Family Language Policy and School Language Choice in Iraqi Kurdistan Region

Abstract

This study works on a survey with a number of families whose primary/basic students (school-age children) growing up with at least two languages one of which is the heritage language while the other one is English which is not the majority language yet in Iraqi Kurdistan. Though Kurdish is the majority language and other minorities (including Arabic) are spoken by immigrant or indigenous residents from other ethnic groups that coexist with Kurds, the appearance of a generation within a Kurdish family in Iraqi Kurdistan who don’t pay attention to their heritage language is a serious problem this research tries to deal with. That is, the gap of this study could be the identification of the factors that stand beyond the existence of a new generation that spontaneously works on marginalizing the Kurdish language and underestimating the identity of the Kurdish individual. Accordingly, this study depends on a qualitative method to achieve its goal which is found in working on a family language policy which enables the Kurdish family besides the Kurdish individuals to maintain their heritage language and react positively against the second language while they intend to acquire it. Within this context the study focuses on minority language transmission and majority maintenance, drawing on insights from family language policy and choice of language schooling. Though the results highlight the importance of the choice of language of communication between parents as a potential modelling and extra input opportunity in the household besides the choice of language used by each parent to address a child directly, it gives priority to maintaining the heritage language.