English language transmission in Barcelona: don’t worry be happy?

Abstract

Despite being one of the most successful cases of intergenerational language transmission outside of primarily English-speaking contexts, anglophone parents hoping to pass English on to their children in Barcelona often express deep concerns about how they can best support their children’s linguistic development in English whilst raising them plurilingually in a non-English-speaking setting. This post elaborates on the initial findings of the Family Language Questionnaire, undertaken as part of the PhD project Family Language Policy and Globalisation at the University of Barcelona. It compares the situation of English language transmission in migratory contexts with that of other languages, and explores some of the main reasons why it is that English-speaking parents might still voice concerns.