Suchergebnisse

Family spaces are considered deeply private environments - taking recording devices into the family home is thus usually not an easy task. And it is even harder to make speakers record themselves without the researcher present. In this article, I describe the development of a recording device for mobile phones as a device to be used in multilingualism research. I will look at how qualitative research data are produced through social, technical and spatial practices, and how the availability of certain technical features influences the possibilities of research in the family. I am interested in understanding ways of organizing multilingual family life and as such, my research is situated in the field of family language policy. As part of an ongoing umbrella project on multilingual transcultural families (MultiFam), in my research I deal with families in Oslo who have been selected because they use both German and Norwegian in the family on a regular basis. Interviews, creative tasks and family recordings are among the methods used to collect data on the language ideologies of the parents, the language use in the family and the biographic experiences linked to languages of both parents and (pre-)school-aged children.

Traditional notions of journalism focus exclusively on professionals, often embedded in media outlets and publishing houses. However, preceding decades have seen transformations in the understanding of journalism. This contribution sets out to explore the role of community media in working towards the recognition of participatory, not-for-profit journalism, more diverse discourses and enhanced participation, especially in relation to minorities. This research draws on policy documents at the European level, reports from European projects with community media involvement as well as on interviews with community media activists and journalists. As a result, we can show strategies of bringing peripheral actors to the centre by using community media based on access and participation, social inclusion, giving a voice and media literacy development. The study proposes a model of the role of community media in shifting peripheral actors to more central positions.

This book discusses salient moments of multilingual encounters and focuses on the interplay between language use by individuals and societies, and language-related inequalities or opportunities for speakers. The chapters demonstrate how biographical and speaker-centred approaches can contribute to an understanding of linguistic diversity.

AbstractIn this article, we examine how parents explain their choices of transmitting certain languages to their children, a key element of family language policies (FLP), in light of their dynamic linguistic repertoires and biographic experiences. Contributing to the framework of FLP, we focus in particular on parents' memories, their narratives of multilingual upbringing in the past, and how these are used to construct present FLP. We analyze conversations where six multilingual parents in Norway talk about their experiences and intentions regarding FLP, and in particular, their reasons for the transmission of (some of their) languages to their children. The parents of three of the families are from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and in three others at least one of the parents migrated from Germany. We find that the parents align their decisions with both prior and new experiences. They relate to their language(s), their past and their current family life, and express the wish for continuity across the lifespan. At the same time, they demonstrate a certain flexibility and willingness to adapt to the constantly changing environments that they and their children experience and in which they navigate. Through their complex accounts, their memories and lived language experiences, we can understand parents' manifold positions as regards their children's linguistic repertoires.

Abstract Raising a child is a challenging venture, regardless of where one lives in the world. Most children are raised in their families; however, many states have welfare services if the child's well-being is at stake. Scandinavian countries follow a rather strict policy in placing the child's individual rights above those of the family, and Norway has child welfare legislation that applies to all children in the country, regardless of their status, nationality or citizenship. This institutional structure has raised issues about how family life is negotiated in society. In this article, we analyze the ways in which language and culture are used to address expectations of (good) normal family life in both private and public discourses with implications for transnational families. We thus problematize the notion of the family as a private domain or space. Furthermore, by examining institutional involvement in child-rearing, we extend research on family language policy to contexts of foster care. We thereby raise the discussion to a societal level about private and public expectations towards family life in a late-modern society.