Le scelte linguistiche di alcune famiglie con background migratorio in Italia: Usi, competenze e atteggiamenti nei confronti del multilinguismo

Abstract

The present paper aims to investigate how language use among families with a migrant background in Italy varies over time, focusing in  particular on the distinction between daily communicative practices and literacy-related ones in each language of the family’s linguistic  repertoire. The study is based on the analysis of an extensive sociolinguistic questionnaire considering the use of one language or the  other across different contexts over time, each family member’s assessment of their own language competence as well as their attitude  towards each language and the importance of being multilingual. The results show that the children of the interviewed families  experience “harmonious bilingualism” (De Houwer, 2020), especially as far as their communicative practices are concerned. It is not  always the case that this corresponds to a positive attitude towards multilingualism among the parents.