Family language policy in the public eye: raciolinguistic ideologies at play

Abstract

This study draws on a rare media incident in which an individual family language policy (FLP) became the subject of public discussion and debate. In an interview on Swedish national television (SVT2), Nadim Ghazale, a high-profile police officer of Lebanese background, was asked why he had decided not to speak in his “mother tongue”, Arabic, with his children. His answer sparked considerable media reaction. The aim of this article is to take the public debate sparked by Ghazale’s FLP decision as an empirical entry point into understanding how debates about multilingualism are the discursive battleground on which other identity issues are negotiated and contested. To this end, the study draws on critical discourse analysis and the notion of raciolinguistic ideology to demonstrate how the arguments advanced by Ghazale and those who reacted against his decision are informed by a raciolinguistic logic that mutually constitutes language, race and social class. A detailed analysis of relevant media data illustrates that language, appearance and naming serve as signs of differentiation contributing to the social positioning of Otherness. The analysis also offers an interesting counterpoint to discourses that view bilingualism as intrinsically advantageous to speakers. This is not to say that bi/multingualism necessarily has drawbacks; rather, we should be careful about issuing too-quick verdicts of guilt to parents like Ghazale without fully appreciating the raciolinguistic ideologies at play in relation to a language like Arabic in Sweden.