BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

    “It's my language, my culture and it's personal!” Migrant mothers' experience of language use and identity change in their relationship with their children: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

    Farr, Joanna and Blenkiron, L. and Harris, R. and Smith, Jonathan A. (2018) “It's my language, my culture and it's personal!” Migrant mothers' experience of language use and identity change in their relationship with their children: an interpretative phenomenological analysis. Journal of Family Issues 39 (11), pp. 3029-3054. ISSN 0192-513X.

    [img]
    Preview
    Text
    21336.pdf - Author's Accepted Manuscript

    Download (537kB) | Preview

    Abstract

    The question of how migrants’ language use impacts their ethnic identity has received considerable attention in the literature. There is, however, little understanding of how this relationship manifests or is negotiated in interethnic families. This paper presents an in-depth exploration of Spanish mothers’ experiences of Spanish- and English-language interactions with their English-born children. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Spanish mothers living in Britain in interethnic partnerships and transcripts were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Analysis reveals a process of identity change where participants’ shifting ethnic identifications with host and heritage culture is intimately related to their language use with their children. Pivotal to this process is the participants’ need to maintain their ‘Spanish mother’ identity, a desire that can only be fulfilled by transferring their heritage language to their children and speaking it with them. Findings reveal how this dynamic impacts perception of family roles, relationship quality and psychological well-being.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
    Depositing User: Jonathan Smith
    Date Deposited: 23 Feb 2018 08:50
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:39
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/21336

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    993Downloads
    6 month trend
    400Hits

    Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

    Archive Staff Only (login required)

    Edit/View Item Edit/View Item