22. Multilingualism and Family Welfare
- Tej K. Bhatia,
- William C. Ritchie
Published Online: 3 OCT 2012
DOI: 10.1002/9781118332382.ch22
Copyright © 2013 Blackwell Publishing, Ltd
Book Title
The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Second Edition
Additional Information
How to Cite
Wang, X.-L. (2012) Multilingualism and Family Welfare, in The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Second Edition (eds T. K. Bhatia and W. C. Ritchie), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781118332382.ch22
Editor Information
Syracuse University, USA
Publication History
- Published Online: 3 OCT 2012
- Published Print: 7 NOV 2012
Book Series:
ISBN Information
Print ISBN: 9781444334906
Online ISBN: 9781118332382
- Summary
- Chapter
- References
Keywords:
- family communication quality;
- heritage-language learning;
- multilingualism;
- multilingual childrearing;
- multilingual family
Summary
The purpose of this chapter is to identify some common issues that may jeopardize the welfare of multilingual families and to suggest strategies that will help overcome the hurdles. It highlights four family-cohesion indicators that may threaten multilingual family well-being: parental differences in childrearing beliefs and practices; family communication quality; time allocation for heritage-language learning and leisure; and parental expectations concerning their children's heritage-language proficiency. Communication is the key to overcoming the obstacles that affect the well-being of multilingual families. Multilingual family communication begins with the planning of childrearing. Specifically, parents need to consider making an active multilingual childrearing plan, negotiating their differences in childrearing practice, family communication styles, and home-language socialization strategies.