Recommended Citation
Smith-Christmas, Cassie. (2021). ‘Our cat has the power’: the polysemy of a third language in maintaining the power/solidarity equilibrium in family interactions. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, doi:10.1080/01434632.2021.1877720
Abstract
This article examines how power and solidarity in family relations are
negotiated along linguistic lines, and in particular, the role of a third
language in this negotiation process. It takes as its case study a
transnational family in Ireland who practise a strongly pro-Polish FLP
and where the parents are seen as authorities in Polish and their
daughters are seen as authorities in English, the dominant societal
language. The paper takes a microinteractional approach to analysing
excerpts where family members engage in language-learning activities
using Irish, the national autochthonous minority language. The paper
demonstrates how in many ways, Irish operates as a neutral, third
space for family members to negotiate power/solidarity alignments,
and thus contributes to the family s maintenance of the power/
solidarity equilibrium. The paper also demonstrates the polysemy
inherent in how these negotiations play out at an interactional level,
especially vis-à-vis the family s pro-Polish FLP, as well as the polysemy
of Irish-as-a-language within the scope of the family s interactions as
a whole.