish with Turkish people in Turkey, but also when she spoke Turkish with her grandfather (as did her sister). F1C1’s statement below in regard to HLA within the family indicates the transmission of anxiety from her grandfather to her. She blamed her parents’ and grandparents’ strict monolingual practices at home for her anxiety, as it escalated tension in the family. She wished that her parents would have spoken Dutch to her and her sister instead of Turkish.

Excerpt 4 (translated from Turkish)

 

F1C1:

We grew up with all this stress, because of my parents’ and grandparents’ worries about traditions. … You know, what if we don’t speak Turkish or marry a Dutchman? Why did you come [migrate] here [to the Netherlands] then, if you were scared so much? My grandfather kept telling us ‘Turkish is more important than Dutch, because we are Muslims’. What’s the connection? Is the Qur’an in Turkish? Are we Arabs? No! … They [parents and grandparents] even sent me to a mosque to learn Turkish. If I mistakenly mixed one Dutch word with Turkish, my grandfather yelled at me, saying ‘speak [Turkish] properly!’ … I will never do the same mistake as they [parents and grandparents] did! I will speak Dutch with my kids from birth. Not Turkish! I will send them to kindergarten [in Dutch] not to a mosque! All in all, we do not live in Turkey, we need Dutch more [than Turkish].

It is clear that ethnic identity and religion in Family 1 took precedence over other considerations in the grandparents’ and parents’ language decisions. Particularly, the grandparents spread anxieties within the family through their own language-, religion-, and tradition-related fears. The pressure and anxiety F1C1 experienced at home shaped her perception of the ideal bilingual setting, which would be based on a fixed monolingual mindset – ‘only Dutch from birth’. According to her, exposure to Turkish at an early age would hamper her children’s Dutch development, and early immersion in Dutch would lessen their anxiety in Dutch. Since the drive to avoid anxiety and pressure was intense, F1C1 vowed to forego Turkish language maintenance in her future family. Also, the negative experiences, anxiety, and frustration that F1C1 went through intensified her fixed monolingual mindset.

F1C2, in describing her interaction with her grandfather (excerpt 5), illustrates how anxiety spreads from one generation to the next. The three sentences describing her grandfather’s statements all contain negatives (‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’) that express his negative opinion about F1C2’s future because of her lack of native-like proficiency in Turkish. In this regard, this anecdote also serves as an example of a negative mindset, or fixed language mindset, illustrated by F1C2’s grandfather’s belief that her language ability was insufficient, static, and impossible to improve.

Excerpt 5 (translated from Turkish)

 

F1C2:

My grandfather makes me stressed about my Turkish. He says that I can’t talk Turkish very well. I should fix it, he says, otherwise I won’t be able to find a husband. He even says even if I find one, I won’t be able to communicate with my mother-in-law. […] I get angry with him. I speak Dutch all the time, when he is around, deliberately, so he doesn’t understand me, he gets annoyed.

It is noticeable that the grandfather’s authority, negativity, and anxiety backfired in this family, inducing a lack of respect and influencing family relations and communication negatively. Crucially, negative emotions, such as the fear-based anxiety of the first-generation grandparents, were transmitted to their grandchildren, hampering bilingual language use at home as well as their relationships with family members.

Family 2: pressure in the family, aggressive monolingualism outside

Family 2 consists of a first-generation mother (F2M, 47 years old) and 26-year-old twin daughters (F2C1 and F2C2). F2M graduated from high school in Turkey. Table 2 summarises the demographic information of Family 2 members.

The father of the family migrated to the Netherlands to work two years before F2M arrived in the Netherlands. FM2 came to the Netherlands at the age of 21 together with her one-year-old daughters through family unification. The couple divorced 20 years ago. The father currently runs a grocery store in the Netherlands, while F2M holds a part-time job taking care of elderly patients in their homes. The twins completed HAVO⁷ in the Netherlands and they both work as hairdressers. F2C1 lives single and has no child, while F2C2 is married to a Turkish man who was born in the Netherlands. They have a 5-year-old son.

The family lived in a neighbourhood with predominantly Turkish families for about six years, until the parents divorced. Here the children played with other Turkish immigrant children. F2C1 and F2C2 indicated that they acquired only Turkish at home and were exposed to Dutch only after starting elementary school. F2M emphasised that her ex-husband did not let her go to Dutch language classes, and she had no chance to learn Dutch until she was divorced. Later on, she took a Dutch course and moved to a Dutch neighbourhood where she practised Dutch with her Dutch neighbours. This anecdote is an evidence that FLP in this family was mainly based on restrictions and pressure.

Both the mother and daughters agreed that there were no established rules regarding Dutch use among family members at home nor were there extra activities to improve their Dutch. Like Family 1, they read neither Turkish nor Dutch books nor had someone read books to them. According to F2M, the only Turkish practice tool at home was Turkish satellite TV when the children were little, but later they watched both Turkish and Dutch TV at home. When asked what the prevalent language was in their home currently, they reported ‘mostly Turkish’ but also ‘a mix of Turkish and Dutch’ among the twin sisters. These language choices reflect their increasing use of Dutch at home over time.

Regarding beliefs about bilingualism, F2M took a positive approach. She noted that speaking two languages could be advantageous overall, if the younger generation would maintain Turkish. No trace of a fixed language mindset was found in our conversations with her. She believed that ‘it would be possible for everyone to learn a language or improve language skills if they really want and practise it’. However, she mentioned that ‘the new generation of Turkish immigrants should speak two languages flawlessly to be able to lead a satisfying life without being despised because of their cultural background’. When asked whether speaking Turkish as well as Turks living in Turkey was crucial for Turkish children living in the Netherlands, F2M said ‘yes!’ and added:

Excerpt 6 (translated from Turkish)

 

F2M:

It is important for sure! Our children here [in the Netherlands] should be able to talk to their grandparents and relatives there [in Turkey]. Mine keep mixing Turkish and Dutch words around my parents for instance, they [grandparents] don’t understand them. This is not only about the culture or religion, but also about the family. It’s very important to be able to communicate with the family, no matter how far they are.

It is clear that for F2M, the main motivational factor for maintaining Turkish was to communicate with relatives in Turkey.

The pressure of speaking Turkish perfectly for the sake of family and using Dutch properly for a quality life in the Netherlands introduced socioemotional burdens and tension, triggering anxiety both in Turkish and Dutch for F2C1 and F2C2. With respect to anxiety within the family, F2C2 described her interaction in Turkish with her mother, saying that she was afraid of making mistakes when speaking Turkish with her mother because she became angry and immediately corrected her.

Excerpt 7 (translated from Turkish)

 

F2C2:

Well, she corrects me immediately, sometimes gets angry. For instance, when I say something incorrect, let’s say, when she gets angry and corrects me, I am thinking then, if I make the same error again, I get scared. As a human being, I mean one gets naturally uncomfortable, stressed.

F2C1, on the other hand, noted that her mother was always stressed about something: ‘she thinks the worst of everything in her mind’. This provoked anxiety within their family. Being more pessimistic about bilingualism than their mother, both F2C1 and F2C2 emphasised that they felt stuck between two languages and cultures. Speaking out of her anxiety and the pressure of her life, F2C2 even wished she had been raised in Turkey as a monolingual child, evincing a fixed monolingual mindset.

F2C2 often felt that she had to speak Dutch perfectly to secure a better life in the Netherlands or to be a member of the mainstream community. She illustrated her frustration by comparing her Dutch skills with those of monolingual Dutch natives and associated bilingualism with a constant tension between the two languages. She also blamed her parents for her problems at school, wishing that her parents had spoken Dutch at home and had been able to talk to their teacher.

Excerpt 8 (translated from Turkish)

 

F2C2:

We learned Dutch later at school. Nobody spoke Dutch to us at home. My parents could not even come to school once to talk to my teacher. It has been difficult for us. Although my Dutch has improved there is still that feeling that Dutch people speak it better, cause they don’t have to fight with another language all the time, like us.

Both siblings indicated that they were expected to speak both Turkish and Dutch in a monolingual way, drawing on their experiences of social exclusion and aggressive monolingualism both in the Netherlands and in Turkey to express their frustration. F2C1 described her negative experiences at work, illustrating the link between aggressive monolingualism in mainstream society and immigrants’ social exclusion:

Excerpt 9 (translated from Turkish)

 

F2C1:

At work, I experience that some Dutch people correct every little mistake of yours consciously just to show that they are Dutch, so they can do this to you. Some of them laugh at you if you use a wrong word and say ‘WE don’t use this, WE use that!’, so you feel discriminated [against] and despised.

F2C2 shared her traumatic experiences at elementary school that made her decide that Dutch was more important than Turkish for her. F2C2’s decision influenced her monolingual mindset and Turkish language maintenance efforts in her family, as was the case of F1C1 in Family 1 as well.

Excerpt 10 (translated from Turkish)

 

F2C2:

I experienced that when someone goes to school, if she doesn’t speak Dutch very well, they point their fingers at her, [it’s] more like they exclude her from everything. For instance, they mostly talk to the ones who speak Dutch better. My teacher, for instance, didn’t like the students who came from outside [of the Netherlands]. … He always put us down saying, ‘they are Turks, Moroccans, how do they know it’. … So, I don’t want my child experiencing these things as well. That’s why for me Dutch is more important.

F2C2 reported that she and her husband mostly spoke Dutch with their son at home, occasionally mixed with some Turkish words. As the grandmother F2M noted, ‘my grandson understands what I say, but he refuses to speak Turkish with me’. F2M blamed her daughter for her grandson’s lack of Turkish competence, adding ‘she [F2C2] will understand what a big mistake she is making sometime later, but it will then be too late’.

F2C1 reported that, on the one hand, she was constantly having to prove her Dutch skills to so-called natives as an indication of her willingness to integrate into mainstream society and, on the other, she had to demonstrate her Turkish skills to her relatives in Turkey as an indication of her moral commitment to her ethnic identity and family. The pressure in the family, as well as the fear of social exclusion by the majority community, stimulated her MLA and HLA. Despite all these setbacks and negative experiences, F2C1 suggested that she did not avoid speaking Turkish and Dutch and would speak Turkish with her children in future, yet Dutch would be the dominant language at home.

Unlike her twin sister, F2C2 mentioned ‘avoidance’ and the effect of anxiety on her well-being and language use, noting that ‘it [anxiety] affects one’s health totally! So, I try not to care anymore, I don’t bother myself. I am trying to speak Dutch as little as possible with some people just not to make myself too stressed’.

It is obvious that the twin sisters, F2C1 and F2C2, experienced similar pressure, social exclusion, aggressive monolingualism, and anxiety but in different ways. F2C2 tended to have a fixed monolingual mindset and be more sensitive to rejection and anxiety, changing her language practices from bilingual to monolingual Dutch for the sake of her child. She also avoided social contexts and/or people that made her feel anxious, as a result of her negative experiences. F2C1, on the other hand, endeavoured to interact with the mainstream community, and she was eager to allocate Turkish use in her future family. These differences demonstrate the diversity within one family.

Summary and conclusion

In sum, the most distinguishable factor that the two families in this study had in common was the absence of constructive rules, lack of effort, and minimal positive experiences to aid bilingual language development at home. Bilingual parenting is not always a bed of roses. It is possible for parents to build their parenting mainly on a scaffold made of fixed language mindsets and/or fixed monolingual mindsets, anger, pressure, stress, blame, restrictions, and fear-based anxiety. This explains the phrase ‘family language pressure’ in the title of this article. In reality, negative emotions and experiences prevail in these families, as opposed to a solid, deliberate, and knowledgeable FLP based on a growth multilingual mindset, constructive strategies, and engaged language practices.

Another shared characteristic of these families is that none of the family members considered multilingualism as an asset, but only as a source of negative experiences, stress, and anxiety. Only F2M took a positive approach towards multilingualism, yet with the condition that the younger generation would speak two languages flawlessly, in a monolingual way. Aggressive monolingualism and social exclusion in the mainstream community further triggered these bilinguals’ pessimistic views about multilingualism and their own bilingual potential. First-generation parents and grandparents transmitted negative emotions (anger and fear-based anxiety related to identity, religion, norms, and traditions) and fixed language mindsets to their children and grandchildren, hampering bilingual language use at home as well as their relationships with family members. This substantiates Lou and Noels’ (2017) conclusion that negative experiences intensify fixed language mindsets. In addition, aggressive monolingualism and anxiety experienced outside the home produce problems at a societal level, given that some bilinguals avoid social contexts and/or people that make them feel incompetent and anxious.

The final similarity between the two families is the progressive shift to Dutch. As a result of the pressure and anxiety the second-generation bilinguals experienced both in and outside the home (i.e. F1C1 and F2C2), they decided to abandon HL maintenance in their own family. For instance, F2C2’s 5-year-old son does not speak any Turkish. Based on the previous research on this community (Sevinç and Backus 2017; Sevinç 2020), it is safe to predict that abandoning the HL does not relieve anxiety in the long run, as it provokes further anxiety in the form of HLA. One implication of these findings is that when FLP is dependent on a fixed monolingual mindset and anxiety, the only thing parents transmit to their children or grandchildren, other than the HL itself, is their own monolingual mindsets and anxiety.

Finally, it is important to point to the diversity among and within the families (cf. Hua and Li 2016). Families and family members were influenced by the same experiences, such as pressure and anxiety, but in different ways. Family 1 illustrates the effects of fixed language mindsets and negative grandparental roles within the family, while Family 2 demonstrates fixed monolingual mindsets and the mother’s parental anxiety about monolingual norms at home and aggressive monolingualism outside the home. Variation in language use and knowledge within family also exists. In Family 1 the younger sibling was exposed earlier to the majority language and with more intensity with the help of her older sister and through the changes in the family’s FLP over the course of time. Differences in mindsets of the twin sisters in Family 2 and in the way they reacted to the challenges of immigration, rejection, and anxiety also demonstrate the diversity of experiences within families.

This study aimed to bring together perspectives in educational psychology (i.e. mindsets and anxiety) and FLP research, as a way of highlighting the centrality of pressure and negative emotions in the development of FLP. It proposes the re-conceptualisation of FLP, taking into account negative emotions (e.g. anxiety and anger) and mindsets, not only as they relate to family language use directly, but also to divergent social, cultural, and emotional domains of FLP decisions. Anxiety can play a central and determining role in FLP, adversely influencing the process of family language practices and language development. Mindsets are closely linked to majority group members’ stereotypes and prejudices of minorities, as well as to discrimination and language-based rejection (Carr, Rattan, and Dweck 2012; Lou and Noels 2017). However, they are also associated with parenting and family language decisions in multilingual contexts. Future research in FLP and educational psychology should focus on language mindsets, fixed monolingual mindsets, growth multilingual mindsets and anxiety within the family, exploring them quantitatively and qualitatively. To be able to accomplish the broader societal goal of valuing and embracing multilingualism and diversity, it is crucial for researchers to highlight individual, social, educational, and psychological processes of multilingualism and their consequences, particularly how multilingual families cope with them, since these processes are closely intertwined.

Implications for families and practitioners can also be drawn from this study. When multilingualism triggers overwhelming anxiety, the desire to reduce anxiety becomes so powerful that it drives action. When the drive to avoid anxiety is so intense, it is impossible for families to know whether they are making a good decision or one that merely provides the quickest fix for anxiety (i.e. avoidance). Abandoning multilingualism to reduce anxiety is often not the best way to resolve the problem, since it can prompt negative emotions, such as intensified anxiety, and regret in the long run. In addition, contrary to previous research on the positive role of grandparents (Braun 2012; Quay 2015), current findings indicate that grandparents can have a detrimental effect on bilingual children’s language use and knowledge in some families (e.g. Family 1). Bilingual parents must take steps to recognise and minimise such detrimental effects.

Aggressive monolingualism is inevitable especially in immigrant contexts. Fostering growth multilingual mindsets and positive emotions, such as enjoyment and pride, within the family can be one way of fighting challenges and negative implications that anxiety and monolingual mindsets evoke. When families are able to manage anxiety and fixed monolingual mindsets constructively, they are also able to manage many other challenges brought about by transnationalism. When parents are able to control their anxiety, they are able to give their children freedom to explore, learn from their own mistakes, and become independent and strong, in the face of social exclusion and discrimination. Moreover, just as parents’ anxiety leads to anxiety in their offspring, parents’ confident and positive emotions can also ward off anxiety in their children (cf. Dewaele and MacIntyre 2014; MacIntyre, Gregersen, and Mercer 2016; Newman 2015; see Sevinç (2020), for further reading and implications on positive psychology). Bilingual parents should foster greater engagement in language use and appreciation of multilingualism in their lives through enjoyable activities. Praising children’s efforts instead of only their achievements and helping bilinguals focus on their language development and achievement rather than comparing them with their monolingual peers can also facilitate HL maintenance.

Finally, the current study has several limitations that need to be considered both in the interpretation of the results and for future research. First of all, all data results of the interviews have to be taken cautiously as to their generalizability to other families and contexts because of the small size (i.e. six interviewees from two families). In addition, the current study was not primarily designed to examine FLP and anxiety transmission in everyday communication across different transnational families. The data for this paper were drawn from open-ended interviews conducted with 11 Turkish immigrant families in the Netherlands, all with high level of anxiety. For the purpose of the current study, I discussed only the interview findings from the two families that reported the highest levels of anxiety, in order to focus deeper attention on a comparison between these two Turkish immigrant families pertaining to the causes and effects of high levels of anxiety and transmission of anxiety about monolingual norms. Future studies should incorporate cross-family comparisons by including families with no or low anxiety and with growth multilingual mindsets as well, in order to increase the representativeness and generalisability of the cross-case analysis. Furthermore, as noted earlier, the grandparents and fathers of the families did not want to participate in the study. Although information on fathers and grandparents was collected from children and mothers during the interviews, the second-hand nature of this information might have affected the accuracy and objectivity of the data. Also, repeating this study with a different immigrant, or minority, group or with multiple immigrant groups would determine whether phenomena such as anxiety, pressure, and fixed language or monolingual mindsets are particular to Turkish immigrant families or more widespread.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme [project number 223265].

Notes

1 ‘Heritage language’ in this study is used synonymously with ‘immigrant minority language’. It is defined as a language learned in the family and which is a minority language in a country. ‘Majority language’ is defined as the language spoken by the socially or economically dominant group in a national context.

2 ‘Instructed SLA’ refers to language learning in classroom settings, which is influenced by teachers, classmates, pedagogical materials, and so on (Ellis 1991).

3 In the case of ‘fixed monolingual mindset’, multilinguals ascribe successful multilingualism to having native-like or monolingual skills in every language they acquire. They may also believe (or they are made or forced to believe) that speaking a heritage language is detrimental to their majority language development, or vice versa, assuming that their language learning capacity is limited. In the state of ‘growth multilingual mindset’, multilingualism is understood as a full repertoire of multilingual practices and a beneficial tool for interaction as well as a flexible and adaptable ability that can be improved through practice, effort, and persistence, across the lifespan.

4 The original intention was to interview both parents in every family, but no fathers wished to participate in the interviews.

5 The interview excerpts used in this study are translated from Turkish to English. See Appendix 1 for the original texts.

6 In the Netherlands, between the ages of four and twelve, children attend elementary school (basisschool; which is literally, ‘foundation school’), which has eight grades, called groep 1 (group 1) through groep 8 (group 8). School attendance is not necessary until group 2 (at age five), but almost all children commence school at age four (in group 1). Pertaining to language education and policy, the primary focus of preschools in the Netherlands is mainly on the acquisition of Dutch (Extra and Yağmur 2010) (for further reading on minority languages and multilingualism in Dutch schools also see Extra and Yağmur 2004). Also, teachers or speech therapists may often advise immigrant parents to stop speaking any other language than Dutch in their home (cf. De Houwer 2009; Driessen and Merry 2011).

7 In the Netherlands, HAVO (hoger algemeen voortgezet onderwijs), literally, ‘higher general continued education’, comprises five grades and is attended by children aged 12 to 17. A HAVO diploma qualifies students for HBO, the level of (polytechnic) tertiary education.

Appendix 1.

Original texts of excerpts

Excerpt 1

F1M: İlk kızım eşimin annesi-babası ile büyüdü. Evde onların kuralları geçerdi, her şeye karışırlardı. Hollandaca televizyon bile izleyemezdik. Babalarının Hollandacası iyi, ama o da çoğunlukla işteydi. O yüzden büyüğü çok şanssız, baskıyla büyüdü, dedesinden izin almadan dışarı çıkamazdı. Pek Hollandalı arkadaşı da olmadı. Komşunun kızları gelirdi [Türk], onlarla evde [Türkçe] televizyon izlerlerdi. Küçüğü çok farklı mesela. Türkçeyi çok daha erken öğrendi. Türk’ten çok Hollandalı arkadaşı var falan yani. Ablası da Hollandaca’da yardımcı oldu, ondan yani Hollandacası Türkçesinden daha iyi.

Excerpt 2

Röportör: Peki siz iki dil konuşan biri olarak, iki dil konuşmanın avantajlı olduğunu düşünüyor musunuz?

F1M: Ben iki dil konuşuyorum diyemem. Hollandaca’da hala zorluk çekiyorum. Yarım yamalak konuşuyorum yani. Ev işlerinden, çocuklardan, benim öğrenme şansım olmadı. Bu yaştan sonra da imkânsız artık.

Excerpt 3

F1C1: Deneyimlerimle alakası kesinlikle var. Dedim ya polislik okuluna başvurdum testlere girdim. Mesela bu Hollandalıların de, het, een, de deylen teylen yazılan o kelimeleri var. [Orda ben çok yanlışlık yapıyorum: mesela d’nen mi t’nen mi yazılıyor sonunda? Mesela belki arkasına t de koyman lazım wordt. Ama o Türkçe’de yok.] Türkçe’de olmadığı için onları çok yanlış kullanıyorum. Onlar işte yani onun yüzünden ben pek çok kez kaybettim [sınavlarda], polis olamadım. Ve artık korkuyorum ne zaman kullansam onları, tereddüt ediyorum. Ekstradan dersler falan bile aldım Hollandaca onlar için okuldan sonra ekstra falan dersler veriyorlardı. Ama düzeltemedim. Çünkü artık girmiyor beynime. Yanlış öğrenmişsin, bi kere yani ne yapsan düzeltemezsin. Hele ki bu yaştan sonra … 

Excerpt 4

F1C1: Babam olsun, annem olsun, dedemler olsun, onların gelenek-görenek telaşı yüzünden, biz hep stres altında büyüdük. […] Ya Türkçe konuşmazsak da, bir Hollandalı bulursak falan filan. Madem bu kadar korkuyordunuz neden buraya geldiniz o zaman? Dedem mesela bize der durur: Müslümanız biz ondan, Türkçe daha önemli. Ne alakası var? Kur’an Türkçe mi? Arap mıyız biz? Yoooo! […] Türkçe öğreneyim diye, beni camiye yolladılar ya! Ağzımdan yanlışlıkla bir Hollandaca kelime kaçırsam dedem kızardı bana ‘doğru düzgün Türkçe konuş kız’ derdi. Ben babamlar, dedemler gibi böyle hataları yapmıcam. Çocuğum olsun, doğar doğmaz sadece Hollandaca konuşacağım. […] Hayır, Türkçe değil! Kreşe yollıcam erken yaşta, camiye değil. […] Türkiye’de yaşamıyoruz sonuçta yani, Hollandacaya ihtiyacımız var.

Excerpt 5

F1C2: Dedem beni çok stres yapıyor Türkçe’de. Diyo bana Türkçe iyi konuşamıyorsun diyo. Düzelt diyo, yoksa koca bulamıcan diyo. Bulsan bile diyo kaynananla anlaşamıcan bu Türkçeyle diyo. […] Ben kızıyorum ona, hep Hollandaca konuşuyorum o varken, o anlamasın diye mahsus. O da daha kızıyor o zaman.

Excerpt 6

F2M: Tabi ki çok önemli! Burdaki çocuklarımızın, orda Türkiye’deki akrabalarla dede neneleriyle konuşabilmeleri lazım. Benimkiler, mesela, annem babamla sürekli Hollandaca Türkçe kelimeleri karıştırıp duruyorlar. Annem babam hiçbir şey anlamıyor. Bu sadece kültür ya da din meselesi değil yani, daha çok aileyle alakalı. Ne kadar uzakta olursa olsunlar, ailelerle iletişim kurmak çok önemli.

Excerpt 7

F2C2: Ya, yani anında düzeltip duruyor beni, bazen de kızıyor. Mesela yanlış bişey dedim diyelim, kızıp beni düzeltince ben de düşünüyorum o zaman, aynı hatayı tekrar yaparsam diye korkuyorum. İnsan yani doğal olarak rahatsız oluyor, stres oluyor.

Excerpt 8

F2C2: Biz Hollandacayı sonradan okulda öğrendik. Evde bizle kimse Hollandaca konuşmadı. Annem babam bir kere bile okula gelmemiştir öğretmenimle konuşmaya. Çok zorlandık. Yani şu an Hollandacam gelişmiş olsa bile hala Hollandalıların bizden daha iyi bildiği hissi var, çünkü̈ onlar bizim gibi sürekli iki dille birden savaşmak zorunda kalmıyorlar.

Excerpt 9

F2C1: İş yerimde şunu yaşıyorum ben: Hollandalılar, bazıları, ufak bir hatanı bilerek düzeltiyorlar, yani sadece kendilerinin Hollandalı olduğunu ve bunu sana yapabileceklerini kanıtlamak için. Bazıları dalga geçiyor işte yanlış bir kelime kullanırsan diyor işte BİZ bunu kullanmıyoruz, BİZ bunu kullanıyoruz. Ondan yani dışlandığını küçümsendiğini hissediyorsun.

Excerpt 10

Mesela ben sunu yaşadım; Okula gitti mi birisi iyi konuşmuyorsa O'na tepki gösteriyorlar. Ya daha çok mesela seni her şeyden dışlıyorlar. Mesela, daha çok, iyi Hollandaca bilenlere konuşuyorlar. Benim öğretmenim mesela dışardan gelenleri sevmiyordu. [Onun için okuduğum şeyin bir yükseğini okuyamadım. Yollamadı beni] Küçümsüyordu bizi. Diyordu ki bunlar zaten Türk, Morokan diyodu nerden bilecek bunlar diyodu. [O yüzden bakarsan Hollanda’da FMBO var HWO var. Çoğunlukla Türkler FMBO'da ya kuaför oluyor ya işçi. Yüksek okutmamak için HWO’ya göndermiyor öğretmenler. Ama nasıl desem Türk aileleri de pek fazla bence okullan ilgilenmiyorlar. Benim babam dahil annem dahil, çok fazla da ilgilenmedi bizlen. Hollandaca bilmiyorlardı ki] Ben bunları benim çocuğum da yaşasın istemem. O yüzden Hollandaca benim için daha önemli.