ABSTRACT
This chapter explores family language policy (FLP) in two mixed-heritage families with Korean migrant mothers in New Zealand. It focuses on the mothers’ attitudes toward their children’s heritage languages (HLs) and the mothers’ negotiations of FLP. Each family’s FLP centered around a “One Person, One Language” approach within the home, with the mothers consistently using Korean daily in family settings but switching to English when their non-Korean-speaking husbands were present. Although both mothers considered HL education to be a worthwhile, long-term investment, they differed in their conceptualization of the position of their child’s HL, which affected HL socialization at home. One mother saw Korean as a “mother’s language,” inherently linked to heritage and family and playing a vital role in the maintenance of the heritage culture. The other mother regarded the HL as primarily instrumental, describing it as a “second language,” and her child’s cultural socialization, in her narratives, was minimal. These findings illuminate how FLP is formed and maintained within mixed-heritage families and demonstrate the impact of parental language ideologies on the development of minority HLs in an English-dominant context.
