Publication
Title
Determinants of emotional language use preferences of ethnolinguistic minority children in Antwerp, Belgium
Author
Abstract
Within multilingual families, the emotionality of languages can impact individual and family wellbeing. But few studies have investigated the influence of the familial linguistic context in shaping emotional language use preferences. Guided by the Family Language Policy framework, we consider how the language use and the language attitudes of parents, siblings and children themselves affect the emotional language use preferences of children, independent of children's proficiencies in their heritage (HL) and institutional (IL) languages. We analyze unique data from over 500 primary school children (aged 10-12) from Moroccan, Turkish, Eastern-European and mixed descent living in Antwerp, the largest Dutch-speaking city of Belgium. We find that children's emotional preferesnces are strongly affected by their proficiency in the heritage language but not their proficiency in Dutch, by their parents' and siblings' language practices but not their own practice and by children's attitudes about the relative importance of HL and IL. Overall, the results suggest that emotional language preferences of children reflect children's own acculturation process as well as that of their families.
Language
English
Source (journal)
International journal of bilingual education and bilingualism. - Clevedon
Publication
Abingdon : 2021
ISSN
1367-0050
DOI
10.1080/13670050.2018.1523866
Volume/pages
24 :6 (2021) , p. 892-908
ISI
000661055500009
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Publication type
Subject
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 09.10.2023
Last edited 10.10.2023
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