11 Child agency and home language maintenance

Using a ‘Family Language Policy’ lens to explore the dynamic and relational nature of child agency

“…In doing so, it has centred on what at first glance seems to be an anomaly: how the child's use of the majority language plays a role in reifying the pro‐minority language FLP. It has focused on this conundrum as a way to illustrate the interrelated nature of compliance regimes, linguistic norms, linguistic competency and generational positioning, as proposed in the model I developed for examining child agency in FLP (Smith‐Christmas, 2020a). We have also seen how the children's agentive use of the majority language in contributing to the pro‐minority language FLP may relate to other goals, such as vying for caregivers' attention or creatively rendering a particular utterance.…”

“…As explained in greater depth in Smith‐Christmas (2020a), in conducting a review of child agency in FLP research, I developed a model to conceptualise how children's linguistic choices in family interactions can be considered agentive. Although it was not my necessarily intention to build a model in reviewing the FLP literature on child agency, I felt stymied by what I perceived as a lack of conceptual clarity on how agency was applied to children's language practices.…”

“…It is clear that his use of English in saying ‘chewing gum’ in Turn 9 is not because he is resisting his father's use of Irish, but rather, that he lacks the competence to do so. As mentioned earlier, my recent treatment of child agency and FLP (Smith‐Christmas, 2020a), I discuss the conundrum that linguistic competency can pose to conceptualising agency; if for example, it is clear that the child lacks the linguistic competency to answer in the minority language, can their utterance still be considered agentive? I argue that even though the children appear to lack the choice to use the minority language by virtue of them not possessing the requisite linguistic competence, ultimately, their choice is guided by norms and thus, evidences the interdependent nature of agency in child–caregiver interactions.…”

“…This work has shown that linguistic practices which align with a pro‐minority language FLP often result in successful language maintenance (Altman et al., 2014; Lanza, 1997). This emphasis on language maintenance can account for the tendency for child agency in FLP to be seen as subversion, that is, the child resisting the parameters of the FLP, which tends to equate to the child's use of the majority language (Smith‐Christmas, 2020a). The other main arena for FLP explorations of child agency has lain in children's potential to disrupt the power differential along generational lines through the child's greater linguistic competence in the majority language, a common situation in transnational families (Antonini, 2016; Crafter and Iqbal, this volume; Revis, 2016).…”

FLP and homescapes: Employing walking tour methodology in researching children’s and parents’ perspectives

“…While earlier research in FLP focused on parental perspectives, agency, and decision-making, more recent work includes the child's agency as well as their experience with FLP in multilingual families (Smith-Christmas, 2020). Not only do children exercise agency through discursive construction (Obojska & Purkarthofer, 2018), creative and resistant language use in interaction, and metalinguistic commentary (Fogle & King, 2013;Gafaranga, 2010;Kheirkhah, 2016), but they also influence FLP through their growing linguistic competence and agency in the language of the target society (Revis, 2019).…”