Nastawienia wychowawcze rodziców wobec przekazywania języka rodzimego na emigracji na przykładzie języka polskiego w Ratyzbonie
Parenting attitudes of migrants and the transgenerational transmission of the native language. The case of the Polish language in Regensburg

Summary/Abstract: The study is rooted in the recognition that while multilingual children are frequently the object of sociolinguistic studies, the parenting of multilinguals has not yet received the attention it deserves in its own right. We obtained an account of multilingual parenting under conditions of dispersed migration using inductive methodology to analyse interviews conducted with 20 mothers of teenagers with a Polish family background living in Regensburg, Germany since birth or infancy. The article presents a typology of the parents’ axiological attitudes to parenting, involving the relative primacy of values, such as child autonomy, child security, parent-child relations, the nation, and extended family that affect the decision of whether and to what extent the Polish language is being passed on to their children. This is followed by a related typology of conative attitudes to its intergenerational transmission. The latter does not stop at the behavioural aspects, i.e. the extent to which Polish is cultivated in interactions with the child, but also indicates the dichotomous motivations for suppressing or marginalizing Polish – submission to social pressure or communicative advantages. The key aspect of the study pertains to the relationships between the axiological attitudes to parenting and the conative attitudes towards the intergenerational transmission of Polish. Finally, it is indicated that the decision to stop using the minority language in parent–child communication, while controversial and much criticised, may be a rational response to the social risks as perceived by the parents.

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