The digital shift in parental strategies for heritage language maintenance

Research shows that language maintenance of migrant heritage languages correlates with positive social outcomes [Han, W.-J., and C.-C. Huang. 2010. “The Forgotten Treasure: Bilingualism and Asian Children’s Emotional and Behavioral Health.” American Journal of Public Health 100 (5): 831–839. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.174219]. Family language policy (FLP) is a research programme which explores the family level language planning to maintain or transmit heritage languages. However, much research in this space is synchronic and language-focused rather than diachronic and speaker-focused. This study aims to fill this gap by taking a diachronic approach to FLP in a group of parents in mixed-language relationships over a 10-year period in Sydney, Australia. The research data consists of 38 qualitative interviews with at least one or both parents in 27 mixed-language couples across two points in time between 2012 and 2021. The study examines the changing language maintenance strategies of participants from face to face into the digital realm. It suggests that FLP in the digital mode has both affordances and limitations for language maintenance. The study also argues that the digital shift has not lessened the nature of language maintenance as gendered work.