Immigrant families need to make choices on which language(s) to favor in their everyday life. Those choices have been extensively investigated in recent decades under the label of family language policy (FLP). Early research has focused on explicit and overt language planning in Western middle-class families, a focus that has been criticized for being too elitist, while more recent research focuses on the role of FLP as a coping and defence mechanism, especially in contexts of trauma and post-conflict recovery.
This project will explore Family Language Policies, minority language(s) development, and minority language(s) teaching in the Sub-Saharan community in the Lemanic region of Switzerland. The first aim of the proposed research project is to document how Sub-Saharan families in the Lemanic region of Switzerland navigate their multilingual environments in the context of broader decolonization efforts, including the ideologies they convey and the relationship between minority language practices and cultural aspects within the majority community. A second goal of the research project focuses on family language policies and practices in relation to children's acquisition of regional languages and specifically how children develop linguistic proficiency in languages that their parents or other family members may not fully master. A third goal of the project regards the efforts made to teach Sub-Saharan languages in the context of heritage language and culture classes (HLC). We aim to document and analyze the teaching methods, language use, and interaction patterns within the classroom.
The proposed project aims to investigate language practices in under-researched communities from a decolonial perspective, promoting the value of their languages and fostering trust with participants, while leveraging multidisciplinary expertise to inform educational policies and teacher training for multilingual environments. The project’s approach to tackling FLP from different interconnected perspectives—sociolinguistic, ethnographic, psycholinguistic and applied linguistics— ensures that findings will have relevance and application for educators working with children from families with origins in various communities. By integrating research and practice within a teacher-training institution, the project aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of FLP and raise awareness for alternative educational policies and classroom practices.