Issues of gender and parents' language values in the minority language socialisation of young children in Wales

• Autores: Kathryn Jones, Delyth Morris
• Localización: International journal of the sociology of language, ISSN 0165-2516, Nº. 195, 2009, págs. 117-139
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In Wales, there is considerable concern that an inadequate proportion of young children are being brought up speaking Welsh in the home, particularly in homes with only one Welsh-speaking parent, to ensure the future vitality of Welsh as a language of the home, family, and community. This article investigates to what extent young children's Welsh language socialisation in “mixed-language” families depends on whether the mother or the father is the Welsh speaker. On the basis of the first stage of a longitudinal ethnographic study, we found that Welsh-speaking parents who valued Welsh highly were more likely to create opportunities for their children's Welsh language socialisation in the home. This would appear to be true for both Welsh-speaking mothers and fathers in mixed-language households.