Family language policy on holiday: four multilingual signing and speaking families travelling together

Abstract

Most FLP research focuses on intrafamily communication (1FLP) and how this is impacted by larger contexts. But what happens when different multilingual families interact intensively on a daily basis? This article analyses language use during a holiday in India in and between four deaf-hearing befriended families, and how this evolved over the twelve days of the trip (4FLP). Three of the four families are our (the authors') own. The family members originate from the UK, Belgium, Denmark and India. All families use more than one language at home (at least one sign language and one spoken language), and all family members are fluent signers. We ask: how does intrafamilial FLP (1FLP) at home inform interfamilial FLP (xFLP) on holiday? And how does interfamilial contact on holiday inform intrafamilial FLP during that same holiday? The data discussed in the article is organised along different multilingual practices, some of them general to multilingual interactions and others specific to multilingual signers: language mixing, switching and learning, language brokering, speaking and signspeaking. The findings reveal rich complexities of interfamilial language practices which inform thinking on FLP and multilingualism.

Translanguaging Framework for Deaf Education

“…Furthermore, deaf people are known to sign more sequentially and embed English features when they find that the interlocutor is not fluent and flexible in their use of ASL's simultaneous features. Deaf people are also known to use simultaneous expression to boost language acquisition and increase the communicative understanding of deaf toddlers or to enhance the clarity of concepts with school-aged deaf students, deaf persons who have experienced language deprivation, or international deaf people who do not know ASL or English (De Meulder et al 2019;Kusters 2020;Kusters et al 2017Kusters et al , 2021. As these examples demonstrate, language and communication extend beyond the traditional boxes people typically put deaf persons in with statements such as "They only use ASL/they are fully visual" or "They only use spoken English/they are fully oral" (Nussbaum et al 2012).…”

The eye and the other: Language and ethics in deaf Nepal

“…25 This pseudonym preserves indexes to gender and jat "caste/ethnicity." 26 Scholars are paying growing attention to translational practices-within sign and across speech and sign-that occur outside of professional interpreting contexts (e. g., Friedner 2015;Green 2015;Kisch 2008;Kusters, De Meulder, and Napier 2021;Napier 2021). 27 Nanyi Jiang illustrated Figures 4-10.…”