Language Policy (Journal call for paper)

Journal Call for Papers: Thematic Issue of Language Policy on Family Language Policy

Submission Deadline: 15 August 2011

Language Policy invites papers for a thematic issue highlighting new research on family language policy. Family language policy (FLP) can be defined as explicit and overt as well as implicit and covert planning in relation to language use and literacy practices within home domains and among family members (King, Fogle and Logan-Terry 2008; Curdt-Christiansen 2009). This thematic issue takes as its starting point an understanding that family language policy is formed and implemented in interaction with wider political, social, and economic forces. The issue builds on past work illustrating how family language policy is multidimensional, incorporating parental attitudes and ideologies;  language and literacy practices at home (Curdt-Christiansen and Maguire 2007); deliberate language interventions parents employ (Li 2007), as well as the agentive role of children (Luykx 2005). While caretakers can provide rich environments and can set specific language 'rules' for their children, they also face challenges in putting particular family language policies into practice. This is particularly true with regard to heritage language maintenance, given the wide-spread tension between linguistic loyalty and cultural identity on the one hand, and societal and economic pressures and institutional impositions on the other.

With a focus on multilingual societies, majority/minority/endangered language contexts, and official language/mother tongue political discourses, the study of FLP can enhance our understanding of the role of language in perpetuating social inequality as well as the role of formal educational language policy (medium of instruction) in minority/endangered language maintenance.

We invite research-based and empirical contributions that enhance our understanding of how family language policy is established, negotiated and implemented. The journal welcomes cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural and transnational perspectives, and especially those from less-covered (or non-traditional) family types, contexts and communities.

Submissions are invited across different levels of contextual and linguistic analysis, including but not limited to analyses of:

• Policy interaction between home domains and institutional contexts, and in particular between parental language policy and educational policy;
• Tension between formal and informal, overt and covert, and bottom-up and top-down language policies;·
• conflicts between minority/mother tongue/heritage language discourses and mainstream language practices and policies;
• Relationships between language ideology and language practice;
• Care-taker ideologies and the language acquisition mechanisms provided by parents, including home literacy practices;
• Language use among family members, including examinations of child agency and resistance as well as diverse family types and alternative configurations.

For questions:
Guest Editor: Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen, Nanyang Technological University, xiaolan.christiansennie.edu.sg

Editor: Kendall King, University of Minnesota, kendallumn.edu

For full consideration, all papers must be received via the journal website by August 15th, 2011. Papers will undergo full blind peer review, with an expected publication date of 2012/2013.

For more information about the journal, and for submission guidelines and procedures, please click on this link