‘And all of a sudden, it became my rescue’: language and agency in transnational families in Norway

Abstract

Maria Obojska holds an MA in Applied Linguistics (University of Warsaw) and works as a PhD Candidate at the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (University of Oslo). In her doctoral project she investigates language ideologies among Polish families in Norway. Her research interests include multilingualism, family language policy, and language ideologies among transnational adolescents. Judith Purkarthofer received her PhD from the University of Vienna and works as a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (University of Oslo). She is currently most interested in the construction of multilingual social spaces and language organization and does ethnographic and biographic research in families, schools and kindergartens.

Parents’ planning, children’s agency and heritage language education: Re-storying the language experiences of three Chinese immigrant families in Australia

“…Families have a shared repertoire of stories around language experiences. Parents and children not only have their collective lived language experiences but also their own individual experiences to draw on in their storytelling (Obojska and Purkarthofer, 2018). The researchers of this study, therefore, interviewed both parents and children.…”

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

“…At this point, Anja emphasized her agency in literacy activities including reading and memorizing the poem by using the word "I." Similar to the examples shown in the study of Obojska and Purkarthofer (2018), Anja's account constructs the learning process as her own action instead of her parents' strategies directed at language learning.…”

“…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). Additionally, more family types, family languages, and diverse contexts can be observed in FLP research (Lanza & Lomeu Gomes, 2020).…”

Norsk som digitalt samhandlingsspråk i fire familier med innvandrerbakgrunn – identitet og investering

“…Forskning på språkbruk i familien gir oss kunnskap om hvordan dominerende diskurser om språk, skole og integrering samt politiske beslutninger påvirker språksosialiseringsprosessen (Fogle & King, 2017). Studier av flerspråklige familier i Norge viser at norsk språk oppleves som «en redning» for å få jobb, men også som et fremmedelement hvis bruk skal unngås i enkelte situasjoner (Obojska & Purkarthofer, 2018). Noen foreldre forsøker derfor å bruke bare ett språk, og ikke norsk, hjemme, for å utvikle barnas flerspråklighet (Purkarthofer & Steien, 2019).…”