Shifting ecologies of family language planning: Hungarian Australian families during COVID-19

Abstract

This study took a mixed-methods approach to investigate family language planning (FLP) in Hungarian families raising children in Australia. The study aimed to explore the complex factors impacting FLP and how families responded to the rapidly changing social conditions during the outbreak of Covid-19. The pandemic highlighted the shifting spatiotemporal dynamics of the family domain. Therefore, the project sought a holistic insight into the shifting family ecology, incorporating language use patterns, motivations, language maintenance and learning strategies and family well-being. Data were collected through an online survey (N = 80) and parental interviews (N = 13). The findings provide empirical evidence of the translocal and transnational dimensions of intergenerational language maintenance. The paper argues for an ecological approach in FLP, which recognises the complex social, affective and ideological dimensions of the family domain and the translocal aspects of language planning. As the results demonstrate, Hungarian families experienced the impact of Covid-19 in contrastive ways: for some, new opportunities arose to establish the home domain as a dynamic multilingual space; for others, the social isolation further reduced the space afforded to the heritage language. Therefore, agency was crucial for responding to these shifting circumstances.

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