Exploring the Language Policy of a Turkish-Greek Transnational Family in the UK

This study aimed to ascertain the family language policies of a multilingual and transnational family in the United Kingdom (UK) with respect to their efforts to pass down their heritage languages to their children within the framework suggested by Spolsky (2004). The paper simultaneously makes an effort to draw attention to their children's attitudes, preferences, and identities concerning their heritage languages (Turkish-Greek) and the dominant language, English. To this end, a case study research design was used to get deep insights into this family’s language views, practices, and language management techniques, as well as to present an in-depth analysis of the problem. The case of the study included a Turkish-Greek transnational family living in the UK and the data were obtained through online semi-structured interviews with the family members. The findings indicated that this family made great efforts to pass on their heritage languages and their ideologies were in accordance with their practices and management strategies. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that family language policies were not the sole factor in successfully shaping children’s multilingual development as the effect of sibling interaction and child agency were also of great importance.