Transnational Families: Family Language Policy, Child Agency, and Socio-Emotional Well-Being

Multilingual transnational families in immigrant and minority language contact settings encounter various challenges that are related to their affective and emotional domains and well-being (De Houwer, 2015; Little, 2017). Both parents and children may experience emotional distance, social exclusion, and a lack of social connection with their immediate social environment due to various factors such as a low level of proficiency in the majority language, and mixed cultural and linguistic identities (Müller et al., 2020).

This study investigated the interrelationship of the family language policies (FLPs), child agency, emotions, socialisation practices, literacy development and language management strategies of multilingual transnational families in Cyprus. The participants were eighty multilingual transnational families from low-middle-high socio-economic backgrounds, including two- and one-parent families who resided in rural or in urban areas. Our data sources included a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with the families.

A thorough analysis of the diverse family types revealed both differences and similarities amongst multilingual transnational families in Cyprus and their FLPs. In many cases, FLPs were affected by child agency and were characterised by translanguaging to enhance dynamic multilingualism and emotional well-being at home. However, not all the efforts resulted in successful home language transmission, which may have been due to individual and/or societal differences and family configurations.