MATKA POLKA EKSPERTKA. ETNOGRAFIA DWUJĘZYCZNEGO WYCHOWANIA
MOTHER POLE THE EXPERT. AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF BILINGUAL UPBRINGING

Summary/Abstract: Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Polish migrant community in Paris, I answer the following question: why do middle class Polish women successfully pass on their language to their children? I point to the fact that the members of the Polish community in France didn’t always teach Polish to children, and I analyze the factors which lead to the consolidation of a norm concerning language transmission in the researched group. I discuss the data gathered during my research in the context of French migration history and minority history, of which the history of Polish immigration to France is part. In particular, I show that the Polish community profited from the achievements of the social movements initiated by the children of Maghrebi migrants in the 1980s. I analyze the way in which my interlocutors’ linguistic practices are shaped by national and expert discourses. I look at how the expert discourse about bilingualism is constructed, and demonstrate that it can be used by migrants as a strategy to resist the assimilation policies of the French state. Moreover, I show how the phenomena in question are influenced by the situation of my interlocutors on the French labour market.

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