Abstract
This chapter explores the concept of a Dominant Language Constellation (DLC) in a Canadian context and links it to family language policy (FLP) and language of schooling. The focus is on the province of Ontario where English is the majority language and French a minority language, along with various other minority languages, including heritage/immigrant languages and Indigenous languages, spoken in families and communities. In this rich context, FLP plays an important role in the transmission and maintenance of minority languages. Beyond primary language socialization at the family level, however, an important and powerful factor that also influences a child’s linguistic trajectory is the choice of language of schooling (typically English or French) made by parents. I report results from a mixed-methods study involving questionnaire data from the families of 170 school-age children growing up as bilinguals or multilinguals and follow-up interview data from a subset of 20 families. The analysis identifies an interplay of family internal strategies and school language choices that influence children’s DLCs in important ways and account for differences in bilingual and multilingual constellations (i.e. number of languages), language dominance, passive versus active bi/multilingualism, and changes in constellation configurations over time.
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Notes
- 1.
For a current perspective from another country with constitutionally mandated bilingualism, Finland, see Björklund and Björklund (this volume).
- 2.
In this chapter I use the terms passive and active bi/multilingualism to refer to an individual’s ability to understand a language without necessarily speaking it, or to an individual who can both understand and speak a language, respectively. I do this for convenience and as these are commonly used labels. However, I would also like to acknowledge that some researchers in the field prefer the terms receptive vs. productive because passive may not be an accurate characterization for understanding a language, considering that a number of active processes occur in an individual’s mind during comprehension. See also note 3.
- 3.
Note that De Houwer (2009) does not use the terms active and passive bilingualism. See also note 2.
- 4.
Throughout this chapter I use the terms language of schooling and medium of instruction interchangeably.
- 5.
The term official minority language is used to designate the language of the official minority community (French in this case) but does not mean that that language is an official language in the province even though it is official at the federal level (i.e. Ontario is not an officially bilingual province, even though certain services may be available in French, in addition to English).
- 6.
Monolingualism is operationalized as being able to function only in one language (i.e. being able to hold a conversation in only one language). See also note 11 below.
- 7.
Note that the term non-official language can be problematic as it may imply lesser value associated with languages spoken by Indigenous people and immigrants in Canada. I use the terms official and non-official as reported by Statistics Canada but subscribe to the view that all languages are valuable, regardless of legal status.
- 8.
This research does not focus on private schools, which also exist in various forms across the province and the country.
- 9.
It is important to note that French schools offer instruction entirely in French and English is only taught as a subject in certain grades. On the other hand, French immersion programs offer a mixture of French and English content instruction that varies from one school board to another within the province, and also from one grade to another. In some grades (typically lower grades of grade school) instruction in French immersion may be entirely in French, while in other grades (typically higher grades of primary school and into middle and high school) only certain subjects are taught in French. In this chapter I do not discuss the quantitative and qualitative differences between Francophone schooling and French immersion schooling and capitalize on the fact that both educational settings offer French as a medium of instruction and can thus add or maintain the French language in a child’s DLC.
- 10.
It should be noted that English medium of instruction programs typically offer French as a subject (often known as Core French) in Ontario; as such, the child will receive some exposure to French. However, since in this context French typically does not constitute part of the child’s set of vehicle languages (i.e. used or relevant on a daily basis), that child will be functionally monolingual and French will not be added to his or her DLC. This is, of course, an abstract case taken as an example and does not include contexts where the family may make special efforts that the child uses French or where the child is an strong language learner with motivation to excel in the Core French program and learn to use the language as a vehicle language in his or her life. In the cases of French medium of instruction, on the other hand, French is by definition a vehicle language as the child is learning content through that language and using it on a daily basis to function within the school environment (rather than just taking it as a subject).
- 11.
Material in square brackets [] in the quotations from the research participants has been added by the researcher for clarification purposes.
- 12.
It must be noted that these findings should be considered preliminary as the data sample was not balanced with regard to the family language models, and it is also possible that with an even larger number of participants significant differences between OPOL, a mixed model and ML@H emerge as well.
- 13.
It should be noted, however, that there are certain problems with access to choice of language of schooling. In some provinces, access to French immersion is limited in certain regions and school boards have resorted to lotteries or first-come first-served procedures of enrollment. In the province of Quebec, because of specific language laws, it is difficult or in some cases impossible to choose English as a medium of instruction (a policy instituted to increase the vitality of French in the province).
- 14.
At the time of writing, the Government of Canada is developing an Indigenous languages bill which, if enacted, is expected to offer advances in recognition and support for languages other than the two official languages.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the organizers and the audience of the symposium on dominant language constellations in education and social contexts at the 2018 conference of the International Conference on Multilingualism and Third Language Acquisition (IAM L3) for useful feedback and suggestions. Many thanks are due to research assistants Joanne Asselin, Marie-Josée Bertrand, Stephanie Kawamoto, Wenqian Li, Bernice Ofori and Odilia Yim who helped with various aspects of this project. I also thank the volume editors and an anonymous reviewer for useful discussion and feedback. This work is supported by an Insight Development Grant 430-2017-00558 awarded to Nikolay Slavkov by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.
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Slavkov, N. (2021). Family Language Policy and Dominant Language Constellations: A Canadian Perspective. In: Aronin, L., Vetter, E. (eds) Dominant Language Constellations Approach in Education and Language Acquisition. Educational Linguistics, vol 51. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70769-9_5
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