When bilingual children don't speak the minority language

When our children grow up with two or more languages simultaneously, we expect them to become verbal in both or all of them.

• What if this doesn't happen?
• What if our child only speaks the majority language?
• What are the determining factors that our children use minority languages?
• What if OPOL doesn't work?
• Is receptive bilingualism a sign of failure?
• What role play siblings when it comes to language use in multilingual families?

In this interview, Dr. Inga Hilbig answers all these questions and more.

You can read her case study on this topic here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

02:45 Introduction: what made Inga Hilbig focus on early harmonious and non/DIS-harmonious bilingualism
6:22 What the simultaneous bilingualism of Inga's son P looked like in the first 5 years
8:55 There is no "perfect" simultaneous bilingual!
10:55 Why OPOL (One Person One Language) does NOT work (or rarely does...)
16:28 Why Minority Language at Home is the better strategy!
17:33 What were the major factors that influenced your son't language choice?
19:15 Children start to be influenced by peers much earlier than you'd think!
19:42 The power of community language
22:44 Children are able to distinguish the language needs and preferences by the community from very early on and request the same use at home like in the community...
25:01 Do you think that your son didn't value Lithuanian in Germany and German in Lithuania?
27:31 About the di-lingual discourse in multilingual families
28:10 How to help your child address you in the "expected" language
32:23 Why not giving up – even if our children don't respond in the expected language! – is so important when raising children with multiple languages!
34:13 Don't underestimate the proficiency of children who don't speak the language (yet)
34:40 The power of monolingual settings on children who usually don't speak the language
36:02 How did the language use of P influence the language use of J?
39:00 The importance of children's agency when it comes to language use
42:03 About strategies to invite our children to speaking the target language
46:50 "Keeping on speaking the language nevertheless is crucial in order to keep the receptive bilingual skills in our children"
48:05 What makes receptive bilingualism a valuable asset that is worth maintaining?
50:51 Another type of receptive bilingualism (which is also valuable)
50:15 Spot the moments of small successes!
53:00 About success (in raising multilinguals)
53:56 How Inga's sons use their languages today
58:57 The age of the siblings can play a role in their language use among them
59:33 Comic books, graphic novels etc. as resource for emergent readers
1:01:00 Multilingual Family Language Constellations
1:02:00 About the Lithuanian Diaspora and parents who transmit minority languages in general


Inga Hilbig is Associate Professor at the Department of Lithuanian Studies, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Vilnius University.
Her major research interests are the sociolinguistics of early bilingualism, (dis)harmonious bilingualism, family language policy, and cross-cultural communication. Her main research focus currently lies on the emotional well-being of Lithuanian migrant women in situations of disharmonious bilingualism in their inter-ethnic families. She also gives talks and seminars on children’s bilingualism for Lithuanian parents and community schools’ teachers in diaspora.
She is a supporting member of Harmonious Bilingualism Network (HaBilNet/https://www.habilnet.org/) and a member of the Lithuanian Applied Linguistics Association (LITAKA/https://litaka.lt/en/). She has been involved in several national and international scientific projects (sociolinguistic and interdisciplinary) such as MOTHERNET (https://www.mothernet.eu/).

#languagelearning #opol #language #parenting