Family language policy of trilingual families in Japan: how parents try to raise multilingual children in a monolingual society

Thesis

With increasing interest in early multilingual acquisition in the recent decades, Family Language Policy (FLP) has emerged as a fast-growing field of study exploring parents’ and children’s language-related ideologies, practices, and management within the family unit (Spolsky, 2004). However, a substantial part of the current body of FLP and early multilingual acquisition research is based on a) bilingual families b) living in Europe or Northern America c) with school-aged children and above. This study expands on current literature by investigating the parents’ role in early multilingual acquisition in trilingual families in Japan with young children between one and four years of age. After completing online questionnaires on their families’ demographic and language backgrounds, n=5 parents (n=4 mothers; n=1 father) participated in semi-structured online interviews to share their views on early multilingualism; their goals and expectations for their own children’s language development; their strategies and use of resources; and the challenges they have experienced in trying to pass on multiple languages to their children. The qualitative analysis through inductive coding revealed that individual backgrounds and experiences seem to shape their FLPs. Most parents seemed determined to provide their children with a multilingual upbringing and were highly emotionally invested in their children’s success. The parents worries and regrets for not supporting their children in the best way seemed to have been exacerbated by the limited access to FLP resources and support in the predominantly monolingual context of Japan.

Authors: Mueller, I

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-0opxqwz2z
• Type of award: Mst taught course
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English