2015

Bergroth, Mari

The present study focuses on the language socialization of parents in six bilingual families. The aim is to investigate how parents describe their linguistic identity and what kinds of changes over time can be traced in these identities. The present study is part of a wider ethnographic project which aims to deepen our understanding of how conceptions of language, bilingualism and bilingual development are manifested and negotiated in different situations and by different stakeholders in Finnish-Swedish bilingualism in Finland. The analysis identifies four major categories of bilingualism: language identity, realization, expanding language skills and frustration. The results show that children can have an active agency in socializing the parents in the new family language and that language socialization in a bilingual family does not necessarily mean altering one’s language identity.