“English on a pedestal”: the language attitudes and practices of African migrant bilingual parents and early years professionals in the U.K

ABSTRACT

Bilingual parents must often make difficult and complex choices about which languages to use with their children. While existing research has explored family language practices and attitudes within certain language communities, the experiences of African parents are conspicuously absent from the literature. This study explores factors influencing intergenerational language transmission among African families in the UK. As educators can influence parental language choices, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with Early Years Professionals and parents of children attending nurseries. Interviews considered participants’ language backgrounds, attitudes and practices, especially in relation to heritage language maintenance. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that being proficient in the English language was prioritised by all participants over maintaining the children’s heritage language, and the value of African languages was low. The findings suggest that the educators’ language practices were influenced by the monolingual education system and, for parents, colonial language ideologies that place English on a pedestal over African languages continue to play an influential role in shaping their language attitudes. Implications of this study include the need for increased understanding within Early Years practice of the unique language profiles and practices of bilingual African families.

KEYWORDS:

• Language attitudes
• African languages
• early years
• bilingualism
• colonialism

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Denise Amankwah

Denise Amankwah is completing her PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Essex. Denise also has a Masters in Education, specialising in Language and Literacy from the University of Exeter and a Bachelors degree in Linguistics from University College London. Her research explores the remnants of colonial language ideologies that are reproduced today through schools and the impact on heritage language maintenance for Black African and Caribbean families. Denise has had multiple roles related to early education and linguistic research at several institutions. Currently, she works closely with teachers and parents to disseminate research on early language development, bilingualism, and heritage language maintenance.

Katie Howard

Katie Howard is a lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Exeter. Her research interests meet at the intersection of multilingualism, mental health and developmental psychology.