‘You are Iranian even if you were born on the moon’: family language policies of the Iranian diaspora in the UK

ABSTRACT

With a focus on an under-studied group of immigrants in the UK, this paper examines Iranian families’ language ideologies and practices at home in relation to Persian acquisition and maintenance for their children. Working within a family language policy (FLP) framework, we draw on sociolinguistic data from semi-structured interviews with eighteen mothers to understand how parental beliefs, their everyday language practices and the attempts they make to maintain, improve, or alter their language use will lead to their children’s heritage language acquisition and maintenance. The results of the study suggest that the success in heritage language development and maintenance boils down to parental pro heritage language ideologies and their everyday small-scale practices. It was also found that the interrelationship between language and cultural values and a successful FLP was further reinforced by the parents’ migration trajectory and proficiency in English as the societal language. This research also showed that the large size of this diaspora in the UK (particularly in London), their close-knit social network, availability of heritage language weekend schools and the possibility of frequent visits to the home country create a conducive situation for the Iranian diaspora to raise their children bilingually.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage language acquisition and maintenance
• family language policy
• Iranian diaspora

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Fatemeh’s husband moved to London 19 years ago as a refugee.

2 Maryam’s husband moved to London 18 years ago as a refugee.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the British Academy. Gharibi, K. (2018–2020). ‘Issues of Attrition and Transmission in Heritage Language Development’. Newton International Fellowship. British Academy, UK.

Notes on contributors

Khadij Gharibi

Khadij Gharibi is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at UiT the Arctic University of Norway. Prior to starting this role, she was a Newton Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Essex, where she conducted a research project funded by the British Academy. Khadij is interested in both psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics of heritage language bilingualism.

Seyed Hadi Mirvahedi

Seyed Hadi Mirvahedi is a postdoctoral fellow at Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (Multiling), University of Oslo. He is interested in the study of multilingualism with a focus on the interplay between state and institutional language policies and grassroots language ideologies and practices. His recent publications have appeared in Language in Society, Current Issues in Language Planning, International Journal of Multilingualism, and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.