Multilingual and multimodal family literacies through the lens of basic human desires

This article examines multilingual and multimodal family literacy practices by analysing how underlying desires, expressed through specific motives, shape language and media use in everyday family life. The study draws on a qualitative case study of a Finnish–Swedish bilingual family during the COVID-19 lockdown and focuses on joint literacy events related to remote schooling, online gaming, and shared reading and viewing. The data consist of a week-long Mobile Instant Messaging Interview (MIMI) with all family members, complemented by a post-interview. Guided by Reiss’s theory of 16 basic desires, the analysis identifies six salient motives – Independence, Order, Power, Social contact, Curiosity and Tranquillity – through which family members’ desires were enacted and negotiated. The findings show how these motives dynamically shaped participation roles, language choices and the use of digital and non-digital media, sometimes converging and sometimes giving rise to tensions between parents and children. The study contributes to research on Family Language Policy and family literacies by integrating a psychological perspective on motivation, highlighting the affective and motivational dimensions underpinning multilingual and mediated family practices.