Family language policy by Hakkas in Balik Pulau, Penang

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4178087
AutoresWang Xiaomei, Wang Xiao-mei (Xiamen University Malaysia, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen2017
Número244
Fecha de publicación2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of the Sociology of Language (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0165-2516 • E-ISSN: 1613-3668
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ijsl-2016-0058
OpenAlexW2587264756
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas28
Referencias citadas14

Family domain is crucial for language maintenance. It is also a critical avenue for children's language acquisition. In Spolsky's language management theory, family is one of the key domains for language management. In this study, we focus on family language management in Hakka families in Balik Pulau, Penang. Structured-interviews were conducted in November 2012. In total, 14 Hakka families were interviewed. In each family, one parent and one child were interviewed. This article examines family language policy from three perspectives: ideology, practice, and management. The results show that Hakkas in Penang give great importance to Mandarin and almost abandon Hakka in the family domain. However, they still have strong Hakka identity and some parents have restarted to speak Hakka with their children consciously. Multilingual capacity is a common expectation from parents. With multilingual input in the family domain, most of the children become passive bilinguals or multilinguals. The regional prestige dialect Hokkien is part of the repertoire of these Hakka families. However, there are no intentional efforts from the parents to teach Hokkien to their children. Conscious language management is only found for Mandarin and sometimes for English. This results from the parents' language ideology that Mandarin is the most important language for Chinese Malaysians and English is an international language for their children's future career. Findings from the current study contribute to the understanding of language maintenance and language shift in general

Ideology · Language ideology · Language policy · Language shift · Linguistics · Mandarin Chinese · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Prestige · Sociology · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology · Second Language Learning and Teaching