Understanding parents’ pragmatic and emotional attachments to ‘their' language in multilingual family contexts: exploring self-assessment options for family well-being

Abstract

In recent years, the conceptualisation of heritage languages in both family and society has received increased attention, including the motivations behind heritage language maintenance. This paper explores the development of the Heritage Language Identity Questionnaire (HLI-Q) as a tool for facilitating reflective discussions with parents in multilingual family contexts. Informed by preceding studies which established a theoretical framework to help describe parents’ pragmatic and emotional attachments to ‘their’ language within the family context, an initial form of the HLI-Q instrument was administered to 505 participants for further development. Exploratory factor analysis of the resulting data is supportive of the four-factor theoretical model while also yielding a helpfully reduced set of 20 questionnaire items, facilitating further use of the instrument by professionals and parents to help explore their attachments to linguistic heritage within their family contexts. The study contributes an important tool to improve understanding of emotional and pragmatic reasons behind heritage language maintenance, opening up opportunities for family support and further research with specific population groups.