Abstract
Filipino migrants are the fifth largest migrant community in Australia. Filipino migration to the country has been driven by socioeconomic and political factors in both the Philippines and Australia. Against this context, this paper investigates heritage language maintenance practices of Filipino migrant families by using a 2019 interview-based research study with five Filipino migrant families residing in Sydney. The five families were selected based on two criteria: the region in the Philippines where they came from and having a focal child in primary school. The first criterion captured participants from different Philippine linguistic background, while the second ensured a common denominator across the five families that impacts on heritage language practices. Employing Family Language Policy (FLP) as a lens for analysis, the study shows three key findings: (1) the families came to Australia with multilingual repertoires; (2) the parents’ language beliefs, mostly motivated by economic and social pressures attached to their ability to speak English well, dictated the family language practices in the home; and (3) their understanding of language learning plays a significant role in their FLP. This research is significant in terms of its contribution to advocacy and sociolinguistic research on heritage language maintenance among Filipino migrants (199).
Funding source: Australian Linguistic Society Research Grant Scheme
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Research funding: This paper is based on research funded by the Australian Linguistic Society (ALS) Research Grant Scheme in 2019 (https://als.asn.au/Home).
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Multilingual family language policy in monolingual Australia: multilingual desires and monolingual realities
- Articles
- “It’s like the root of a tree that I grew up from….”: parents’ linguistic identity shaping family language policy in isolated circumstances
- “I want her to be able to think in English”: challenges to heritage language maintenance in a monolingual society
- Family language policy and dialect-Italian dynamics: across the waves of Italo-Australian migrant families
- Transnational identities, being and belonging: the diverse home literacies of multilingual immigrant families
- ‘Maybe if you talk to her about it’: intensive mothering expectations and heritage language maintenance
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Multilingual family language policy in monolingual Australia: multilingual desires and monolingual realities
- Articles
- “It’s like the root of a tree that I grew up from….”: parents’ linguistic identity shaping family language policy in isolated circumstances
- “I want her to be able to think in English”: challenges to heritage language maintenance in a monolingual society
- Family language policy and dialect-Italian dynamics: across the waves of Italo-Australian migrant families
- Transnational identities, being and belonging: the diverse home literacies of multilingual immigrant families
- ‘Maybe if you talk to her about it’: intensive mothering expectations and heritage language maintenance