Parents as stakeholders: Language management in urban Galician homes
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Anik Nandi
Abstract
Macro-level policy makers, perceived as stakeholders of language management, employ a range of language policy strategies to legitimise hegemonic control over meso- (i.e. family) and micro- (i.e. individual) level language ideologies (Cassels-Johnson 2013). However, language policies of an individual are often difficult to detect because they are implicit, subtle, informal, and often hidden from the public eye, and therefore frequently overlooked by language policy researchers and policy makers. The primary focus of this study is to investigate how individual, as well as collective linguistic practices of Galician parents act as language governmentality (Foucault 1991) measures influencing their children’s language learning. Drawing from multiple ethnographic research tools, including observations, in-depth fieldwork interviews and focus group discussions with parents, this paper demonstrates that in Galicia’s language shift-induced shrinking Galician-speaker pool, pro-Galician parents can play an important role in the language revitalisation process. The goal is also to ascertain whether these parents’ grassroots level interrogation of the dominant Castilian discourse takes the form of bottom-up language policies.
Funding statement: This paper benefits from a Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) that took place in November 2014 under the auspices of the European COST Action 1306 New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Language management in multilingual families: Efforts, measures and challenges
- ‘One Cas, Two Cas’: Exploring the affective dimensions of family language policy
- Transnational experiences, language competences and worldviews: contrasting language policies in two recently migrated Greek families in Luxembourg
- Managing heritage language development: Opportunities and challenges for Chinese, Italian and Pakistani Urdu-speaking families in the UK
- Parents as stakeholders: Language management in urban Galician homes
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Language management in multilingual families: Efforts, measures and challenges
- ‘One Cas, Two Cas’: Exploring the affective dimensions of family language policy
- Transnational experiences, language competences and worldviews: contrasting language policies in two recently migrated Greek families in Luxembourg
- Managing heritage language development: Opportunities and challenges for Chinese, Italian and Pakistani Urdu-speaking families in the UK
- Parents as stakeholders: Language management in urban Galician homes
