Family additional language policy and planning in Hungary

Abstract This article connects two fields of applied linguistics: research into the role of the social context in learning additional languages and Language Policy and Planning. It introduces Family Additional Language Policy and Planning as an approach to analysing parental role in children's additional language learning. We applied Family Additional Language Policy and Planning in empirical research, and through conducting and analysing interviews with 28 Hungarian parents whose children attended schools with a pupil composition of lower-than-average socioeconomic status, found that they exercised conscious and overt Family Additional Language Policy and Planning, which can be labelled as ‘maximising options’, aiming to provide their children with symbolic linguistic capital parents might not possess and that can be converted to economic, social, and cultural capital parents lack. In families where members communicate solely in one language, they create and encourage a quasi-bi- or multilingual environment by using available and affordable technological advances and plan a multilingual future for their children, assuming that their children belong to a generation of bi- and plurilingual ‘natives’ that naturally acquires languages not spoken by the family or surrounding community.