Language practices and policies of Singaporean-Japanese families in Singapore
Abstract
The few studies on Family Language Policy in Singapore (FLP) have generally focused on FLP in local and immigrant Chinese families. This article explores language policies that seem to undergird Singaporean-Japanese families’ language practices. In-depth interviews and observations with five such families showed that Japanese only functions as the language of communication between the Japanese parents and their children if parents have invoked particular language policies to support its transmission and use at home. For most families, English was the main medium of communication among family members. Language policies and practices in these families were heavily influenced by the value emplaced on each language within the parents’ linguistic repertoire and their beliefs regarding language learning.
Keywords:
Publication history
Table of contents
- Abstract
- Keywords
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Family Language Policy
- 3.Binational families
- 4.Factors affecting FLP in binational families
- 5.Factors affecting the success or failure of families to attain their desired language outcomes
- 6.Singapore’s linguistic situation and FLP in Singapore
- 7.Methodology
- 8.Findings
- 9.Discussion
- 10.Conclusion
- Funding
- References
- Address for correspondence
- Biographical notes
1.Introduction
The burgeoning field of studies examining Family Language Policy (FLP) that once focused on ‘typical’ family units and nuclear families has increasingly called for greater diversity in the types of families being studied. This paper answers the call by shedding light on the negotiation and enactment of FLP in families with binational parents – parents from two different nationalities. With binational marriages becoming a growing global phenomenon, binational families are a specific group of interest because binational parents must make very clear decisions about their children’s language repertoires they wish to support as they will have direct consequences for their future.
This study adds to the field of FLP by investigating the language policies and practices of Singaporean-Japanese families living in Singapore. By leveraging ethnomethodological tools such as interviews and participant observation sessions, we seek to document how language practices implemented in the home domain are shaped by the ideologies adopted by parents of different nationalities. In essence, our research focuses on answering the following questions through the lens of FLP: What are the linguistic experiences, ideologies, and practices of Singaporean-Japanese families? What factors influence the negotiation of FLP within these families?
In what follows, we present an overview of the extant literature on FLP and an overview of Singapore’s macro language policies. Following that, we detail the methodology and our findings from the interviews and participant observations. The article then concludes with an in-depth discussion of some possible factors that influence FLP within Singaporean-Japanese families.
2.Family Language Policy
Family Language Policy (FLP) focuses on “how languages are managed, learned and negotiated within families” and studies on
FLP aim to describe and analyse the theoretical underpinnings behind language practices and policies in the familial domain (King, Fogle and Logan-Terry 2008King, Kendall
A., Lyn Fogle, and Aubrey Logan-Terry 2008 “Family
Language Policy.” Language and Linguistics
Compass 2 (5): 907–922. , 907). Much existing research highlights how factors both
within and outside this domain can influence family language practices and policies (Curdt-Christiansen 2016 2016 “Conflicting Language
Ideologies and Contradictory Language Practices in Singaporean Multilingual Families.” Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 37 (7): 694–709.
; King and Fogle 2006King, Kendall
A., and Lyn Fogle 2006 “Bilingual
Parenting as Good Parenting: Parents’ Perspectives on Family Language Policy for Additive
Bilingualism.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 9 (6): 695–712.
; Kirsch 2012Kirsch, Claudine 2012 “Ideologies,
Struggles and Contradictions: An Account of Mothers Raising Their Children Bilingually in Luxembourgish and English in Great
Britain.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 15 (1): 95–112.
; Kopeliovich 2010Kopeliovich, Shulamit 2010 “Family
Language Policy: A Case Study of a Russian-Hebrew Bilingual Family: Toward a Theoretical
Framework.” Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority
Education 4 (3): 162–178.
; Nakamura 2019Nakamura, Janice 2019 “Parents’
Impact Belief in Raising Bilingual and Biliterate Children in Japan.” Psychology of Language
and
Communication 23 (1): 137–161.
; Oriyama 2016Oriyama, Kaya 2016 “Community
of Practice and Family Language Policy: Maintaining Heritage Japanese in Sydney – Ten Years
Later.” International Multilingual Research
Journal 10 (4): 289–307.
). Spolsky
(2004)Spolsky, Bernard 2004 Language
Policy, Key Topics in Sociolinguistics. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
notes that FLP comprises three components: language ideology, language practices, and language management. The
connection between the three components is by no means straightforward. While language ideology has been said to be a crucial
motivator of language practices and management strategies (King and Fogle 2006King, Kendall
A., and Lyn Fogle 2006 “Bilingual
Parenting as Good Parenting: Parents’ Perspectives on Family Language Policy for Additive
Bilingualism.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 9 (6): 695–712.
; King, Fogle and Logan-Terry 2008King, Kendall
A., Lyn Fogle, and Aubrey Logan-Terry 2008 “Family
Language Policy.” Language and Linguistics
Compass 2 (5): 907–922.
; Kirsch 2012Kirsch, Claudine 2012 “Ideologies,
Struggles and Contradictions: An Account of Mothers Raising Their Children Bilingually in Luxembourgish and English in Great
Britain.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 15 (1): 95–112.
;
Oriyama 2016Oriyama, Kaya 2016 “Community
of Practice and Family Language Policy: Maintaining Heritage Japanese in Sydney – Ten Years
Later.” International Multilingual Research
Journal 10 (4): 289–307.
), the declared language ideologies of parents do not necessarily translate
to language practices and policies within their homes that support these ideologies (Curdt-Christiansen 2016 2016 “Conflicting Language
Ideologies and Contradictory Language Practices in Singaporean Multilingual Families.” Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 37 (7): 694–709.
; Kopeliovich 2010Kopeliovich, Shulamit 2010 “Family
Language Policy: A Case Study of a Russian-Hebrew Bilingual Family: Toward a Theoretical
Framework.” Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority
Education 4 (3): 162–178.
; Nakamura 2019Nakamura, Janice 2019 “Parents’
Impact Belief in Raising Bilingual and Biliterate Children in Japan.” Psychology of Language
and
Communication 23 (1): 137–161.
; Spolsky 2004Spolsky, Bernard 2004 Language
Policy, Key Topics in Sociolinguistics. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
).
3.Binational families
Binational marriages have made up an increasingly larger proportion of marriages across the world and in East and Southeast
Asia in the last few decades (Fresnoza-Flot and Ricordeau 2019Fresnoza-Flot, A., and G. Ricordeau 2019 International
Marriages and Marital Citizenship: Southeast Asian Women on the Move. London,
UK: Routledge.; Groes and Fernandez 2018Groes, C., and N. T. Fernandez 2018 Intimate
Mobilities: Sexual Economies, Marriage and Migration in a Disparate World. New York,
USA: Berghahn Books.
; Jones and Shen 2008Jones, Gavin, and Hsiu-hua Shen 2008 “International
Marriage in East and Southeast Asia: Trends and Research Emphases.” Citizenship
Studies 12 (1): 9–25.
; Medrano 2020Medrano, J. D. 2020 Europe
in Love. London,
UK: Routledge.
). In Singapore, the Department of Statistics uses the term ‘interethnic
marriages’ to capture the broad category of intercultural and bi-national marriages. The latest census shows that the proportion of
interethnic marriages in Singapore has increased steadily over the years, with interethnic marriages comprising 18.2% of total
marriages in 2020 compared to just 12.1% of marriages in 2000 (Department of Statistics
2021Department of
Statistics 2021 “Proportion of Transnational and Inter-Ethnic Marriages
among Citizen Marriages, Annual.” Ministry of Trade and
Industry, accessed 20 August
2022. https://data.gov.sg/dataset/proportion-of-transnational-and-inter-ethnic-marriages-among-citizen-marriages). Approximately two out of three of these interethnic marriages involved a partner who did not belong to Singapore’s
four main ethnic groups (Chinese, Malay, Indian or Eurasian). Additionally, between a quarter and a third of all marriages annually
have been between a Singaporean citizen and a non-Singaporean citizen since 1998 (Department of
Statistics 2021Department of
Statistics 2021 “Proportion of Transnational and Inter-Ethnic Marriages
among Citizen Marriages, Annual.” Ministry of Trade and
Industry, accessed 20 August
2022. https://data.gov.sg/dataset/proportion-of-transnational-and-inter-ethnic-marriages-among-citizen-marriages).
In this paper, we use the term ‘binational marriage’ in the way Kraler et al. (2011Kraler, Alber, Eleonore Kofman, Martin Kohli, and Camille Schmoll 2011 “Introduction.
Issues and Debates on Family-Related Migration and the Migrant Family: A European
Perspective.” In Gender, Generations and the Family in International
Migration, edited by Alber Kraler, Eleonore Kofman, Martin Kohli, and Camille Schmoll, 13–54. Amsterdam,
The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. , 45) did “to highlight that public debates around these marriages are not just about cultural difference and
‘mixity’, but are very much linked to citizenship and residence rights. […] the term designates marriages involving spouses of
different cultural or ethnic backgrounds and different citizenships.” Our use of the term ‘binational marriages’ excludes marriages
between partners of the same ethnicity but of different nationalities, the so-called ‘transnational co-ethnic marriages’ (Kraler et al. 2011Kraler, Alber, Eleonore Kofman, Martin Kohli, and Camille Schmoll 2011 “Introduction.
Issues and Debates on Family-Related Migration and the Migrant Family: A European
Perspective.” In Gender, Generations and the Family in International
Migration, edited by Alber Kraler, Eleonore Kofman, Martin Kohli, and Camille Schmoll, 13–54. Amsterdam,
The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press.
, 28–30; see also Carol, Ersanilli and
Wagner 2014Carol, Sarah, Evelyn Ersanilli, and Mareike Wagner 2014 “Spousal
Choice among the Children of Turkish and Moroccan Immigrants in Six European Countries: Transnational Spouse or Co-Ethnic
Migrant?” International Migration
Review 48 (2): 387–414.
).
4.Factors affecting FLP in binational families
Binational parents typically speak languages that differ in their status and prominence within the family’s country of residence. Thus, there is a need to elucidate the factors influencing whether and what kind of FLP is implemented in such families.
4.1Intra-family factors
A factor that has been identified repeatedly as exerting a significant influence on FLP decisions in such families is
the attitudes that family members hold towards their minority language (Park 2019Park, Mi
Yung 2019 “Challenges of Maintaining
the Mother’s Language: Marriage-Migrants and Their Mixed-Heritage Children in South
Korea.” Language and
Education 33 (5): 431–444. ;
Schüpbach 2009Schüpbach, Doris 2009 “Language
Transmission Revisited: Family Type, Linguistic Environment and Language
Attitudes.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 12 (1): 15–30.
). When the parent whose native language is a minority language holds
positive attitudes towards said language, they are more likely to transmit it to their children (Park 2019Park, Mi
Yung 2019 “Challenges of Maintaining
the Mother’s Language: Marriage-Migrants and Their Mixed-Heritage Children in South
Korea.” Language and
Education 33 (5): 431–444.
; Schüpbach 2009Schüpbach, Doris 2009 “Language
Transmission Revisited: Family Type, Linguistic Environment and Language
Attitudes.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 12 (1): 15–30.
). Conversely, a parent who has
negative attitudes towards the minority language may, even indirectly, discourage their children from using the language (Zaid and Mac 2017Zaid, Ainun Rozana
Mohd., and Yin
Mee Mac 2017 “The
Language Choice among Chinese-Indian Mixed-Marriage Families in Malaysia.” Journal of Modern
Languages 19 (1): 1–18.
).
Minority language-speaking parents also tend to evaluate the usefulness of their language in relation to other
languages spoken in the community (Park 2019Park, Mi
Yung 2019 “Challenges of Maintaining
the Mother’s Language: Marriage-Migrants and Their Mixed-Heritage Children in South
Korea.” Language and
Education 33 (5): 431–444. ; Schüpbach 2009Schüpbach, Doris 2009 “Language
Transmission Revisited: Family Type, Linguistic Environment and Language
Attitudes.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 12 (1): 15–30.
). Given that children are disadvantaged in the learning process when their languages are not the medium
of instruction at school, parents typically consider it necessary for their children to master the majority language of the
community to attain academic and professional success. English has been cited by minority language-speaking parents in various
studies as being of equal or greater value than their minority languages due to its status as the putative global lingua franca,
as well as its association with better employment prospects (Cavallaro, Ng and Tan
2020Cavallaro, Francesco, Bee
Chin Ng, and Ying
Ying Tan 2020 “Singapore
English.” In Handbook of Asian
Englishes, edited by Kingsley Bolton, Werner Botha, and Andy Kirkpatrick, 419–447. New
Jersey, USA: Blackwell-Wiley.
; Nakamura 2019Nakamura, Janice 2019 “Parents’
Impact Belief in Raising Bilingual and Biliterate Children in Japan.” Psychology of Language
and
Communication 23 (1): 137–161.
; Park 2019Park, Mi
Yung 2019 “Challenges of Maintaining
the Mother’s Language: Marriage-Migrants and Their Mixed-Heritage Children in South
Korea.” Language and
Education 33 (5): 431–444.
).
An awareness of the benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism motivates minority language-speaking parents to
transmit their language to their children (King and Fogle 2006King, Kendall
A., and Lyn Fogle 2006 “Bilingual
Parenting as Good Parenting: Parents’ Perspectives on Family Language Policy for Additive
Bilingualism.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 9 (6): 695–712. ; Kirsch 2012Kirsch, Claudine 2012 “Ideologies,
Struggles and Contradictions: An Account of Mothers Raising Their Children Bilingually in Luxembourgish and English in Great
Britain.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 15 (1): 95–112.
; Nakamura 2019Nakamura, Janice 2019 “Parents’
Impact Belief in Raising Bilingual and Biliterate Children in Japan.” Psychology of Language
and
Communication 23 (1): 137–161.
; Oriyama 2016Oriyama, Kaya 2016 “Community
of Practice and Family Language Policy: Maintaining Heritage Japanese in Sydney – Ten Years
Later.” International Multilingual Research
Journal 10 (4): 289–307.
; Schüpbach 2009Schüpbach, Doris 2009 “Language
Transmission Revisited: Family Type, Linguistic Environment and Language
Attitudes.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 12 (1): 15–30.
). However, having positive
attitudes towards one’s minority language and bilingual development may be insufficient to ensure that one implements language
management practices to transmit their minority language. According to Nakamura (2019)Nakamura, Janice 2019 “Parents’
Impact Belief in Raising Bilingual and Biliterate Children in Japan.” Psychology of Language
and
Communication 23 (1): 137–161.
,
without a strong impact belief, which refers to a parent’s confidence in their ability to control their children’s language
development, parents may lack the conviction and the willingness required to implement and enforce language management practices
in their home when faced with resistance or apathy.
Several studies have also underscored how children are not simply passive recipients of FLP but agents who play an
active role in their language development (see Fogle and King 2013Fogle, Lyn
Wright, and Kendall
A. King 2013 “Child
Agency and Language Policy in Transnational Families.” Issues in Applied
Linguistics 19: 1–25. ; Mirvahedi and Cavallaro 2019Mirvahedi, Seyed
Hadi, and Francesco Cavallaro 2019 “Siblings’
Play and Language Shift to English in a Malay-English Bilingual Family in Singapore.” World
Englishes Online first.
; Said and Zhu
2019Said, Fatma, and Hua Zhu 2019 ““No,
No Maama! Say ‘Shaatir Ya Ouledee Shaatir’!” Children’s Agency in Language Use and
Socialisation.” International Journal of
Bilingualism 23 (3): 771–785.
; Tuominen 1999Tuominen, Anne 1999 “Who
Decides the Home Language? A Look at Multilingual Families.” International Journal of the
Sociology of
Language 140 (1): 59–76.
). The attitudes that children have towards their
minority language and their responses towards their parents’ language management efforts have been shown to encourage or
discourage the parents’ efforts (Nakamura 2019Nakamura, Janice 2019 “Parents’
Impact Belief in Raising Bilingual and Biliterate Children in Japan.” Psychology of Language
and
Communication 23 (1): 137–161.
; Park 2019Park, Mi
Yung 2019 “Challenges of Maintaining
the Mother’s Language: Marriage-Migrants and Their Mixed-Heritage Children in South
Korea.” Language and
Education 33 (5): 431–444.
; Takeuchi 2006Takeuchi, Masae 2006 “The
Japanese Language Development of Children through the ‘One Parent–One Language’ Approach in
Melbourne.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 27 (4): 319–331.
).
4.2External factors
Other factors external to the family that shape FLP in binational families are the presence or absence of
institutional and community support for the use of minority languages. Community support can help counter the influx of societal
discourses and pressure and encourage minority language-speaking parents to transmit their language to their children (Nakamura 2019Nakamura, Janice 2019 “Parents’
Impact Belief in Raising Bilingual and Biliterate Children in Japan.” Psychology of Language
and
Communication 23 (1): 137–161. ; Oriyama 2016Oriyama, Kaya 2016 “Community
of Practice and Family Language Policy: Maintaining Heritage Japanese in Sydney – Ten Years
Later.” International Multilingual Research
Journal 10 (4): 289–307.
). However, there
is tangible societal and institutional pressure on parents to abandon their attempts at minority language transmission, with this
pressure mainly coming from the education system and the societal perception that the majority language will better prepare the
children for their future careers (Kirsch 2012Kirsch, Claudine 2012 “Ideologies,
Struggles and Contradictions: An Account of Mothers Raising Their Children Bilingually in Luxembourgish and English in Great
Britain.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 15 (1): 95–112.
; Park 2019Park, Mi
Yung 2019 “Challenges of Maintaining
the Mother’s Language: Marriage-Migrants and Their Mixed-Heritage Children in South
Korea.” Language and
Education 33 (5): 431–444.
).
Making decisions about which language practices to foreground is a central component of parenthood and is therefore
inextricably connected with and influenced by cultural and societal notions of what it means to be a parent, particularly public
and familial discourses concerning what makes a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ parent (King and Fogle
2006King, Kendall
A., and Lyn Fogle 2006 “Bilingual
Parenting as Good Parenting: Parents’ Perspectives on Family Language Policy for Additive
Bilingualism.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 9 (6): 695–712. ). While some parents might perceive developing bilingualism in their children to be in line with what a ‘good’
parent would do (King and Fogle 2006King, Kendall
A., and Lyn Fogle 2006 “Bilingual
Parenting as Good Parenting: Parents’ Perspectives on Family Language Policy for Additive
Bilingualism.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 9 (6): 695–712.
), others may choose not to develop their
children’s proficiency in their minority language out of the belief that ‘good mothers’ should focus on developing their
children’s proficiency in the majority language (Park 2019Park, Mi
Yung 2019 “Challenges of Maintaining
the Mother’s Language: Marriage-Migrants and Their Mixed-Heritage Children in South
Korea.” Language and
Education 33 (5): 431–444.
, 439).
5.Factors affecting the success or failure of families to attain their desired language outcomes
King, Fogle, and Logan-Terry (2008)King, Kendall
A., Lyn Fogle, and Aubrey Logan-Terry 2008 “Family
Language Policy.” Language and Linguistics
Compass 2 (5): 907–922. have pointed out that the leading cause of
families’ disparity in language outcomes is a lack of adherence to a viable language management strategy. The parents who adhere more
strictly to their planned approach generally achieve better outcomes than the parents who have not. Döpke’s (1992)Döpke, Susanne 1992 One
Parent – One Language: An Interactional Approach, Studies in Bilingualism. Amsterdam, The
Netherlands: John Benjamins.
study clearly illustrates this point, with the children whose parents were most consistent in
their language choices attaining the greatest degree of proficiency in both the minority and the majority language.
How parents in binational families successfully promote minority language use amongst their children is also affected by how
consistently they use the language with their children. In Takeuchi’s (2006)Takeuchi, Masae 2006 “The
Japanese Language Development of Children through the ‘One Parent–One Language’ Approach in
Melbourne.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 27 (4): 319–331. study, almost
all the children whose mothers had continued to set aside time to interact with them in Japanese even after they had entered primary
school consistently spoke to their mothers in Japanese, while those whose mothers had stopped or reduced their interactions with them
after they had entered primary school spoke with their mothers in English. However, as emphasised by Takeuchi (2006)Takeuchi, Masae 2006 “The
Japanese Language Development of Children through the ‘One Parent–One Language’ Approach in
Melbourne.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 27 (4): 319–331.
, the quality and quantity of the minority language-speaking parent’s interactions with their
children are also essential for their minority language development.
How parents respond to their children’s use of the majority language during their interactions has been a significant
determinant of their success in maintaining the minority language (Lanza 2004 2004 Language
Mixing in Infant Bilingualism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press.). A minority
language-speaking parent may adopt multiple discourse strategies in response to their children’s use of the majority language, ranging
from more monolingual strategies that encourage the exclusive use of the minority language to more bilingual strategies that allow for
the use of both the majority and minority languages. Lanza (2004) 2004 Language
Mixing in Infant Bilingualism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press.
suggests that when
minority-language speaking parents adopt a more monolingual discourse strategy, it helps promote greater use of the minority language
by their children (see also Döpke 1992Döpke, Susanne 1992 One
Parent – One Language: An Interactional Approach, Studies in Bilingualism. Amsterdam, The
Netherlands: John Benjamins.
; Kasuya
1998Kasuya, Hiroko 1998 “Determinants
of Language Choice in Bilingual Children: The Role of Input.” International Journal of
Bilingualism 2 (3): 327–346.
; Kirsch 2012Kirsch, Claudine 2012 “Ideologies,
Struggles and Contradictions: An Account of Mothers Raising Their Children Bilingually in Luxembourgish and English in Great
Britain.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 15 (1): 95–112.
; Takeuchi
2006Takeuchi, Masae 2006 “The
Japanese Language Development of Children through the ‘One Parent–One Language’ Approach in
Melbourne.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 27 (4): 319–331.
).
6.Singapore’s linguistic situation and FLP in Singapore
Singapore has four official languages: English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. English is the language of law, business, and
instruction in schools. In contrast, the other three languages are referred to as ‘Mother Tongue Languages’ (MTLs) and are only taught
as second languages in schools (Cavallaro and Ng 2020Cavallaro, Francesco, and Bee
Chin Ng 2020 “Multilingualism
and Multiculturalism in Singapore.” In Multilingual Global Cities:
Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai, edited by Peter Siemund, and Jakob
R. E. Leimgruber, 133–159. New
York, USA: Routledge. ). This language policy has its roots
in then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s vision that English should connect Singaporeans to the rest of the world, while MTLs acted as a
‘cultural ballast’ to keep locals rooted in their ethnic culture and values (Cavallaro, Ng and Tan
2020Cavallaro, Francesco, Bee
Chin Ng, and Ying
Ying Tan 2020 “Singapore
English.” In Handbook of Asian
Englishes, edited by Kingsley Bolton, Werner Botha, and Andy Kirkpatrick, 419–447. New
Jersey, USA: Blackwell-Wiley.
). It should be noted that, within the Singapore context, ‘mother tongue is a departure from the standard linguistic
definition, where a mother tongue is typically an individual’s native language spoken and acquired from birth. MTLs in Singapore may
or may not be the mother tongues of many Singaporeans and are, instead, the languages that match the ethnic background of Singaporeans
(Tan 2014Tan, Ying
Ying 2014 “English as a ‘Mother Tongue’
in Contemporary Singapore.” World
Englishes 33 (3): 319–339.
). All school students are, with few exceptions, assigned MTLs based on their
ethnicity (i.e., Mandarin Chinese for the Chinese, Tamil or, recently, another Indian language for the Indians, and Malay for the
Malays) and are required to learn an MTL for a minimum of ten years during Primary and Secondary school.
The government promotes bilingual education as the cornerstone of the education system in Singapore. It is thus not
surprising that the importance of learning MTLs has consistently been reiterated by the government (Lee 2019Lee, Hsien
Loong 2019 “PM Lee Hsien Loong at 40th
Anniversary of Speak Mandarin Campaign.” Accessed 16 Nov. pmo.gov.sg/Newsroom/PM-Lee-Hsien-Loong-at-40th-Anniversary-of-Speak-Mandarin-Campaign). Nonetheless, despite the government’s best efforts to encourage MTLs among Singaporean children,
there continues to be a steady shift away from MTLs amongst Singaporean families, with English fast becoming the language of choice
across all domains (Cavallaro and Ng 2020Cavallaro, Francesco, and Bee
Chin Ng 2020 “Multilingualism
and Multiculturalism in Singapore.” In Multilingual Global Cities:
Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai, edited by Peter Siemund, and Jakob
R. E. Leimgruber, 133–159. New
York, USA: Routledge. ).
FLP studies in Singapore have pointed out that many parents have internalised the government’s language ideologies and
rhetoric concerning bilingualism and the MTLs (Curdt-Christiansen 2016 2016 “Conflicting Language
Ideologies and Contradictory Language Practices in Singaporean Multilingual Families.” Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 37 (7): 694–709. ). Accordingly,
parents tended to take a positive view of the country’s bilingual education policies and echo the government’s position that the MTLs
serve as a link to one’s culture and heritage. However, notwithstanding their positive attitudes towards bilingualism and the MTLs,
the FLP in these families was ultimately heavily shaped by the socio-political reality in Singapore, which privileges English over the
MTLs and has made it the medium of all major examinations as well as the primary language required for employment in Singapore (Cavallaro, Ng and Tan 2020Cavallaro, Francesco, Bee
Chin Ng, and Ying
Ying Tan 2020 “Singapore
English.” In Handbook of Asian
Englishes, edited by Kingsley Bolton, Werner Botha, and Andy Kirkpatrick, 419–447. New
Jersey, USA: Blackwell-Wiley.
; Cheng 2020Cheng, Chen-Chen 2020 “Eye
on the Future: Diverse Family Language Policy in Three Singaporean Malay Homes with Preschool
Children.” Asia-Pacific Journal of Research in Early Childhood
Education 14 (1):125–147.
; Hu and Ren 2017 2017 “Language
Ideologies, Social Capital, and Interaction Strategies: An Ethnographic Case Study of Family Language Policy in
Singapore.” In Family Language Policies in a Multilingual World:
Opportunities, Challenges, and Consequences, edited by John Macalister, and Seyed
Hadi Mirvahedi, 195–216. New
York, NY: Routledge.
).
Within Singapore’s educational system, three courses of action are available to parents in binational families (Ministry of Education Singapore 2021Ministry of Education Singapore 2021 “Exemption from Taking a Mother Tongue Language.” Accessed 20 August 2022. https://www.moe.gov.sg/primary/curriculum/mother-tongue-languages/exemption).
-
They may choose to have their children study one of the three official MTLs.
-
They may opt to let their children take one of six approved foreign languages instead of an MTL.
-
They may apply to exempt their children from studying an MTL.
There remain two significant caveats to having one’s child take an approved foreign language or be exempt from taking an MTL. The first is that there are only six approved foreign languages (Ministry of Education Singapore 2021Ministry of Education Singapore 2021 “Exemption from Taking a Mother Tongue Language.” Accessed 20 August 2022. https://www.moe.gov.sg/primary/curriculum/mother-tongue-languages/exemption), and no provisions exist for parents who wish to have their children study other languages. The second and arguably more major caveat is that being exempt from taking an MTL or taking an approved foreign language instead of an MTL can have an appreciable impact on a child’s subsequent educational opportunities, as these students will be assigned a lower grade for their MTL during the computation of their Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE) scores.
Given that the composite score for the PSLE is calculated with equal weighting to English, Mathematics, Science, and MTL, being assigned a lower grade for MTL will undoubtedly impact which secondary school these students can be admitted into as admission to ‘good’ secondary schools is highly competitive. Enrolling their children in a good secondary school is a significant concern for most parents in Singapore.
While several studies have explored the influence of the government’s language policies on the language practices and
policies of Singaporean families (Cheng 2020Cheng, Chen-Chen 2020 “Eye
on the Future: Diverse Family Language Policy in Three Singaporean Malay Homes with Preschool
Children.” Asia-Pacific Journal of Research in Early Childhood
Education 14 (1):125–147.; Curdt-Christiansen 2016 2016 “Conflicting Language
Ideologies and Contradictory Language Practices in Singaporean Multilingual Families.” Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 37 (7): 694–709.
; Hu and Ren 2013Hu, Guangwei, and Li Ren 2013 “Prolepsis,
Syncretism, and Synergy in Early Language and Literacy Practices: A Case Study of Family Language Policy in
Singapore.” Language
Policy 12 (1): 63–82.
, 2017 2017 “Language
Ideologies, Social Capital, and Interaction Strategies: An Ethnographic Case Study of Family Language Policy in
Singapore.” In Family Language Policies in a Multilingual World:
Opportunities, Challenges, and Consequences, edited by John Macalister, and Seyed
Hadi Mirvahedi, 195–216. New
York, NY: Routledge.
), these studies neither featured nor focused on the experiences of binational families living in Singapore. The study
presented in this article is the first to examine the language practices and policies of Singaporean-Japanese families in Singapore
through the lens of Family Language Policy.
7.Methodology
A qualitative approach was adopted for data collection. The data was collected from five Singaporean-Japanese families living in Singapore. The following criteria were used for participant recruitment: (1) the parents in the family should comprise a Singaporean citizen and a Japanese citizen; (2) the parents should have at minimum one child that was at least of kindergarten-going age; (3) the family should currently reside in Singapore.
7.1Participants
Two of the families were acquaintances of one of the authors, while the other three were recruited through the
snowball sampling method (Tye-Williams 2017Tye-Williams, Stacy 2017 “Sample
Versus Population.” In The Sage Encyclopedia of Communication
Research Methods, edited by Mike Allen, 1523–1526. Thousand
Oaks, CA, USA: SAGE Publications.). The profiles of the families interviewed
are summarised in Table 1.
Family | Role | Age | Nationality | Years living in Singapore |
---|---|---|---|---|
Family A | Father | 47 | Japanese | 19 |
Mother | 45 | Singaporean | ||
Son | 12 | Dual | ||
Daughter | 10 | Dual | ||
Family B | Father | 55 | Japanese | 33 |
Mother | 55 | Singaporean | ||
Elder Son | 25 | Singaporean | ||
Daughter | 22 | Singaporean | ||
Younger Son | 18 | Singaporean | ||
Family C | Father | 62 | Japanese | 26 |
Mother | 58 | Singaporean | ||
Son | 24 | Singaporean | ||
Daughter | 23 | Singaporean | ||
Family D | Father | 44 | Singaporean | |
Mother | 41 | Japanese | 12 | |
Son | 8 | Dual | ||
Daughter | 6 | Dual | ||
Family E | Father | 44 | Singaporean | |
Mother | 44 | Japanese | 13 | |
Elder Son | 12 | Dual | ||
Younger Son | 9 | Dual |
7.2Instruments and procedure
A semi-structured interview was conducted with the parents in each of the five families and two children from two of these families. The two children interviewed were the elder son from Family B, aged 25 years old, and the younger daughter from Family C, aged 23 years old. The two of them were interviewed separately from their parents. The younger children were not interviewed, and the other older children were not available for an interview due to work and study commitments.
A list of interview questions was prepared before the interviews. The questions included the participants’ linguistic backgrounds, their language choices inside the home, the linguistic environment within their homes, and their attitudes towards acquiring and transmitting the languages used within their families. The children were asked similar questions except for questions relating to the process of crafting an FLP.
The initial interviews for each family lasted between one and a half to two and a half hours and were conducted face-to-face at the participants’ houses. Additional clarification concerning the content of the interviews was sought through follow-up Skype interviews. The primary language used by both the author and the interviewees during these interviews was English. The interviewer only used Japanese to clarify the meaning of specific questions as and when it was thought that doing so would aid the interviewee’s comprehension. All the interviews were audio-recorded and subsequently transcribed.
7.3Participant observation
The visits for the interviews also doubled as participant observation sessions. The timing of the visits was arranged so that most of the family members were at home, which allowed the interviewer to observe family interactions. Particular attention was paid to the languages used in parent-child and sibling interactions. The interviews followed these observations sessions.
8.Findings
8.1Language practices
The five families fall into three distinct categories per the language used when the children speak with their parents. The three categories are outlined below.
8.1.1Category 1 – The family speaks predominantly in Japanese to the children
In both Family D and Family E the Japanese mothers reported that they spoke predominantly in Japanese with their children. English was only used when the children could not understand them or when other non-Japanese-speaking persons were involved in the conversation. The husband of Mother E reported that she used “100% Japanese” whenever she spoke with her children, while Mother D described herself as using Japanese only 70% of the time. Mother D’s interactions with her children were observed to contain instances of intrasentential code-switching, including hybridised constructions such as wash wash shitekureru (‘could you help me wash this?’).
The children in both families were observed to use some Japanese when speaking with their Japanese mother, with the children in Family E appearing to do so far more consistently than the children in Family D. Lending weight to the observation is Father D’s assertion that “they understand [Japanese], but they don’t speak so much.” The children in Family E were also observed to intermittently incorporate some Japanese vocabulary in their exchanges, giving rise to such constructions as hurry up and do hamigaki (‘hurry up and brush your teeth’).
8.1.2Category 2 – The family speaks in an English-dominant mixed code
Families B and C demonstrated the highest variability in proficiency among the children. Both families have at
least one child who is proficient in Japanese, while their siblings have minimal proficiency. The mothers in both families
reported being able to speak some Japanese, but reported talking to their children almost exclusively in English. Father B
occasionally spoke to his elder son and daughter in Japanese when joking or scolding them and when discussing topics related
to Japan, such as Japanese culture and Japanese food. Yet, he does not speak to his younger son in Japanese, as he does not
understand as much Japanese as his siblings. Father C stated that he sporadically spoke Japanese to his children as he was
afraid that he would “confuse” them. This idea is a prevalent misconception highlighted in the literature on multilingual
language acquisition. For instance, De Houwer (2020) 2020 “Harmonious
Bilingualism: Well-Being for Families in Bilingual
Settings.” In Handbook of Home Language Maintenance and Development:
Social and Affective Factors, edited by Andrea
C. Schalley, and Susana
A. Eisenchlas, 63–83. Berlin,
Germany: De Gruyter Mouton. describes how her taxi driver
of Ethiopian descent chose not to speak his mother tongue, Oromiffa, to his new-born for fear of confusing him because the
baby was being brought up in the United States. His conscious effort to only speak English to the baby parallels Father C’s
motivations in our study.
Both families reported using an English-dominant mixed code when communicating as a family. This was evident during the participant observations at their homes. In Family B, code-switching to Japanese is generally restricted to food names and teasing. In Family C, many Japanese words used by the father have been assimilated into the family’s lexicon over time. Father C described this process succinctly: “my English vocabulary is limited, so certain things I use Japanese, so that word became our common language.” Mother C would frequently code-switch when speaking to her children. For example, she was heard blending English and Japanese to make utterances such as English, deshō? (‘English, right?’).
In Family B, the older siblings who possess greater proficiency speak to their father in Japanese more frequently. In particular, the elder son, who is the most proficient of the three children, reported that he sometimes uses Japanese instead of English when speaking to his father. In Family C, the youngest sibling, who is relatively proficient in Japanese, reported using it with greater frequency with her father. During the participant observations, she frequently switched to Japanese with her father to make herself better understood.
Taken together, these points seem to suggest that the use of Japanese in the home is contingent on how
proficient and comfortable the children are with the language. In a way, these children foreground the agentive role that they
play in directing not only the content of conversations but also co-construct the language ecology of the home through the
selection and use of specific languages over others in their communication with their fathers. These children act as language
brokers (Morales, Yakushko and Castro 2012Morales, Alejandro, Oksana
F. Yakushko, and Antonio
J. Castro 2012 “Language
Brokering among Mexican-Immigrant Families in the Midwest: A Multiple Case Study.” The
Counseling
Psychologist 40 (4): 520–553. ; Tse
1995Tse, Lucy 1995 “Language
Brokering among Latino Adolescents: Prevalence, Attitudes, and School Performance.” Hispanic
Journal of Behavioral
Sciences 17 (2): 180–193.
), interpreting their utterances in a language that their fathers would understand better as they engage in
meaning creation.
8.1.3Category 3 – The family speaks mainly English
The Japanese father in Family A reported speaking to his children in English and only used Japanese with them
when forced by his wife. The mother claimed to speak to their children in English 80% of the time, with the remaining 20% of
interactions carried out in Mandarin. Like Mother C, she opts to use Mandarin with her children as their “secret language.”
The language of communication between husband and wife is English, but report using simple Japanese with each other when they
do not want the contents of their conversation to be known to others, including their children. This unique way the three
languages are used indexes how language functions as a communicative commodity for meaning-making within the household (cf.
Wright 2020Wright, Lyn 2020 Critical
Perspectives on Language and Kinship in Multilingual Families. London,
UK: Bloomsbury Academic. ). The selection of which linguistic resources to use with each
interlocutor is intentional and goal-driven, fulfilling the speaker’s intended purpose of including and excluding different
parties from the content of select conversations. The children were reported and observed to communicate mainly with each
other in English.
8.2Family Language Policies
A three-way distinction may be made regarding how the five families had implemented language policies in their homes. This three-way distinction is between (1) families that had overtly discussed and implemented an explicit FLP, (2) families that had discussed but had not implemented an explicit FLP, and (3) families that had not explicitly discussed the implementation of FLP.
8.2.1Families that discussed and implemented an explicit FLP
The parents in Family E did discuss what language to use with their children before their children were born and
decided that they should use both English and Japanese with their children. They decided to adopt a One Parent One Language
(OPOL) approach (Döpke 1992Döpke, Susanne 1992 One
Parent – One Language: An Interactional Approach, Studies in Bilingualism. Amsterdam, The
Netherlands: John Benjamins. ). As Döpke (1992Döpke, Susanne 1992 One
Parent – One Language: An Interactional Approach, Studies in Bilingualism. Amsterdam, The
Netherlands: John Benjamins.
, 49) suggests, the OPOL framework encompasses a ‘macrostructure’ belief that is “realised through
micro-structure” language choice strategies. This created a continuum between monolingual and bilingual language exposure as
in their interactions with their children the mother would speak to them only in Japanese, whereas the father would speak only
in English.
When speaking to her children, Mother E actively pretended not to understand her children if they spoke to her
in English and would ask “Eh, what did you say again?” in Japanese until they spoke to her in Japanese. This parallel’s the
‘minimal grasp strategy’ described by Lanza (1998)Lanza, Elizabeth 1998 “Raising
Children Bilingually in Norway.” International Journal of Sociology of
Language 133 (1998): 73–88. , where parents would feign
incomprehension of their child’s utterance to socialise the child to use the desired target language – in this case,
Japanese.
Overall, the language practices of the parents in Family E reveal that they embrace a language ideology that is pro-multilingualism. The effort put in by the parents to decide what languages should be used by whom and in what contexts suggest that they implicitly value the three languages that their children are acquiring. Their FLP has allowed them to attain the desired language outcomes for their children: a certain level of communicative competence in Japanese and proficiency in English and Mandarin.
8.2.2Families that discussed but had not implemented an explicit FLP
The parents in Family A and Family C had initially planned that the father would speak Japanese while the mother would use English and/or Mandarin with the children. Family A had planned to have the father teach their first child Japanese at least once a week with the aid of Japanese textbooks. However, according to Mother A, Father A would only speak to their children in Japanese when she forced him to and would only do so for a few minutes before reverting to speaking with them in English “because he says the kids don’t understand.” Father A felt that his attempts at teaching Japanese were not well received and ultimately stopped holding such sessions consistently. Following this failure to implement their intended language practices for their first child, the parents in Family A did not attempt to put in place any concrete steps to teach their second child Japanese. As Mother A puts it,
When she [their second child] came, totally no need already … because it failed, so we also not motivated.
In Family C the father was often away from home on business trips, which gave him little opportunity to interact with his children as they were growing up. On the occasions that he was at home, he would sometimes attempt to speak to his children in Japanese, but he quickly switched to English as they did not respond to him.
After I go overseas, come back, and I speak them in Japanese, no reaction. I try English to talk to them, then got reaction. Then, also naturally I speak English to them.(Father C)
Ultimately, the parents in Family C gravitated towards an ad-hoc FLP that revolved around using the English-dominant mixed code described earlier. While Father C noted that his younger daughter could presently speak Japanese “quite well,” he maintained that her proficiency could not be credited to him.
These case studies of Families A and C highlight the reality of the challenges parents face and their impact
beliefs. In particular, parental language ideologies play a significant role in determining the language practices and
management within the home (Schwartz 2020Schwartz, Mila 2020 “Strategies
and Practices of Home Language Maintenance.” In Handbook of Home
Language Maintenance and Development: Social and Affective Factors, edited
by Andrea
C. Schalley, and Susanna
A. Eisenchlas, 194–217. Berlin,
Germany and Boston, USA: De Gruyter Mouton. ). Consequently, if parents believe that
the language in question is not a priority for the child, it is unlikely that they will persevere in exposing their child to
the language when faced with failure and opposition (Curdt-Christiansen 2009Curdt-Christiansen, Xiao
Lan 2009 “Invisible and Visible
Language Planning: Ideological Factors in the Family Language Policy of Chinese Immigrant Families in
Quebec.” Language
Policy 8 (4): 351–375.
; Nakamura 2019Nakamura, Janice 2019 “Parents’
Impact Belief in Raising Bilingual and Biliterate Children in Japan.” Psychology of Language
and
Communication 23 (1): 137–161.
). Furthermore, in our study, the children’s lack of responsiveness to
language exposure can further detract from the confidence that parents might have when planning to teach their children
Japanese, creating a vicious circle that results in the eventual halting of language use between the interlocutors.
8.2.3Families that had not explicitly discussed the implementation of an FLP
Families B and D did not discuss implementing a ‘policy’ for how language should be used at home. English was the default language with all family members in Family B, and code-switching to Japanese typically occurred when they were teasing each other or talking about Japanese food. According to Father D, “it’s just very natural. I speak to them [their children] in English, she [Mother D] will speak to them in half Japanese, half English.” Notwithstanding Father D’s claim that it was “natural” for his wife to speak to the children in Japanese, Mother D spoke English with her children up until they were about one year old, when she realised that they might not be able to pick up Japanese if she continued to speak with them only in English. That is when she started using more Japanese with them. She also reported that Father D’s relatives would chide her and tell her to use Japanese whenever they overheard her speaking English to the children. Mother D also taught her children hiragana and katakana and occasionally asked them to practice writing in Japanese.
Two crucial issues can be gleaned from these findings. Firstly, despite the lack of a ‘solid plan’ for language,
the absence of overt planning does not preclude parents’ FLP or their language ideologies. Their approach of not directing
their children’s language choice or stipulating specific bounds of linguistic exposure suggests a language ideology that does
not attribute significant value on one language over another. Drawing parallels from Curdt-Christiansen’s (2013) 2013 “Negotiating Family Language
Policy: Doing Homework.” In Successful Family Language
Policy, edited by Mila Schwartz, and Anna Verschik, 277–295. New
York, USA & London, UK: Springer. study on the discourse strategies three mothers used with their children while doing
homework, one family adopts a ‘total laissez-faire policy’ that permits the use of various languages without prejudice.
Secondly, we observe the impact of family-external factors, such as the influence of relatives, on the way
parents think about language and subsequently how they effect change in the language practices at home (Curdt-Christiansen and Huang 2020Curdt-Christiansen, Xiao
Lan, and Jing Huang 2020 “Factors
Influencing Family Language Policy.” In Handbook of Home Language
Maintenance and Development: Social and Affective Factors, edited by Andrea
C. Schalley, and Susana
A. Eisenchlas, 174–193. Berlin,
Germany and Boston, USA: De Gruyter Mouton. ). Due to the strong ‘shame culture’ most Japanese are socialised to
from a young age (Takada 2019Takada, Akira 2019 “Socialization
Practices Regarding Shame in Japanese Caregiver-Child Interactions.” Frontiers in
Psychology 10: 1545.
), criticism, especially by family members, is seen as
highly embarrassing. This could have pressured Mother D to teach Japanese to her children so that they would not be ‘shamed’
for being part-Japanese and unable to speak the language. Several studies have shown that some parents express negative
emotions ranging from dissatisfaction, shame, and even anger towards their children if they cannot speak or are not proficient
in their heritage language (De Houwer 2017 2017 “Minority
Language Parenting in Europe and Children’s Well-Being.” In Handbook
on Positive Development of Minority Children and Youth, edited by Natasha Cabrera, and Birgit Leyendecker, 231–246. Berlin,
Germany: Springer.
). Hence, the children’s inability to
speak their heritage language well might detract from the family’s overall ‘harmonious bilingual development’ or their
subjective appraisal of the bilingual experience.
8.3Reinforcing practices
The families employed a variety of other practices alongside the implicit and explicit language policies that they have implemented in their homes. Many reinforcing methods were adopted by these five families as well.
8.3.1Enrolment in community or language schools or classes
The children in Families A, B, C, and E attended or were attending Japanese language classes conducted by home tutors and language schools. However, most families stopped these classes after a short time as they felt that their children needed to prioritise school activities and believed that these classes were taking up too much time and money. Family D did not enrol their children in any Japanese class. Only the parents in Family E persisted in sending their children to Japanese language classes and enrolled them in a primary school in Japan during the June school holidays. The parents in Families A and B encouraged their children to take up Japanese as a third language in secondary school.
Outside of Japanese language classes, all the children other than those in Family D regularly attended Mandarin tuition classes. Unlike Japanese language classes, Mandarin tuition classes formed a persistent part of the school-age children’s schedules, with classes at least once a week. This highlights how language beliefs can influence practices within the home and may also result in parents involving external agents to provide additional exposure to Japanese and Mandarin, even when it would add to their child’s already heavy workload.
8.3.2Exposure to Japanese outside of parental interaction
In general, all the Families in the study visited Japan annually or biennially to visit their relatives and extended family. Families B and E also receive members of their Japanese extended family in Singapore once a year. The participants across all five families reported that Japanese members of their extended family would speak almost exclusively in Japanese with the children. As noted by Mother B, this was one situation in which her children would be ‘forced to speak Japanese, because they [their Japanese relatives] can’t speak English.’
Aside from maintaining contact with their Japanese extended family, Families D and E also meet with other Japanese or Singaporean-Japanese families living in Singapore. In particular, Family E meets up with other Singaporean-Japanese families several times a year to celebrate Japanese holidays such as Tanabata (star festival) and Children’s Day.
The parents in all five families made an effort to expose their children to various forms of Japanese media when their children were young. This came in the form of Japanese bedtime stories, Japanese games such as Karuta (Japanese card game), and Japanese animations and animated movies. Conversely, children’s daily exposure to Japanese animations and electronic materials was the norm for Family E before the children started kindergarten (pre-school). The rest of the families reported non-structured approaches to Japanese media, resulting in irregular and incidental exposure to the language during the children’s developmental years.
This highlights an important advantage that the younger parents in this study, such as Families A, D, and E, had over their older counterparts, as the spread of digital media and communication technologies in recent times meant that they had a wider variety of resources that they could leverage upon to expose their children to the Japanese language. Furthermore, the internet facilitated Family D and E’s links with other Singaporean-Japanese and Japanese families living in Singapore, granting them access to a supportive community.
9.Discussion
Many factors contributed to these five families’ language policies and practices being the way they are now. This section will present an examination of several of these factors.
9.1Competing language ideologies
The effort that the parents in these five families put into transmitting Japanese to their children was closely linked with the degree of importance they placed on their children learning the language. This degree of importance was, in turn, strongly influenced by the interaction between the language ideologies that they held, specifically the beliefs that they had regarding the emotional, cultural, and practical value of the Japanese language.
The responses of the Japanese parents in the families interviewed demonstrate a shared belief that the Japanese language was intimately connected with Japanese identity and that being Japanese was to speak Japanese. More than one family highlighted this seemingly inextricable connection between language and ethnicity as a reason why they believed it to be essential for their children to pick up Japanese. Father A noted,
Because they [his children] carry [a] Japanese surname. Family name is Japanese. People look at them, and they don’t speak Japanese and [say] how come you got Japanese name and can’t speak Japanese?
Most of the parents also acknowledged that Japanese plays a role in maintaining and strengthening familial ties, as
the use of Japanese helps to facilitate communication between their family and Japanese members of their extended family. Indeed,
our findings corroborate prior studies suggesting that ‘connectedness’ to one’s culture and family are significant motivating
factors in promoting the learning of heritage languages (e.g., Little 2020Little, Sabine 2020 “Whose
Heritage? What Inheritance?: Conceptualising Family Language Identities.” International Journal
of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 23 (2): 198–212. ).
An equal, if not more significant concern for the parents was whether learning Japanese had practical or economic value for their children. Learning Japanese was seen by Mother B to afford the ‘bonus’ of allowing their children to work in Japan or a Japanese company. To most parents, though, this was contingent on whether their family or their children would stay in Singapore or move to Japan. This decision of whether to stay or move was one that parents felt their children would have to make in the future, and especially salient for parents in Families D and E as their children possessed dual citizenship.
Because in the future, as you know, they are dual citizen right. So, in the future, if they decided to stay in Japan, at least they know the language.(Father D)
Accordingly, if they and their children chose to remain in Singapore, then learning Japanese was believed by the parents to be less important for their children than learning English and Mandarin, which were perceived to be of greater value for their children within the Singaporean context because of their pragmatic value as examinable subjects in their child’s primary and secondary school education.
Except for Family E, the language hierarchy in the other families largely mirrors the hierarchy that Curdt-Christiansen (2016) 2016 “Conflicting Language
Ideologies and Contradictory Language Practices in Singaporean Multilingual Families.” Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 37 (7): 694–709. identified as being present in Singapore. The use of English as
the main language of communication in Singapore and as a global language of business cemented its position at the top of this
hierarchy. At the same time, Mandarin’s increasing economic value and its incorporation into Singapore’s education system ensured
that it came in second place. This corroborates findings by other scholars who have shown how parents reflect the government’s
language ideologies and rhetoric concerning bilingualism and the official MTLs (e.g., Cheng
2020Cheng, Chen-Chen 2020 “Eye
on the Future: Diverse Family Language Policy in Three Singaporean Malay Homes with Preschool
Children.” Asia-Pacific Journal of Research in Early Childhood
Education 14 (1):125–147.
; Curdt-Christiansen 2016 2016 “Conflicting Language
Ideologies and Contradictory Language Practices in Singaporean Multilingual Families.” Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 37 (7): 694–709.
).
Hence, despite the notion of being in touch with one’s cultural roots being a core feature for each family, we observe
that only two families were more successful in maintaining their heritage language. This could be attributed to the confluence of
competing ideologies, parents’ feelings of insufficiency and inability, as well as the deeply entrenched institutionalised policy
in Singapore that has promoted English and MTL over heritage languages. This suggests that the home is no longer an insulated,
‘unexpendable bulwark’ of language maintenance (Fishman 1991Fishman, Joshua
A. 1991 Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical
and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon,
UK: Multilingual matters., 94). In totality, the
different families reveal how each family’s divergent language beliefs are influenced by factors both within the family and
externally. The language ideologies adopted by parents become a multi-way ‘tug of war’ between different push and pull factors. To
make matters more complicated, these various factors are foregrounded at different life stages where they could be prioritised
differently due to family external circumstances, such as the influence of educational policies or planning for their child’s
future career. Hence, our study reiterates the push for a broader range of research describing unique contexts of FLP and their
linguistic ecologies so that scholars can better appreciate the diversity and divergence in the way families negotiate and
co-construct their language policies and practices.
9.2Beliefs about language learning
The findings from this study highlight the fact that a significant issue faced by most parents is a lack of awareness
on how to raise their children bilingually or multilingually. The decisions made by the parents in these five families tended to
be based in part on their beliefs regarding language learning. The Japanese parents in Families B, C, and D believed that language
learning could only occur if the children were interested in learning the language. Hence, they were reluctant to ‘force’ their
children to learn Japanese. Although most parents were aware of the importance of language input in developing a child’s
proficiency in a language (Kasuya 1998Kasuya, Hiroko 1998 “Determinants
of Language Choice in Bilingual Children: The Role of Input.” International Journal of
Bilingualism 2 (3): 327–346. ; Takeuchi
2006Takeuchi, Masae 2006 “The
Japanese Language Development of Children through the ‘One Parent–One Language’ Approach in
Melbourne.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 27 (4): 319–331.
; Yamamoto 2001Yamamoto, Masayo 2001 Language
Use in Interlingual Familes: A Japanese-English Sociolinguistic Study. Bristol,
England: Multilingual Matters.
), a few were pessimistic about their ability to provide
their children with enough exposure to Japanese to cultivate an acceptable level of proficiency in the language. Consequently,
these parents’ impact beliefs (Curdt-Christiansen 2009Curdt-Christiansen, Xiao
Lan 2009 “Invisible and Visible
Language Planning: Ideological Factors in the Family Language Policy of Chinese Immigrant Families in
Quebec.” Language
Policy 8 (4): 351–375.
) led to weak attempts at
transmitting Japanese to their children.
Conversely, knowing the importance of language input for their children’s language development convinced Mothers D and E to redouble their efforts to expose their children to the Japanese language.
If I speak (only) English, they cannot catch up the Japanese right.(Mother D)
Even so, these mothers worried that their language policies would hurt their children’s proficiency in English and
Mandarin. Mother E expressed concern that her older son appeared to have more difficulty expressing himself in English than her
younger son, and she believed this to be the result of his having spent more time communicating with her in Japanese. Such worries
concerning the impact that one’s language policies might have on their children’s majority language development are not uncommon
amongst parents who are attempting to bring up multilingual children (Kirsch 2012Kirsch, Claudine 2012 “Ideologies,
Struggles and Contradictions: An Account of Mothers Raising Their Children Bilingually in Luxembourgish and English in Great
Britain.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 15 (1): 95–112. ) and
may be partially attributed to their incomplete or incorrect understanding of children’s language acquisition.
9.3Institutional Policies and Pressures
In keeping with the findings of other studies on FLP in Singapore (Cheng
2020Cheng, Chen-Chen 2020 “Eye
on the Future: Diverse Family Language Policy in Three Singaporean Malay Homes with Preschool
Children.” Asia-Pacific Journal of Research in Early Childhood
Education 14 (1):125–147.; Curdt-Christiansen 2016 2016 “Conflicting Language
Ideologies and Contradictory Language Practices in Singaporean Multilingual Families.” Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 37 (7): 694–709.
; Hu and
Ren 2013Hu, Guangwei, and Li Ren 2013 “Prolepsis,
Syncretism, and Synergy in Early Language and Literacy Practices: A Case Study of Family Language Policy in
Singapore.” Language
Policy 12 (1): 63–82.
, 2017 2017 “Language
Ideologies, Social Capital, and Interaction Strategies: An Ethnographic Case Study of Family Language Policy in
Singapore.” In Family Language Policies in a Multilingual World:
Opportunities, Challenges, and Consequences, edited by John Macalister, and Seyed
Hadi Mirvahedi, 195–216. New
York, NY: Routledge.
), this study has found that the state’s education policies
exerted a considerable influence on the language policies and practices in these five families. Notably, Singapore’s MTL policy
has directly and indirectly constrained FLP in these families. The parents in Families C and E stated that they would have
preferred their children to be exempt from taking Mandarin as an MTL at school. Still, they were aware of the negative impact that
doing so might have on their educational prospects.
Actually want to exempt, yes. But .., the Singapore education system is like, they have more.., like, benefit if you choose the mother tongue. I don’t think there’s a benefit to take Japanese as mother tongue in Singapore education system.(Mother E)
Mother E highlighted that her children’s PSLE scores could be affected if she chose to have them be exempted from taking Mandarin as an MTL. Mother C reported being advised by the Ministry of Education that her children needed to take an MTL to improve their chances of being admitted to a Singaporean university in the future.
Evident by the fact that their children all proceeded to take Mandarin as an MTL, the importance of Mandarin cannot be
overstated for these parents. This was driven by the reason that it was simply a requirement of the Singapore education system.
Consequently, the parents devoted time and resources to developing their children’s Mandarin proficiency. These efforts imposed
additional demands on their children’s time, which discouraged some of these parents from making Japanese language learning a
priority for fear of overloading their children. Such ideology draws parallels between earlier studies where parents were even
opposed to bilingualism as they were afraid it might confuse or impose a significant cognitive burden on their children (Byers-Heinlein and Lew-Williams 2013Byers-Heinlein, Krista, and Casey Lew-Williams 2013 “Bilingualism
in the Early Years: What the Science Says.” LEARNing
landscapes 7 (1): 95–112. ).
9.4Children’s agency
For some of the children in these families, their current Japanese proficiency is as much, if not more, the result of their efforts rather than their parents’. Both the elder son in Family B and the younger daughter in Family C report that they now actively engage with Japanese media, especially Japanese anime, comics, and games. When both entered university, they chose to enroll in Japanese language courses. Since none of their parents had made a concerted attempt to transmit Japanese to their children, the Japanese proficiency of the children in these two families largely stems from their attempts to learn the language. Both believe it is vital for them to learn the language, not for its practical value but for its emotional and cultural significance. The elder son in Family B notes that the importance of learning Japanese arises from a perceived need to understand his “roots” and prevent Japanese culture from “[dying] off.” For the younger daughter in Family C, Japanese is important to her because she is half-Japanese and because it connects her with her father. She was emphatic about this: “it’s like, choosing English, Chinese, and Japanese is like breathing water [air], it’s like I don’t even have to think about it, that’s definitely the thing I’m gonna choose.” This belief in the importance of Japanese is what compelled them to learn the language, even in the absence of any explicit language policies in their homes that support its transmission or use.
These examples parallel prior studies showing how children can be agentive in deciding the languages they wish to
acquire (Fogle and King 2013Fogle, Lyn
Wright, and Kendall
A. King 2013 “Child
Agency and Language Policy in Transnational Families.” Issues in Applied
Linguistics 19: 1–25. ). Our research shows that some of the children’s desire to
learn Japanese pushes them to explore other avenues to acquire the language because it is something they want, despite the lack of
input from their parents or support from the family. Thus, although the children put off learning Japanese until they were old
enough to act on their own, the volition to seek out classes when they entered university is telling of how intrinsically valuable
the Japanese language is to them.
9.5Successful policies
Of the parents interviewed, the parents in Families D and E have undoubtedly been the most successful in cultivating their children’s Japanese proficiency through their home language policies. Notwithstanding the differences in the make-up and circumstances of these five families, the language policies – explicit or otherwise – undertaken by the parents in Families D and E distinguished them from the other families.
The language practices in these two families most closely resemble an OPOL approach. As language input plays a
critical role in the development of a child’s proficiency in a language (Kasuya 1998Kasuya, Hiroko 1998 “Determinants
of Language Choice in Bilingual Children: The Role of Input.” International Journal of
Bilingualism 2 (3): 327–346. ;
Takeuchi 2006Takeuchi, Masae 2006 “The
Japanese Language Development of Children through the ‘One Parent–One Language’ Approach in
Melbourne.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development 27 (4): 319–331.
; Yamamoto 2001Yamamoto, Masayo 2001 Language
Use in Interlingual Familes: A Japanese-English Sociolinguistic Study. Bristol,
England: Multilingual Matters.
), the
adoption of such an approach by the parents in Families D and E had allowed them to provide their children with a greater amount
of Japanese input as compared to the parents in the other three families. The fact that the children in Family E were reported and
observed to have better proficiency for their age than the children in Family D can be attributed to two factors: the difference
in the amount of Japanese input received by the children in the two families, and the differences in enacting an explicit FLP at
home.
Differences in linguistic input can account for the varied linguistic proficiencies achieved by the children. Prior
research by De Houwer (2018) 2018 “The
Role of Language Input Environments for Language Outcomes and Language Acquisition in Young Bilingual
Children.” In Bilingual Cognition and Language: The State of the
Science across Its Subfields, edited by David Miller, Fatih Bayram, Jason Rothman, and Ludovica Serratrice, 127–153. Amsterdam,
The Netherlands: John Benjamins. suggests that both the quality and quantity of language
input are essential predictors of children’s eventual bilingual language outcomes. These parental input patterns – their choice of
language for communication and the contexts in which the languages are used, play a significant role in determining whether
children growing up in a bilingual household will use both their languages as well as their fluency (De Houwer 2007De
Houwer, Annick 2007 “Parental
Language Input Patterns and Children’s Bilingual Use.” Applied
Psycholinguistics 28 (3): 411–424.
). In our study, we observed that Mother E used Japanese with her children more frequently
and consistently than Mother D. Moreover, Mother E seems to be the only one to have actively employed Lanza’s (2004) 2004 Language
Mixing in Infant Bilingualism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press.
monolingual discourse strategies. She pretends not to understand her children’s English
utterances and consistently insists they speak Japanese to her. Thus, we observe from these families that specific monolingual
discourse strategies such as the OPOL strategy can effectively raise exposure to the target language.
Each family’s FLP plays a significant role in determining language outcomes. Comparing Families D and E, another variable (other than the abovementioned language input) that could explain the difference in outcomes is how explicit each family was in openly discussing their language ideologies and the consequent practices they wanted to adopt. Although both families were pro-multilingualism, Family E opted to enforce an explicit FLP, while Family D took a more relaxed approach to let nature run its course. Our paper is unique in highlighting that input and practices alone are unlikely to be the sole determining factor of successful heritage language transmission and bilingualism within the home. It shows that having an explicit FLP that is clear in its goals and outcomes shapes parents’ linguistic choices, practices, and management. This results in more effective language learning than a more laissez-faire approach to FLP.
10.Conclusion
This study investigated the language ideologies and practices present within the homes of five Singaporean-Japanese families living in Singapore. As the first FLP study to give an account of binational families in Singapore, this article provides a fuller picture of how families in Singapore are affected by the country’s linguistic environment and education policies.
When communicating with their Singaporean parents, English served as the primary language between parents, siblings, and children in all five families. The situation was somewhat different when speaking to Japanese parents. We observed English dominated conversations between the Japanese parents and their children among three out of the five families. Notably, the families did not intend or manage to implement any language practices that support the transmission of Japanese to their children. In the two remaining two families, Japanese was used primarily between Japanese parents and their children. These two families were the only ones to successfully cultivate a level of Japanese proficiency in their children through their implicit or explicit language FLP and practices.
The relative success of the two families demonstrates that, in keeping with previous studies on FLP, adopting an OPOL approach between parents of different nationalities can help promote the transmission of a target language so long as it is adhered to strictly and consistently. Despite not being observed in our study, other possible approaches, such as both parents choosing only to speak the minority language (or target exposure language), could also foster effective language transmission. The efficacy of such approaches could be further explored within the context of bi-national families in future studies. Our study revealed that the absence or failure to enact the intended language practices among families was attributable to multiple factors, including (1) the lack of importance that the parents ascribed to their children learning Japanese, (2) misguided or uninformed beliefs concerning language learning, (3) constraints that the state’s education policies placed upon their access to Japanese language classes, and (4) practical problems such as a lack of time and resources.