‘She’s the big dog who knows’ – power and the father’s role in minority language transmission in four transnational families in Tallinn Cover Image

‘She’s the big dog who knows’ – power and the father’s role in minority language transmission in four transnational families in Tallinn
‘She’s the big dog who knows’ – power and the father’s role in minority language transmission in four transnational families in Tallinn

Author(s): Colm Doyle
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Finno-Ugrian studies, Philology
Published by: Tallinna Ülikooli Kirjastus
Keywords: family language policy;language management;bilingual;

Summary/Abstract: This paper presents the family language policies of four Estonian-non-Estonian bilingual, transnational families, with focus paid to thelanguage management efforts of the fathers and the challenges they faced,including child agency and imbalances of power. The findings indicate thatminority-language fathers also engage in ‘language work’ (Okita 2002),and demonstrated that the fathers’ language management efforts wereconstrained and determined by factors such as the level of competence themen’s spouse has in his L1, child agency, and access to a same languageculturecommunity as a supportive resource.

  • Issue Year: 3/2018
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 17-43
  • Page Count: 27
  • Language: English, Estonian