Well, If You Talk to Me in Norwegian, I Won’t Answer You: Language Policies and Practices in Latvian Diasporic Families

Abstract

The article explores the concept of family language policy in relation to heritage languages and child agency in the context of Latvian as a heritage language. Its aim is to find out what role Latvian may have in relation to other languages within the core families in the diaspora, as well as in communication with their extended families in Latvia. For this, we investigate which language beliefs and attitudes underlie those language practices and examine children’s engagement in family language management. Our research is based on 20 in-depth interviews collected in 2023. Respondents were recruited through the distance online learning program “Latvian as a foreign language teacher” created for the Latvian diaspora and through Saturday (community) schools. The main research questions are as follows: What role does Latvian have in relation to other languages in Latvian diasporic families, and how do language practices reflect beliefs and attitudes of the parents? Which languages and which communication channels are used by diasporic families in communication with their (extended) families in Latvia? What impact do children have on family language policies? Our data show a huge diversity in family language practices, switching between two and more languages depending on communicative situations, the age of children, their language proficiency, and the communication channels. Family members flexibly use their languages to participate in family life and to achieve interactional goals, not always focusing just on particular language use. Heritage language transmission correlates with family language planning and consequent language use. On the other hand, language is tightly tied to the relationships and emotions of family members.

1. Introduction

The article is based on the interest in exploring family language policy (FLP) in families of the Latvian diaspora. With the concept of diaspora, we understand the scattering of people with a common origin, language, and culture living away from an established or ancestral homeland.

After 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the full restoration of Latvia’s independence brought with it new migration opportunities. Since Latvia’s integration into Western structures and joining the European Union (in 2004), the number of people who started to emigrate from Latvia increased (since 2000, around 154,000 Latvian nationals have migrated). This so-called “new diaspora”—in contrast to the “old diaspora” associated with WW2 or forced migration, the “old exile”—has been described as an economic, contemporary migration (Kaša & Mieriņa, 2019). The new migration was based on a search for better economic opportunities rather than political persecution (see, e.g., Mieriņa et al., 2021).

The geographical contexts analyzed by family language policy researchers so far cover many different areas. Yet, they include only a few studies on Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia (e.g., Schwartz & Verschik, 2013; Siiner et al., 2017; Hilbig, 2022; Lazdiņa & Marten, 2021) and the Baltic diaspora, e.g., the Lithuanian diaspora in the US (Jakaitė-Bulbukienė, 2015), in Sweden (Bissinger, 2021), in other countries (Ramonienė & Ramonaitė, 2021), the Latvian diaspora in several European countries (Martena, 2023), and the Estonian diaspora in Finland (Aksinovits & Verschik, 2024).

Our study explores the language situation at home within families in this new diaspora, who emigrated from Latvia after 2000. The main focus of the article is on parents’ beliefs about and attitudes towards Latvian and other languages, their goals and expectations, and the activities of families for maintaining or developing particular languages and on the parents’ reported language practices. Since language practices differ in diverse communication contexts, channels, and types, in our research we explore the use of Latvian and other languages within the core and the extended family (i.e., mostly relatives in Latvia), using digitally mediated communication opportunities. Language management in bi- or multilingual families is a challenging task, not least because management efforts depend on language practices and competences—some family members have high-level abilities in the primary language of their new country, whereas others have little knowledge of their new home’s language but want their children to be able to speak it, while at the same time maintaining the home heritage language(s). This task gets even more complicated when a family is transcultural in itself, with two, three, or more languages used at home (Lanza, 2020; Montanari & Quay, 2019).

In this light, the goal of this paper is to find out what role Latvian as a heritage language may have in relation to other languages within diaspora families and which language beliefs and attitudes underlie language practices. We are interested in both face-to-face and digitally mediated communication and in the impact that children have on family language policies. To this end, we present the results of research on family language planning, management, and practices among Latvians abroad. Our research is primarily based on 20 interviews with parents from monolingual and bi-/multilingual national and transnational families of Latvian origin in different countries in Europe, in the United States, and New Zealand who have lived outside of Latvia for more than 10 years, or who are second-generation Latvians (see Appendix A). To this end, our analysis will apply the concept of family language policy in relation to heritage languages and child agency, language beliefs, and attitudes of parents and their impact on language practices with their children and their extended families.

The paper consists of three main parts. The first part introduces the theoretical framework by giving an overview of the main topics, such as family language policy (language attitudes, management, and practices), digitally mediated communication and language practices, the concept of child agency, and the children’s capabilities to engage in family language management and practices. Part two provides insight into the profiles of the informants and the types of their families which were created based on language use at home as reported by the informants. Part three provides the data analysis within the frames of family language policy, child agency, and diverse language combinations and channels of communication. The final part consists of the summing up of thoughts, ideas and conclusions and suggests issues for further discussions.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1. Family Language Policy (FLP) in Diasporic Contexts

In their 2006 paper, King and Fogle laid the foundation for the emergence of the field that came to be recognized as a Family Language Policy (FLP). They described FLP as a line of inquiry that examines family members’ attitudes toward, planning for, and use of language(s) in the home (Wright & Higgins, 2022, p. 1). Since then, this field of inquiry has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention and has evolved into a prosperous field over the almost the last two decades (e.g., Lanza & Lomeu Gomes, 2020; Wright & Higgins, 2022). Scholars have specified and described in detail the main components of FLP, like Curdt-Christiansen, who stressed that language planning by family members in relation to language choice can be explicit and overt, as well as implicit and covert. In her definition, she added the concept of literacy practices at home (Curdt-Christiansen, 2018). In this, she took up earlier ideas by Fogle Wright that also included child language learning and literacy as a significant component of FLP, emphasizing that it also addresses social and cultural contexts of family life (Fogle Wright, 2013). Gu and Han (2021), when exploring FLP research in multi-generational transnational immigrant families, also emphasize the impact of diverse social contexts, such as schools, workplaces, and local communities of the new host society.

There are three main aspects which create the ground of FLP: language attitudes (how family members perceive language(s)), language practices (de facto language use, how people actually use language in and outside the family), and language management (what efforts they make to maintain and develop language(s) in the family). As Curdt-Christiansen (2018, p. 2) notes, FLP has, within the discipline of sociolinguistics, thereby often been framed alongside Spolsky’s theory of language policy, which is built around these three aspects. Fundamental for all these parts are the choices (Spolsky, 2009): how do families (in total and their individual members) negotiate which varieties and variants to assign certain values to, which variants are considered adequate, and which are chosen or unchosen in specific situations? In this sense, the intergenerational differences regarding which value is assigned to which language can have significant impacts on family language practices (i.e., the value of heritage languages can vary considerably between parents and children). Language management takes place when family members actively intervene into these choices of practices and values.

As a part of active intervention, different scholars (Lanza, 1997; De Houwer & Nakamura, 2021; Martena, 2023) have described strategies which parents use when reacting to their children’s language practices, particularly regarding language mixing and translanguaging. In the 1990s, in her research about language use in American–Norwegian families in Norway, Lanza (1997) had already developed a pattern for describing parental reactions. She distinguished five strategies which can be seen as a continuum from the most monolingual to the most multilingual discourse strategy. These strategies are called: Minimal Grasp Strategy, Expressed Guess Strategy, Adult Repetition, Move on Strategy, and Language Switching. In the context of families of the Latvian diaspora, Martena (2023) analyzed these strategies as a part of family language management and their impact on language practices. Therefore, it is not the primary aim of this study to focus on them.

The theory of parental discourse strategies referred to above indicates how attitudes and values which parents assign to heritage languages influence choices of a particular policy or management activities at home. Thus, they have a strong impact on language use (practices). In the context of a diaspora and their multilingual situations within and outside their homes, language ideologies have also been understood as “parents’ (positive or negative) beliefs about multilingualism and translanguaging” (Horner & Weber, 2018, p. 196). When it comes to heritage languages, the most important goals for many families are their maintenance and the intergenerational transmission of family languages, which is related to a sense of belonging and identity issues.

Spolsky (2009) distinguishes the power of parents to manage the language of their children when the home domain is closed (i.e., children spend time at home with their parents who have a major direct impact on language practices) from situations when the home is opened to the outside (when children are influenced by peers, school, or other activities and contexts in society). In the latter case, the family may become “the site of language conflict that reflects conflicts in the outside society, with children often rejecting their parents’ language” (Spolsky, 2009, p. 22). There are also other studies which report how children express their agency through different ways of resistance and negotiation, thereby also influencing family language practices (Schwartz et al., 2022).

FLP becomes even more complex when discussing it at different policy levels (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; Curdt-Christiansen, 2018). One is the perspective of a family itself (i.e., the microlevel). These include diverse views of the family members, particularly in bi- or multilingual families. Families can negotiate on a metalevel, and children’s perspectives also may have an impact on family decisions regarding language use. Sometimes, families find a consensus to establish a set of rules and create their own family policy, whereas sometimes language issues are not in their priority lists. The second aspect of FLP is connected with the societal perspective (i.e., the macrolevel), which often reflects societal language policies and discourses. In such contexts, families and their heritage languages may not be the main topics; instead, families are called upon to focus more on societal integration and inclusion of different groups through the common societal language(s) and/or English. Our research addresses the complexity of the relations between the macro- and microlevels while directly focusing on the latter one (families, the microlevel).

2.2. Digitally Mediated Communication and Language Practices

In recent studies of FLP, particularly in the context of language practices and management, we can see a continuity of ideas mentioned already in previous studies, but using new labels which reflect digital realities and spaces and the role of ICT (Information and communications technologies), as they are included in the family domain. For example, Palviainen (2022) suggests that the classic definitions of FLP should be expanded to include digital practices; therefore, she defines FLP “as explicit and overt as well as implicit and covert planning among members in a family network regarding their language use and digital literacy practices” (Palviainen, 2022, p. 132). The key concepts underlying the definition of FLP remain the same (explicit and implicit planning, language use, and literacy), but there is a clarification of the notion of literacy practices by adding the explanatory word “digitally”.

In particular, among transnational families, digital literacy practices do not take place for language maintenance or development only; digital family language practices are also crucial for maintaining the family itself, not just for FLP purposes. To ensure contact among family members, e.g., between children and grandparents who live abroad, parents create time and space for digitally mediated family practices. As Palviainen has pointed out, “while it is the members of a family who shape the practices of technology, the technology itself also contributes to shaping the family” (Palviainen, 2022, p. 129).

Lanza and Lexander, in their research on family language practices in multilingual transcultural families, describe such digital practices (i.e., choices of spoken or written modality) for maintaining family relationships and continuing family life across larger distances. At the same time, digital practices promote children’s informal language learning (Lanza & Lexander, 2019).

Lanza (2020) emphasizes that more recent FLP studies move away from a focus on developing language proficiency to a focus on the interrelationship between family, language, and society. She also points out that there is a need to further explore how parents and other caregivers employ (online) media “to address and investigate issues of language and culture transmission, well-being, and good parenting in their inclusion into contemporary society” (ibid.). Wright (2022) in turn explores family communication practices, well-being, and language use patterns in bilingual families through an analysis of kinship terms. She emphasizes that kinship terms “are important as markers of kinship relations and processes ongoing in family” (Wright, 2022, p. 30).

In this sense, heritage (home) language transmission, family language management, communication and well-being will also be explored as main aspects in our study about Latvian families in the diaspora. We will investigate how the informants reflect on the role of digitally mediated communication with their (extended) families for keeping family relationships (transmitting identity), on the one hand, and for creating a space for language use and literacy development (transmitting the heritage language) on the other hand.

2.3. Child Agency

Whereas the roles of parents in preserving heritage languages at home have been widely discussed, less attention has been paid to children’s capability to initiate and influence the planning and use of language at home (e.g., Gafaranga, 2011; Fogle Wright, 2012; Smith-Christmas, 2020). In the last decade, more than ever, children are perceived as equal family language policy makers and language managers (Bissinger, 2021, p. 30), who have their own opinions, motives, and interests related to the use of language at home, as well as a considerable capacity to engage socially and make decisions about family language practices. Smith-Christmas (2020, 2023), in her research, finds that child agency is based on components such as compliance regimes, linguistic norms, linguistic competence, and power dynamics. The first is seen as children’s consent or obedience to the linguistic requests of parents or caregivers. The second is related to parents’ own inconsistency in the choice of language codes and the organization of speech situations, which affects the children’s language habits at home. The third concerns children’s linguistic knowledge and skills, which can promote or hinder the use of family language(s). The latter is mainly related to children’s roles as “language experts” and communication mediators in cases where their skills in the language of the new country of residence are better than the linguistic competence of parents.

With these theoretical notions in mind, we will now introduce our respondents, their families, and their ethnolinguistic backgrounds.

3. The Methodology and the Obtained Data

3.1. Data Collection

The research on the individual cases (families) on which this paper is based applied biographical approaches and methods, such as in-depth interviews or narrative interviews. The pre-prepared set of interview questions consists of four parts: the first includes questions about languages used in the family (who speaks which language with whom, where, and when, implicit and explicit family language policies, digital communication with family and friends in Latvia). The second part covers the role of Latvian and of languages outside the family (with neighbors, friends, socialization in local communities). The third part addresses language practices in Latvia during family visits and meetings with the respondents’ family members, particularly grandparents and friends, and the role of different languages in different communication contexts. The last part includes questions about the respondents’ perspectives on and attitudes towards languages (e.g., on the role of Latvian and other languages, on individual language development and changes in use, on how they notice languages, and on changes in attitudes towards their mother tongue and languages in the diaspora). In this paper, we discuss only data from the first part of the interviews (i.e., on language use in communication between family members from the core family in the diaspora and with the extended family in Latvia, i.e., language ideologies and management within the family domain).

Respondents were recruited through the distance online learning program “Latvian as a foreign language teacher” created for the Latvian diaspora and through Saturday (community) schools. The main criteria for selecting informants were (1) at least one parent being of Latvian ethnicity and speaking Latvian as the native language and (2) at least one child older than two years. It should be noted that in the article, the term ‘child’ refers to any child mentioned by the respondents, regardless of age.

The data collection took place in 2023 through conducting online interviews using the Zoom platform and doing video recordings. If it was possible, we conducted interviews in person through audio recordings. Although both mothers and fathers and children were approached for the interviews, in practice only mothers with Latvian origin living in the diaspora since the restoration of Latvia’s independence responded.

3.2. The Obtained Data

Our data basis consists of interviews with twenty mothers representing fifteen families in Europe (United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Spain, and Greece), two in the United States, and three in New Zealand. Kaša and Mieriņa (2019) reported that the biggest Latvian diaspora lives in European countries such as the United Kingdom (44% of all diaspora Latvians), Germany (~13%), and Ireland (~10%). Our data provide insight into the diasporic communities from all those countries.

The interviews are in Latvian, and their length varies between 25 and 80 min. An overview of the interviewed families is given in Appendix A.

3.3. The Types of Families

Based on an analysis of the language use and communication interactions among different family members (parents among themselves, parents with children, siblings among themselves, communication with grandparents and other relatives), we can conclude that our empirical data indicate three main types of families (see also Appendix A):

(1)

Families in which both parents have the same mother tongue (in our case—Latvian) and in which parents communicate with each other and speak to their children in their common native language (Latvian, respectively).

(2)

Families in which each parent has their own mother tongue (in our case—Latvian and another language) and in which the parents communicate with each other in the mother tongue of one parent, which is also the language of the new home country (in our data: Latvian and English/German/Spanish; one parent one language—OPOL model).

(3)

Families in which each parent has their own mother tongue (in our case—Latvian and French/Danish/Swedish) and in which the parents communicate with each other in a language that is not the language of the new home country (in our case—English in non-English-speaking countries).

There are two exceptions to this classification. In the first case, both parents have two native languages, as both are second-generation Latvian emigrants, with one parent being an American with English as a native language. In the second case, it is a family living in the USA (see the description of the family profile of a respondent with the ID S.Š. in Appendix A), in which the mother’s native language is Latvian, and the father’s mother tongue is Kurdish. However, the father uses Swedish in communication with the children, the language in which he obtained higher education, and both parents speak English to each other.

3.4. Data Analysis

For analysis, we transcribed the audio and video texts of the interviews. We then conducted a content analysis of the interviews, following principles of qualitative research methodology (Bernard et al., 2017), i.e., coding and indexing important concepts, grouping key codes, and creating and systematizing categories. Three main categories were created for this study: language practices within the core family; digital communication with the extended family in Latvia; and child agency. Each category was detected using the most relevant analysis codes.

Table 1. Categories, code systems, and codes for data analysis.

Categories	Code Systems and Codes
Language practices within the core family and local community	1. Language - Latvian - Other family languages (e.g., German, English, Norwegian, Danish, Spanish, and Swedish) - Community languages (e.g., English, German, Spanish) - Other languages or varieties (e.g., Russian, Lithuanian, Valencian, Latgalian, Maori), including variation of codes (translanguaging) 2. Combinations of communication partners - Parents with each other - Parents with children - Siblings with each other - Family members with the extended family in Latvia
Digital communication with the extended family in Latvia	- Kinship (family members and kinship terms in family conversations) - Communication channels (digital channels, apps, and platforms used for communication)
Child agency	1. Changes proposed/made by a family member (including the child) in typical family language management and/or practice 2. The child’s (verbal or nonverbal) reaction to these changes

provides an overview of the categories, the analysis code systems, and the codes.

Alongside all three categories and the coding classifications, our data analysis also paid attention to additional factors such as language attitudes (positive, negative, or neutral) and emotions (e.g., the well-being of family members), which may have an impact on language practices in the family.

Before analyzing the data, we would like to stress that our observations or self-recorded family interactions are not included in the analysis in this paper. The conditions, manifestations and outcomes of children’s agency analyzed and discussed in the study, as well as the language practices and the digital communication with the extended families in Latvia, reveal the perspectives of the interviewed respondents (all of them mothers with Latvian as their L1), i.e., what they remembered and wished to highlight during the interviews. The respondents’ narratives may have omitted or misunderstood nuances of the feelings, reasons, and goals of the children, as well as circumstances of the speech situations, and there is little evidence of other family members’ perspectives on language planning and practices in their families.

4. Main Findings

As mentioned above, three main categories were created for this study: language practices within core family; digital communication with extended family in Latvia; and the child’s agency. Consequently, in this chapter the data will be analyzed according to these categories and their codes.

4.1. “I’ll Wait Until You Will Say That Word, That Thing in Latvian”

We will now speak about the language practices in the core family and provide some representative examples. In all interviews, the informants stressed that they try to speak with their children in Latvian and thereby transmit their heritage language to their children. In the families in which both parents have Latvian as their first language (Type 1, see Appendix A), this is easier since they both address the children in Latvian, who also regularly hear their parents speaking Latvian with each other. In these cases, the children develop strong receptive skills. According to all interviewees, even if the children do not always answer in Latvian, they mostly understand when the language is spoken inside or outside the family, for example at Saturday (community) schools. In such a way, the children have a regular exposure to Latvian. One of the informants, who lives in the UK and whose husband died recently, pointed out: “When I’m alone with her [daughter], it’s like I’m trying to speak Latvian and then at some point she starts answering me in English”. The informant emphasizes how language practices have changed since just the two of them live at home; being alone is emotionally hard, and she does not have the strength to struggle with language issues. The expression I’m trying to speak reflects an attempt to improve language practices that do not really live up to her wishes.

At the same time, families where two parents live together also frequently struggle to maintain their heritage language. They use different parental strategies for stopping their children from switching to the societal language. The title of this paper and the subtitle of this chapter are excerpts from an interview with a family living in Norway. The informant stresses how preschool and school slowly change their family language practices—their twins (11 years old) bring home Norwegian (Excerpt 1).

Well, of course, I also had periods when they [twins, 11 years old] have been extremely angry with me when I say to them (laughs): Well, if you talk to me in Norwegian, I won’t answer you, I’ll wait until you will say that word, that thing in Latvian, like. And they got angry and cried, but in the end, they said [it], of course.

(Excerpt 1)

The mother explains how principled she is in demanding to keep their conversation just in the heritage language Latvian. Excerpt 1 shows how maintaining Latvian comes together with strong negative emotions (anger, crying) and disharmonious relationships and situations in family life. At the same time, the whole interview, like the other interviews, reflects the fact that living in the diaspora and even speaking basically only one language within the family does not mean having just a monolingual environment. Children bring home societal languages (in this case—Norwegian) from (pre)school, whereas English is brought to the family through social media, films, and other digital practices.

The new life in a new country, the access to diverse media, language realities, and the wish to care for the well-being of their children, may shake the language attitudes of the parents. Their previous beliefs, e.g., their dream to stick to only one language at home, their mother tongue, become secondary in the light of the wish to keep a positive and harmonious home environment. Excerpt 1 is an example of how they accept that children come from school and wish to discuss the day in a language used outside home, if it is also easier for them to express their emotions. The informant’s family has lived in Norway for more than 12 years, and so, she explains that her children “could tell about it also in Latvian but to remember this event which happened in this language [Norwegian], for them it is easier” to tell it in Norwegian. It is her conviction that her children’s emotions and well-being are more important in family communication situations than the language used to express them.

In situations when children switch to societal languages, parents report that there are several strategies which they use to address children in Latvian, such as the “Expressed Guess Strategy”, repetitions, or the “Move on Strategy”. An informant who lives with her family in Spain says that she speaks only Latvian with all three children, whereas her husband only speaks Spanish (Family type 2, see Appendix A). Since the whole sociolinguistic environment is Spanish, the children almost always answer her at first in Spanish. Her reaction to that depends on how tired she is; if they are on “some kind of daily run, some kind of daily routine”, then she continues to speak Latvian, but her children answer in Spanish (“Move on Strategy”). In this way, at least the children’s receptive skills are trained—and indeed, they are strong enough so that she does not have to switch to Spanish but can continue to communicate in Latvian.

In so-called bilingual families (Family type 2, see Appendix A), the most popular communication model is OPOL. However, there are quite big differences in the language practices with regard to whether one of the family languages is also a societal language or not. For example, in a family living in Italy, where both parents speak to the children in their respective mother tongues (Italian and Latvian), contact with the other local relatives and friends was so regular and close that even the Latvian-speaking mother unintentionally began to speak Italian to her children. She stopped to switch to Italian only when the family moved on to Germany where neither she nor her husband were close to their parents or other relatives. In this way, she started to reflect more on her language practices and habits at home. She realized that both family languages (Latvian and Italian) have become more equal than at the time when the family lived in Italy (see Excerpt 2).

It was much harder for me to speak Latvian when I was in Italy than here in Germany. Because things have changed. In Italy, everybody around me, all his family, friends, everybody speaks Italian, and I’m the only one who would speak Latvian. But it was very difficult for me to switch. And in general, with the first child, I kind of…, I think I did it a bit wrong from the beginning. I didn’t force anything, I didn’t go like a tractor. I thought: OK, it will come naturally. Unfortunately, it didn’t come naturally.

(Excerpt 2)

The informant (Excerpt 2) admits that she could not transmit her mother tongue to her children when living abroad in a natural way, such as just speaking with them and not focusing explicitly on language practices. After moving to Germany and having the second child, however, she started to plan particular communication and literacy events, e.g., by taking children to Latvian Saturday (community) school. In this way, she started to engage in active language management.

Latvian has a very strong symbolic value for many parents, associated with their home country Latvia, and their childhood. In contrast, for the children Latvian often stays only as a heritage language to which they have a neutral attitude. As an 18-year-old young man who grew up in a Latvian-speaking family in Germany formulated, for him Latvian “is just a spoken language with my relatives and family”. It is spoken at home, but since “most of […] everything, thinking and also everything around me [is] in German, Latvian is not a very big value for me”.

4.2. “A Teenager, in Order to Have Contact with Her Grandmothers, I Ask Her to Write My Messages”

Now, we continue with data analysis on the second topic about digital communication with the extended family in Latvia. The interview data show that Latvian as a heritage language is important as a medium of communication with the extended family in Latvia. The aim of the families is to continue at least partly to participate in family life in Latvia. The respondents aim to achieve interactional goals, trying to keep close relationships with parents, grandparents, cousins, and other relatives. Kinship itself, as well as kinship terms in family conversations and relations with those who have remained in Latvia, are significant topics for research conducted on FLP.

Among the relatives, grandmothers are contacted and mentioned in interviews most often. For the Latvian diaspora mothers who participated in the research, the link between grandchildren and grandparents (i.e., their children and parents) appears as a symbol of transmission not only of language, but also of identity and belonging. In relationships where the bond is rather weak and where strengthening it requires a lot of work, the informants use neutral kinship terms when mentioning grandmothers such as ome, oma, vecmamma, roughly corresponding to grandma or grandmother (e.g., omei aizsūta kādu audio ziņu vai parunā pa telefonu—[the children] send an audio message to grandma or talk to her on the phone. Kinship terms used in diminutive (omīte, roughly granny), in contrast, express love and closer relationships. For example, a respondent who lives in New Zealand rarely contacts her relatives in Latvia, and she uses only the terms ‘mother’ (mamma) and ‘granny’ (omīte) (Excerpt 3).

I was away from Latvia for about 15 years and I very rarely spoke Latvian, actually, maybe once a month when I called my mother and so on, sometimes with friends, but, well, very rarely, really, did I use Latvian (…) I communicate by texting messages maybe more often than by calls, well, maybe once a month I have a call with my granny.

(Excerpt 3)

Excerpt 3 indicates that mother, granny, and sometimes friends in Latvia are the main reasons for continuing to use Latvian. Due to the huge time difference, texting messages is the most practical form of communication. However, texting instead of calling or digitally mediated communication is mentioned also by respondents who live in Europe and do not have such a close relationship with the older generation anymore. For example, as an answer to the question “Do you still have contacts with relatives or friends in Latvia and, if so, how do you communicate with them?” an informant who has lived in Germany for more than 15 years says (Excerpt 4):

A little, yes, but very little. Minimally, somehow we have a very full day, so we don’t really have … time. It used to be that somehow we also talked more with … like in Skype with our parents, but now somehow, like text message is more communication than … let’s say digitally.

(Excerpt 4)

Skype as a communication platform is a symbol of the past which can be dated back to around 2004/2005. For example, a respondent from Ireland recalls that “when we arrived, there was only skype [for communication]”. Currently, referring to other ways of digitally mediated communication, most often WhatsApp and Zoom are used. WhatsApp is described by respondents as a very comfortable communication means for making video and voice calls, texting messages, and sharing pictures, videos, or links. Multimodality gives WhatsApp a particular value which is also emphasized in the official advertising description of WhatsApp, since it is “especially popular among friends and family who live in different countries and want to stay in touch” (Goodwin, 2023).

Despite the success of this multiplatform messaging application, however, the informants report that audio or video chatting with relatives in Latvia can be challenging for two reasons: first, it can be technically time-consuming and tiring. Second, children often show no interest or desire to communicate in this way, since they do not have good concentration skills to focus on digitally mediated communication (Excerpt 5).

My children, because of the pandemic, they are, like, very resistant to video calls, to making calls. They’re immediately: no, no, no, I don’t want, I don’t want, I don’t want! They don’t want to talk to anybody on video calls anymore.

(Excerpt 5)

Excerpt 5 shows that the learning experience during the COVID-19 pandemic through various digital communication and educational organization channels and platforms has a negative impact on children’s desire to communicate with Latvian relatives in a multimodal way. As a reason, the informant mentions the pandemic, but the analysis of the whole interview and a comparison with other interviews allows the assumption that there are three other reasons: First, children who do not have a wish to communicate with their grandparents through a video call have lower language proficiency. Since their parents often have two different native languages and cultural backgrounds, they do not feel confident enough to participate. Parents report that the children have heard comments from relatives about their pronunciation or other deviations from expected language standards, which has influenced the children’s wish to take part in a common chat. Second, age is a factor: the older the children get, the more they avoid communication with their grandparents. Third, some interviewees report technical issues. For instance, a respondent who lives in New Zealand created a WhatsApp group with two sisters and their mother who live in Latvia. The ages of her sisters’ children are similar to those of her own two children, and therefore, they try to create a common video chat during the weekend. However, this functions badly, as the informant says: “children…, the phone screen is too small for them, and so, they run to show each other their toys, say one-two sentences and run away, well, so they don’t talk like that”.

Both age and a lack of experience in digitally mediated communication are also mentioned in other interviews.

And my husband’s mum, again, she’s quite old and she’s the kind of person who can’t really hold that interest with children. She doesn’t know how to hold the phone properly, first of all, there’s always something like, the child says something and she doesn’t really listen to what M. [daughter] says. M. shouts something back and she doesn’t hear and so, well, the communication isn’t as good as it could be. I think you need to be there in person.

(Excerpt 6)

Excerpt 6 reflects the full disappointment of the respondent; she has tried to create an environment for communication between the grandparents and her children, but it does not work. She concludes that the communication in person cannot be replaced by digital communication. Reasons such as age, a lack of focus, and the listening skills of her mother-in-law, as well as her daughters’ negative emotions and reactions to such situations reveal that she is tired of organizing digital communication.

In this way, comments from our informants confirm that such “social work”, particularly in families with smaller children, is very demanding and challenging. Therefore, video calls and online conversations with one’s extended family in Latvia decrease over time. Here, the challenges that the use of video calls as a means of maintaining family relationships across distances in the context of FLP and the organizational work that such communications entail confirm previous studies by other scholars; e.g., Palviainen (2022) reports of several case studies which show that the successful organization of video chats in most cases requires a lot of work by the parents, while the grandparents mainly enjoy the benefits. However, meaningful communication through video calls requires “a significant performance element and the cooperation of all participants” (Palviainen, 2022, p. 131)—which, as our data show, is not always the case. In this, there are “four types of “social work” connected with the video chat activity: coordination (e.g., assembling the family), presentation (e.g., ensuring faces can be seen), behavioral (e.g., ensuring small children sit still), and scaffolding work (e.g., engaging children in talk).” (ibid.).

The quotation that was used as a heading of this sub-chapter indicates another aspect which, in the context of researching (digital) communication with the extended family, emerged as unexpected (see Excerpt 7). Parents become very creative and ambitious in order to achieve two goals: first, to preserve and pass on close family ties between their parents and their children; in this way, they become mediators between grandparents and grandchildren. Second, to use as many opportunities as possible for transmitting their heritage language. For many parents, it is very hard to accept that language can limit the ability of family members to connect to each other in deeper ways, which can result in a loss of connections with the extended family, in particular with regard to grandparents. Therefore, parents sometimes deliberately create situations which stimulate their children to communicate with their grandparents, which also means using Latvian:

A teenager, in order to have contact with her grandmothers, because she doesn’t want it, I ask her to write my messages, and she writes in Latvian. I drive, and she writes. Or when we’re in the car, we call mom and then she has to talk (smiling). What are you going to say, a few sentences, at least. That’s the daily communication we have every day, with grandma.

(Excerpt 7)

Examples such as that in Excerpt 7 can be described as certain tricks used for noble ends. The informant admits that her daughter, a teenager, does not have the wish to communicate with her grandma. For the mother, however, texting, calling, and speaking the heritage language means something more. In this way, the creation of regular oral or written communication situations enhances literacy and proficiency and confidence in language use, particularly in a language not used at school or other societal contexts. The interview data also clearly support the finding that language transmission is motivated by something more: broken language transmission also means a broken transmission of family identity, history, and cultural belonging.

4.3. “She Starts a Sentence, but as Soon as She Does Not Get the Right Grammatical Case or Something, She Immediately Switches to Spanish”

The in-depth content analysis of all twenty interviews shows that the children’s agency is most clearly manifested in speech situations in which a child does not feel linguistically and emotionally comfortable. Most often, insufficient linguistic competence in one of the family languages and the metalinguistic awareness of this linguistic deficiency cause psycho-emotional discomfort, and therefore, children seek supportive verbal and non-verbal solutions to overcome it.

The quotation in the section title above stems from an interview with the mother in a family living in Spain (see profile I.I. in Appendix A). It shows her 8-year-old daughter’s reluctance to continue the conversation in Latvian due to grammatical errors. Overall, our data reveal that insufficient vocabulary for discussing certain topics (mainly related to school subjects) or for communication in general is the main reason for involving another language, regardless of the child’s age. Sometimes, this can also lead to a complete change of the linguistic code, or to avoiding a conversation altogether:

At home, of course, we all speak Latvian, the girls are increasingly starting to speak English to each other, because there are some topics that they miss in Latvian. Our text messages have always been only in Latvian, we very rarely write anything in English. At home, we only talk in Latvian. I do not know, in principle, most of it is in Latvian. Well, but when they are both together, they speak English. Well, I would say that after about three years, living in Australia, we are already starting to hear them speaking English to each other, but it is okay if they speak Latvian to us.

(Excerpt 8)

Excerpt 8 shows not only the daughters’ choice of language for communication with each other and the impact of English as the language of society on their linguistic habits at home after a certain amount of time spent in a new country of residence (three years in Australia followed by a move to New Zealand). Also, we can see the mother’s reaction to such changes and her linguistic conviction—as long as her daughters speak Latvian with their parents, everything is fine. In other words, the parents’ family language management model includes the use of both languages—Latvian and English—in different communication situations.

Excerpt 9 shows that a seven-year-old girl feels emotionally tense and linguistically uncomfortable when talking to her grandmothers who do not speak English. In such speech situations, her agency is mainly expressed non-verbally—the girl changes her location, physically avoiding more extensive conversations with her grandmothers.

Grandmothers do not speak English. Well, they [the daughters–authors] do (sighs)… there are no options, they only speak Latvian to them there. Then she [seven-year-old daughter–authors] somehow manages to summon her strength and answers something. I feel that she quickly, quickly wants to disappear and does not really want to talk because of this linguistic barrier. Well, I guess, she does it to avoid tension (laughs).

(Excerpt 9)

The mother’s statement that her daughter “summons her strength” and “answers something” indicates that she is also verbally changing her linguistic behavior. That is, the daughter uses a specific strategy—she answers questions politely and laconically with the language resources she has. Most likely, at the age of seven the daughter already understands that conversations with her grandmothers are inevitable (or at least an essential part of a visit to Latvia) and that her family members (especially parents and grandparents) expect her to speak Latvian. However, as Excerpt 9 shows, speech situations in which the daughter does not have the opportunity to choose a comfortable linguistic code create emotional discomfort and a language barrier in communication.

The content analysis of the interviews also shows that children are reluctant to use certain communication channels. As mentioned above, they do not want to talk synchronously with their relatives in Latvia through a video call. Instead, they try to choose a way of communication that allows them to prepare a monologue—orally, such as an audio message (see Excerpt 10), or in written form such as a text message (see Excerpt 5 above). This is a way in which they feel psycho-emotionally and linguistically more comfortable and secure, since they can control the content, speed, and length of the message and the pace of conversation.

My sweet daughter talks to her cousins, because she’s about the same age. Then, I see them chatting sometimes, writing something there. I’m happy, of course (laughs).

(Excerpt 10)

Perhaps due to limited linguistic competence, that is, insufficient oral communication skills, the children choose written communication or to send pre-prepared audio messages. In addition to that, communication with relatives of a similar age (chat with cousins) gives the children more confidence and satisfaction than communication with their grandparents, particularly if the grandchildren did not have an opportunity to meet them often and to get to know each other better so that they could have free, relaxed relationships and conversations.

On the other hand, the retellings of speech situations reported by the respondents reveal that children already at an early age are aware of their parents’ linguistic wishes (language attitudes) and are able, as several mothers admitted, to use the language in the form of formulas such as “you have to ask in Latvian and to say “please”” in order to get what they desire (e.g., a parental favor, permission, or a new toy). In this sense, the family language might function less for communicative purposes than for achieving pragmatic goals. However, as Excerpt 11 shows, a change in the use of language can be simply caused by the entry of one parent into a room and may indicate a desire to please the entering parent.

About two years ago, when my husband was in the kitchen or in the room with the children, the children were speaking Swedish to each other, and I heard it, I still have fragments filmed. When I entered the room, the children switched to Latvian, and it was interesting, even without addressing them, they were just playing.

(Excerpt 11)

In the family, the children (nine-year-old and six-year-old sons) speak Swedish with their father, which is his chosen language of communication with them (his native language is Kurdish), and they speak Latvian with their mother. The beginning of the interview fragment shows that the father’s presence in the room determined the brothers’ choice of language; however, the mother’s entry into the room changed the speech situation—the children switched to Latvian. This happened naturally, without any additional comments from the parents or themselves. In the presence of both parents, the mother’s agency (albeit passive) was stronger. The mother in this multilingual family (see profile S.Š. in Appendix A) has a strong position as a language policy agent; she very thoughtfully selects and provides the children with linguistic input that matches the parents’ linguistic beliefs and influences and regulates the children’s language use in communication with parents, relatives, and friends. We can see that even if parents do not directly intervene in a specific speech situation, their practiced communication models, linguistic beliefs, and linguistic expectations can indirectly influence the children’s agency—the “free” choice of linguistic code.

In total, our data show that children, even in families with both Latvian-speaking parents, also use other languages among themselves or with friends in Latvian community schools (see Appendix A). This especially happens if parents are more liberal, i.e., do not limit the children’s choice of language or do not preclude the use of another language (parental “Move on Strategy”). In this light, the children’s chosen linguistic code (language or language variety) indicates their linguistic preferences in terms of their linguistic competence, linguistic habits, or prestige of language(s) or dialect(s). However, some interviews also show that strict family language policy by at least one parent may affect children’s linguistic freedom in individual communication situations.

Another manifestation of children’s agency is their reflections on their own or other family members’ language use. Based on the information provided by the respondents (mothers), children most often explicitly discuss their parents’ unusual language use in their presence. Such children’s metalinguistic comments are mainly initiated by speech situations in which one parent uses the other parent’s mother tongue, less often another language. The following two excerpts illustrate such situations.

I never, ever speak English to my daughters, always Latvian. I think I’ve said a sentence in English once or twice, and A [oldest daughter–authors] looked at me like I’ve said something rude. That’s not your language. They like it when B [father, husband–authors] pretends to speak Latvian, they find it so funny, when dad speaks Latvian, it’s the funniest thing you can hear.

(Excerpt 12)

Excerpt 12 demonstrates two different reactions of children—daughters—to their parents’ unusual choice of language. In the interview, the mother emphasized that she does not use English in communication with her daughters, only Latvian. In speech situations when the daughters experience changes in their mother’s communication routine (i.e., in the linguistic norm, according to Smith-Christmas, 2020, 2023), they nonverbally express surprise, even rejection, or rather, look as if something rude (i.e., undesirable, unacceptable) has been said. In this case, the mother feels that the daughters want to say through nonverbal means that English is not her language and that the daughters do not find it acceptable to use English in mutual communication. In turn, the father’s use of Latvian is evaluated positively (the mother’s statement that they like it confirms this). The daughters perceive the Latvian used by the father as a comical, amusing language practice. The different reaction is probably because the English language the mother accidentally uses is not the father’s native language (unlike Latvian, which is the mother’s native language) and that English is perceived as a language of communication either between the parents or between the two daughters, but never (or mostly never) between parents and children.

The last example—Excerpt 13—shows that the daughters, 11-year-old twins, understand well that their parents are speaking in another language unknown to them (Russian, respectively) to exclude them from the conversation and, possibly, talk about them.

Girls react very much if we [Mom and Dad–authors] speak Russian and then they say: “We need to learn Spanish faster, then you won’t understand us!” They react very much to that, and they don’t like it very much… yes, and they immediately understand that we are discussing something, that we are simply taking advantage of the situation (laughs).

(Excerpt 13)

According to the mother, the daughters do not like the communication strategy used by their parents, but at the same time, they are aware of the advantages of knowing another (“secret”) language and such a communication strategy. As the excerpt shows, the daughters want to learn Spanish faster to use in their mutual communication, to similarly exclude their parents from the conversation.

The last six fragments of the interviews (Excerpts 8–13) illustrate and highlight three main circumstances and factors that stimulate children’s agency: communication situations with lesser-known people (including grandparents) and insufficient knowledge of the Latvian language, verbally uncontrolled speech situations of parents with siblings, and emotional pressure from parents on language choice, as well as parents’ own inconsistency in language use and children’s linguistic attitude towards the use of the parents’ chosen language.

5. Conclusions and Further Discussion

Our research shows that maintaining Latvian as a home (heritage) language in communication with one’s children is very challenging for parents. Family members flexibly use their languages mainly to participate in family life and to achieve interactional goals, not just focusing on languages. At the same time, heritage language transmission correlates with family language planning and consequent language use, and language is tightly tied to the relationships and emotions of family members, as also has been highlighted in recent FLP studies (e.g., Wright & Higgins, 2022). In families in which both parents have the same mother tongue (Family type 1, see Appendix A), it is easier to stick to common rules regarding language use, since both parents interact with each other and with their children in Latvian. As described earlier by Spolsky (see Section 2) and mentioned in other diaspora studies (e.g., Mieriņa et al., 2021; Gu & Han, 2021), the home language environment and family language practices change when the children start to attend (pre)school.

When parents are principled in their language attitudes and practices and demand that their children speak only in Latvian (parents use the “Minimal Grasp Strategy” or the “Expressed Guess Strategy”), this has the potential to create language conflicts. On the other hand, heritage language transmission is threatened if parents do not have any explicit rules regarding language management and practices. The interaction and importance of all three components of the FLP model (language attitudes, practices, and management) is also emphasized in theoretical studies (Curdt-Christiansen, 2018; Wright & Higgins, 2022).

The situations in the families in which the parents have different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Family Types 2 and 3, see Appendix A) are even more complex, because language input is divided into two or three parts, and every language has to have enough time and space to be developed. The weakest position has a language which is one of the home languages, but which is not spoken outside the family–which in our data in all cases is the case for Latvian (similarly, this is pointed out by Aksinovits and Verschik (2024) about Estonian in Finland). The most developed and used languages are those languages spoken both by one of the parents and society (in our data: German, Spanish, English). In multilingual families, the language attitudes of both parents are significant, and the question of how they respect and support each other’s languages is essential. This was not the main topic of this paper, but our data also show that language attitudes affect language practices and that the value assigned by parents to a particular language is reflected by their children (e.g., valuing Swedish is pragmatically higher than Kurdish in the case of informant S.Š.’s family).

Although the data come from different European and non-European countries, there are no typical features that are common to diaspora respondents from the same country. Each interview (life story or narrative) is very individual. For example, among Latvian diaspora families in Germany, the transmission of Latvian may vary even among families of the same type. In families where children grow up with the OPOL model (with Latvian- and German-speaking parents), there are families where Latvian is transmitted to their children, and there are families whose children have largely receptive Latvian skills only and whose parents use the “Move on Strategy”, continuing to communicate with their children in Latvian.

Latvian as a heritage language has a strong symbolic value in the eyes of our informants, if compared to the value assigned to other languages spoken in and outside home. Yet, this is far more the case for the parents than for the children. For the children, Latvian is one of the languages of their parents, but it is not associated with home, with friends, and their local environments, and it therefore does not have the same emotional connotations as for their parents. In this sense, the interview data also suggest that language transmission is closely related to family identity, history, and cultural belonging. A broken language transmission, in contrast, means a broken transmission of identity and belonging, and parents try to avoid this loss. Also, these findings are very similar to those expressed in the diaspora study on Estonia (Aksinovits & Verschik, 2024) referred to above. It also says that Estonian diaspora families tend to have a strong mother tongue-related identity in which transmission and proficiency of Estonian are extremely important.

Our study shows that parents use different discourse strategies (“Minimal Grasp Strategy”, “Expressed Guess Strategy”, or “Move on Strategy”) for maintaining communication with their children in Latvian as a heritage language. This confirms that parental discourse strategies as language management tools can have a significant impact on family language practices. The choice of the strategy may depend on the child and his/her age, the topic, the emotional condition of the child, one’s own well-being, the presence of other people within the nuclear or the extended family, and the broader social contexts outside home.

As mentioned in the theoretical part, kinship relations can also be explored through the use of kinship terms in family conversations (Wright, 2022). When reflecting on particular family communication situations with their extended families in Latvia, our informants use diverse kinship terms with emotional connotations. It is noticeable that in these examples the kinship terms do discursive work: they implicitly indicate feelings of closeness, belonging, or distance. We have not dealt in depth with exploring the use of kinship terms in our interviews, but this could be a significant topic for future research.

In FLP, as pointed out in Section 2.1, both dimensions (private and social) are closely interrelated. Our interview data show how family language practices can be influenced by changes on the microlevel, e.g., new relationships of parents, a change of partner, or the death of a family member. Yet, developments on the macrolevel are also important, such as a change of one’s living place, the move to another country, access to Saturday (community) school, new social and cultural experiences, or friendships. Our study thereby confirms conclusions expressed by other scholars, e.g., by Gu and Han (2021) that the home domain does not exist unrelated to other social contexts and that the microlevel (family) is intertwined with the macrolevel (local community, schools, and other social contexts).

Digitally mediated family language practices play a significant role in keeping contacts with the extended families in Latvia. Respondents report about different experiences in using apps, digital channels, or platforms such as WhatsApp, Zoom, and Skype. Their experiences with such digital opportunities are quite ambivalent: the parents are more satisfied than their children, regardless of whether they are still quite small or teenagers, particularly in communication with grandparents. There are several reasons for that: technical issues can create stressful situations for all participants in the digital chat, particularly for younger children and seniors. In addition, the age gap between grandparents and grandchildren may create difficulties, but it seems that the main issue is language. Children are often the first in their families to develop fluency in societal or other prestigious languages (the impact of macrostructures) but less interested in maintaining a heritage language, and for them, relationships with peers or professional contacts tend to be more important than relationships with distant Latvian relatives (often including their grandparents).

Our data show that the children have low confidence in communicating with their grandparents in Latvian; in this, they can be very self-critical but also feel uncomfortable when someone comments on their skills and competences in Latvian (e.g., with regard to pronunciation, grammar, or lexical choices). At the same time, parents can also be aware that a loss of connection to the grandparents can be considered as a failure of their FLP—which they express by saying how powerless they often feel, even when they are investing a lot of effort into transmitting Latvian.

We can therefore conclude that communication with the extended family in Latvia is important for the diasporic families for two main reasons: first, for keeping family relationships and transmitting identity and a sense of belonging to their children, and second, for transmitting Latvian. Communication with family members in Latvia involves children in additional situations of language use and partly also contributes to literacy development (e.g., when texting messages). These conclusions confirm similar observations mentioned by Lanza and Lexander (2019), who concluded that digital practices promote children’s informal language learning.

In the interpretation of our data on child agency, we need to consider the specifics of the data collection—our data reflect only the views of the mothers on the speech situations that have or have not occurred and on the role of their children in these situations. Yet, mothers are aware of their children’s inability to successfully engage in communication with family members in the country of residence or in Latvia. The freer the children are to choose an alternative linguistic code in communication with their parents and siblings, the more Latvian as the heritage language, as the language with a lower intensity and narrower spectrum of use, suffers. It is only logical that linguistic competence improves and strengthens if the language is used in the family and if the families talk about it and assign symbolic or economic value to it. Our interviews show that in families with less parental pressure on the development of the Latvian language, children more often also choose to use the language of the new country of residence and/or English in communication with core family members.

As previously mentioned, our data are missing children’s voices regarding their reflections on their own language use and experienced speech situations; the obtained data include only children’s metalinguistic comments regarding their parents’ unusual language use, which are rated on a scale from negatively dismissive to positively comical.

To conclude, we would like to reflect on a thought regarding the Latvian diaspora and Latvian as a heritage language made by one of our respondents. In her view, the old Baltic diaspora, who had escaped during or right after World War II, had a sense of responsibility to maintain their national languages in opposition to the Russification processes which took place in the Baltics in Soviet times. Those of the new diaspora, in contrast, have more individual intentions for transmitting their heritage languages to their children. They see language more as a part of identity and belonging. In this way, for our respondents language proficiency is often less relevant than keeping a sense of belonging to Latvia and a Latvian identity in their families. In this sense, our research on FLP among the Latvian diaspora relied on relationships of trust between the families and us as researchers based on a common language and an interest in the Latvian language, culture, and heritage, both in Latvia and in the diaspora. These core values are reinforced by positive experience in other contexts of cooperation and through our common sociopolitical and historical background. It is therefore important to us to thank all the respondents for the privilege of becoming entrusted with your stories and life trajectories, your doubts and emotions, and your joy.