‘Ōlē bābālē!!! ’ – Exploring emotions and digital language practices in family language policy among Bengali transnational families: A multimodal approach

Abstract

Aims and objectives:

This study explores the role of emotions in heritage language (HL) practice within the context of networked family language policy (nFLP) among multilingual, transnational families through digital communication using multimodal (inter)action analysis (MIA).

Methodology:

The study employs a case study methodological approach involving Sigrid Norris’s MIA tools to understand how emotions are expressed and shared within multimodal digital interactions and how these interactions shape HL practice in transnational families.

Data and analysis:

The following data were collected from three Bengali immigrant families in Australia employing (1) participant-led video recordings of online conversations between the child and the grandparent, (2) screenshots of online chats, and (3) semi-structured interview data to support the video and screenshot data.

Findings/conclusions:

The results show that emotional factors, such as emotional contagion and digitally mediated affective communication, drive modally rich HL practice. Family bonding with transnational grandparents, shaped by these emotional factors, was found to be the primary goal of digital HL communication practice, while HL maintenance was secondary.

Originality:

This research provides a nuanced and fine-grained analysis of emotional factors in HL practice with transnational grandparents through digital media using a unique toolset (MIA).

Significance/implications:

This research promotes the significant role of emotional factors in HL practice when it comes to using digital communication among immigrant transnational families.

Keywords

Emotions multimodality networked family language policy Bengali immigrant multimodal (inter) action analysis heritage language grandparent digital communication media transnational families

Introduction

Increasing globalisation has influenced the formation of multilingual migrant families (Blommaert, 2010). Family members, primarily parents, who choose to maintain their ‘heritage language’ (HL) regulate the use of specific language(s) within the family domain, and such processes are known as family language policy (FLP) (Caldas, 2012). Previously, studies using the FLP lens (Smith-Christmas, 2022) mainly focused on how families living together sought to keep their HL alive through face-to-face interactions (Hollebeke et al., 2020; Lanza et al., 2016) with some of the research coming from the HL maintenance literature (He, 2011; He & Xiao, 2008). But with increasing numbers of families spread across countries and the rise of digital communication, especially during COVID-19 (Hatoss, 2023), a relatively new means of being a family has emerged – the ‘digital family’ (Taipale, 2019b, p. 11). For these families, staying connected and using their HL relies heavily on digital tools, as physical visits are rare and often difficult. Thus, digital media has offered such families unique communication affordances that were unthinkable even a decade ago.

A recent systematic review of over 160 articles on FLP among transnational families (Bose et al., 2023) and other relevant research (Lee, 2006; Lexander, 2021; Little, 2019; Taipale, 2019b) has revealed that while the focus has traditionally been on geographically unified families with face-to-face communication, the growing phenomenon of dispersed, transnational families utilising digital and multimodal communication remains understudied, exposing a potential research gap. In this regard, some researchers have reconceptualised FLP as ‘networked FLP’ (nFLP) (Bose et al., 2024; Curdt-Christiansen & Huang, 2020) to acknowledge the process of HL maintenance through regular communication between immigrant family members using digital media, such as Skype and WhatsApp. Such instances of HL maintenance between children and transnational family members, such as grandparents, uncles, and aunts, result in ‘cross-boundary connectedness, to being in a network and being digitally networked’ (Curdt-Christiansen & Huang, 2020, p. 188), allowing transnational families to stream into each other’s lives anytime, anywhere, transcending time and space (Licoppe, 2004). Note that as defined in this paper, transnational family members are those who live in a different country from the immigrant family, including immigrant parents and their children.

Emotion, which is ‘the source of a particular attitude’ (Sevinç & Mirvahedi, 2023, p. 148), plays a significant role in how families practice HL with their transnational family members. Digital communication, with its multimodal mix of text, voice, emojis, and especially video, offers unique affordances to express and share emotions during interactions (Said, 2021; Sevinç & Mirvahedi, 2023). Video chats, an essential form of multimodal communication, can create a strong sense of being together virtually (Cui et al., 2013). This can lead to more personal and emotional exchanges compared to traditional forms of long-distance communication (Mehrabian & Ferris, 1967). This study contributes to investigating the role of emotions in nFLP using methods that are specific to the aforementioned multimodal data (Norris, 2019). The following sections discuss the theoretical antecedents of FLP, the existing FLP-related theoretical framework and the modifications suggested to accommodate various factors, such as emotions. Next, we examine the literature on HL and emotions and discuss recent research on FLP (in non-digital and digital contexts) and emotions. Finally, we introduce methodological tools specific to and ideal for investigating nFLP and emotions through multimodal media.

The theoretical antecedents of FLP

FLP has emerged from the broader field of HL maintenance, which aims to examine the preservation and continuation of minority languages among families. The FLP perspective thus originated as researchers began to recognise families’ critical role in this process (King et al., 2008). A number of theories connect the HL maintenance literature with FLP. They highlight the importance of family interactions, parental beliefs, and broader societal influences in shaping language use within the home.

First, language socialisation theory emphasises how children learn language and cultural norms through interactions with family members. Although the focus is on children, it highlights the role of parents and caregivers in modelling language use and creating a linguistic environment that supports HL maintenance (Lanza, 2007; Ochs & Schieffelin, 2011). Second, intergenerational transmission theory focuses on how languages are passed from one generation to the next within families. It examines factors which influence whether children adopt and continue using the HL, such as parental language practices, attitudes, and the broader sociolinguistic environment (Fishman, 1991; Valdés, 2017). Third, ecological systems theory, developed by Bronfenbrenner (1979), considers the multiple layers of influence on a family’s language practices, including the immediate family environment (microsystem), community (mesosystem), and broader societal factors (macrosystem) (Shen et al., 2021). These theoretical underpinnings inform various frameworks used in the study of FLP.

Theoretical frameworks in FLP: incorporating various factors

The predominant framework for examining FLP has been Spolsky’s (2004) tripartite FLP framework, comprising language ideologies, language management, and language practices. According to this framework, language ideology is a family’s shared understanding of languages, and language management is how they navigate that understanding in their daily lives, while language practices are the actual use of the language based on their values and beliefs (Spolsky, 2004). In the case of immigrant families, language practice in FLP relates to practising HL rather than the dominant language (English). While other frameworks for FLP exist, such as the King et al. (2008) framework that emphasises the importance of explicit and overt planning of language use within the home and children’s bilingual development, the extension to the Spolsky (2004) framework discussed below is more relevant to our research with a focus on emotional factors.

Curdt-Christiansen and Huang (2020) have reexamined the relevance of Spolsky’s (2004) FLP framework and have suggested that FLP is affected by many linguistic and non-linguistic elements, variables, and factors such as emotional and sociocultural factors. According to this modified FLP model (Curdt-Christiansen & Huang, 2020), different factors impact the HL-related decisions of family members in dynamic ways. These factors include emotions, which intersect with language socialisation (Lanza, 2007) and family bonding, all of which are shaped by the broader socio-cultural-political-linguistic environment (Curdt-Christiansen & Huang, 2020). Of the various factors, family bonding and emotional factors have been found to be significant among transnational families (Bose et al., 2024; Wright, 2022).

The importance of emotions in HL maintenance in the digital age

The role of emotions in HL has long since been realised by sociolinguistics researchers, even when digital media was not commonplace and the nFLP context was irrelevant. Two specific roles of emotional factors in HL acquisition and maintenance are essential. First, during perceptual development, children learn to build foundational emotional concepts facilitated by HL socialisation through sensory inputs; second, through linguistic affective conditioning, they start developing personalised emotional associations with HL (Curdt-Christiansen & Huang, 2020; Pavlenko, 2012). Using HL can invoke deep emotional reactions and deepen intimacy during family interactions (Curdt-Christiansen & Huang, 2020; Lexander & Androutsopoulos, 2023). For immigrant families, HL is also considered the language of intimacy when in a dominant English language context (Dewaele, 2010).

In the context of transnational family and digital communication media, at least two aspects make emotional factors salient in nFLP. First, for transnational families, frequent, close and intimate communication with transnational family members, and especially transnational grandparents, would only have been possible through occasional visits across countries had it not been for the affordances of accessible communication provided by digital media. In addition, due to the lack of real-life interpersonal contact and the low frequency of interaction, digital communication can be assumed to evoke stronger emotional responses. Evidence that the absence of physical, emotional presence is compensated through the digital realm is available from other disciplines. For instance, researchers in communication psychology have found that contemporary non-immigrant youth are heavily engaged in digital communication yet disengaged from the offline world and strongly express their emotions in the digital world to indicate their social presence (Vyugina, 2022). Among transnational families such digital communications usually happen in HL and can strengthen family bonds and bridge communication gaps between generations, for instance, by displaying positive emotions or happiness in their HL, creating deeper emotional connections during everyday conversations. Second, immigrant children and their families are most likely to converse with their grandparents or other senior family members in HL (Gomashie, 2022). Some researchers have reported that emotional factors play a vital role in FLP involving intergenerational family members both in the traditional FLP context (Song & Wu, 2024) as well as in the nFLP context (Curdt-Christiansen & Iwaniec, 2023). Indeed, according to Curdt-Christiansen and Huang (2020), ‘The emotional factor concerns the role home language plays in the relationship between the generations in a family’ (p. 177).

Existing research and research gap

While some researchers have engaged with emotional factors in the traditional FLP context, delving into the emotional aspects of language use, maintenance, and shift within family settings (Jo et al., 2023; Little, 2023; Naborn et al., 2023; Wang, 2023), relatively little research has engaged the topic of emotional factors in nFLP (Curdt-Christiansen & Iwaniec, 2023; Lexander & Androutsopoulos, 2023). For example, in the nFLP context, a recent study among Chinese and Polish immigrant families analysed emoji and family conversation data to identify linguistic and non-linguistic means of expressing emotions through various media, including WhatsApp and WeChat. Five specific features of emotions utilised in family talks in HL were identified (Curdt-Christiansen & Iwaniec, 2023), where the features were related to the process of emotional expression. For instance, one feature was the use of emojis, when one mother texts her child, ‘Mummy loves you’, accompanied by various emojis (p. 166). In another study, Lexander and Androutsopoulos (2023) analysed text messages and emoji exchanges between various transnational family members to find instances of playfulness and family bonding.

Researchers in nFLP have thus started investigating various emotional factors in the context of HL practice using digital multimodal media among transnational families (Curdt-Christiansen & Iwaniec, 2023). Modern digital communication tools such as Skype or WhatsApp have improved affordances for modally rich communication relative to old-fashioned telephone calls or mailed letters. Therefore, an essential aspect of data arising from such communication is its multimodality, and the unique nature of these data requires the use of tools specific to digital multimodal data. The FLP literature has yet to fully leverage the rich, multimodal nature of digital video and other communication, allowing for a deeper and more nuanced analysis of emotions in FLP (Norris, 2012).

The emotional factors and HL practice in nFLP can be comprehensively assessed through multimodal analysis methods (Norris, 2012). Emotions and FLP practices can be understood by unpacking the gestures, speech, text, and other features of such communications through Norris’s (2012) approach. Norris’s MIA framework posits that humans communicate through the use of various semiotic resources and that all actions are mediated actions (Norris, 2016). The tools we engage for this research are Norris’s (2004, 2012) five multimodal analytical tools for analysing video data, which are named lower-level mediated action (LLMA), higher-level mediated action (HLMA), Frozen-Mediated Action, Modal Density, and Modal Density Foreground-Background Continuum of Attention/Awareness. These tools are explained in detail below. They help us unlock the intricate layers of emotion within digitally mediated interactions and gain a nuanced understanding of the role of emotions in HL practice within the context of nFLP among multilingual, transnational families.

Specifically, our study uses multimodal analysis to unpack emotions in multimodal interactions between children and their transnational family members during HL practice. While the Curdt-Christiansen and Huang (2020) framework includes ideology and management, given our focus on emotions in digital video interactions, our emphasis is on HL practice. The video data are further supported with screenshot data and interviews from participant families, which help triangulate our findings. Using data from three Bengali immigrant families in Australia, we seek to address the following questions:

In the context of nFLP,

What are some emotional factors in HL practice among Bengali transnational families in Australia?

How are these emotional factors related to HL practice among transnational families in the aforementioned group?

Methodology

The MIA presented here follows a case study design involving video data from one family and screenshots of text messaging conversations from two other families, the details of which are provided next.

Participants

This study comprises part of a larger FLP study on digital communications between Bengali-speaking multilingual families residing in Australia and their transnational family members in Bangladesh and India. A smaller group of three families was selected from the larger FLP study group to investigate language practices through multimodal digital communication media in-depth following sample size norms from similar in-depth studies (Norris, 2016; Palviainen et al., 2022; Ruby, 2012; Smith-Christmas, 2022). Participants were recruited through purposive sampling and an advertisement on the first author’s Facebook page. Participating families had to be Bengali immigrant families in Australia, with a focal child aged 5–17 years, who regularly communicated in HL with transnational family members, preferably grandparents, at least once a week through digital means. While at this time, the worst of the COVID-19 epidemic was over, some transnational families avoided international travel.

The participating families were requested to provide videos and screenshots of the focal child or the child who communicated with the transnational family members through digital means, among other children in the families, communicating with transnational family members. The final data provided by the three participating families included sample video conversations from the Facebook messenger App and screenshots of WhatsApp communication between the focal children, two grandmothers and one grandfather.

The profiles of the families, their transnational members, and the data they provided are as follows, along with their pseudonyms. The Ali family has lived in Australia for over 10 years. The child, Isha, was 8 years old and had weekly video conversations through Facebook Messenger with her grandmother, Nasima (66 years old), who is a housewife living in Bangladesh. The Akhtar family has lived in Australia for over 6 years. The child, Fardin, who is 6 years old, stays connected on a daily basis through Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp with his grandmother, Moya (69 years old), a retired volunteer social worker in Bangladesh. They share various digital message exchanges with emojis or videos. The Chatterjee family has lived in Australia for over 10 years. Twelve-year-old Tutum stays in touch with her grandfather Anu (73 years old) in India through Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, exchanging messages, emojis, and videos almost daily. Anu lives in India and is a retired apiarist who worked for the Indian government. All families spoke Bengali as their first language (HL). Of the three children in the three families, except for Tutum, who came to Australia as a 2-year-old child, all children were born in Australia. All three children were thus very fluent in English and had native-level proficiency. All children can understand Bengali and occasionally speak Bengali with their parents. They use English in school and with their peers.

Family profiles are presented in more detail in Table 1.

Table 1.

Family data.

Family and interviewed parent	Participants	Participant ages, years	Migrated since, years	Video length^a	Screenshot count
1. Ali. M Mother (Fana)	Grandma (Nasima)	66	10+	48 minutes	N/A
1. Ali. M Mother (Fana)	Granddaughter (Isha)	8	10+	48 minutes	N/A
2. Akhtar. N Mother (Narin)	Grandma (Moya)	69	6+	N/A	WhatsApp conversation: 2 screenshots
2. Akhtar. N Mother (Narin)	Grandson (Fardin)	6	6+	N/A	WhatsApp conversation: 2 screenshots
3. Chatterjee. S Father (Sai)	Grandpa (Anu)	73	10+	N/A	WhatsApp conversation: 2 screenshots
3. Chatterjee. S Father (Sai)	Granddaughter (Tutum)	12	10+	N/A	WhatsApp conversation: 2 screenshots

Data from one video are relevant to this research.

Methods

Norris’s (2004) multimodal (inter)action analysis (MIA) framework was utilised to examine the multimodal dimensions of digital communication practices. While some other methods of MDA exist, such as Van Leeuwen’s (2005) social semiotics and LeVine and Scollon’s (2004) multimodal approach. Norris’s (2004) MIA was considered the most applicable for these analyses. While social semiotics is more focused on social and cultural meaning, Norris’s (2004) framework offers a range of tools to explore multimodal interactions that facilitate understanding through digital modes. As mentioned earlier, five of Norris’s tools are used in this study, and they are described in detail next with general examples.

According to this framework, first, the smallest unit of mediated action within a specific communication mode, LLMA (Norris, 2020), is defined as a ‘social actor acting with or through mediational means or cultural tools’ (Norris, 2019, p. 237), for example, a gesture (e.g., a thumbs-up). Second, chains of LLMA can form HLMA. For instance, a broad and abstract concept, such as a video conversation between a grandmother and her grandchild, can comprise an HLMA and many smaller mediated actions, such as switching on video, small gestures, etc., which would comprise an LLMA. Norris (2004) defines a third form of mediated action – frozen-mediated action ‘lower or higher-level mediated actions, performed at an earlier time, may become frozen in objects or the environment’ (Norris, 2019, p. 241). For instance, in a painting conveying emotions (frozen facial expressions), the mediated actions are frozen in the environment (Norris, 2019). A fourth tool within Norris’s (2004) toolkit is modal density, which measures the complexity or intensity of LLMAs when a person is engaged in a HLMA. Thus, for instance, a teacher in a classroom explains a concept using speech (verbal mode), writing on the board (visual mode), and gesturing with his or her hands (kinetic mode) all at once. The fifth tool is the modal density foreground-background continuum of attention/awareness (Norris, 2019). An instance of this is when, during a lecture, the professor’s spoken words will likely be in the foreground of students’ attention. However, students might also be aware of scribbling notes in the background (another mode of communication). The authors have published further details of the method in a separate methodology-focused paper (Bose et al., 2025).

Data sources

The data were collected between March and August 2022 using three methods: (1) participant-led video recording of online conversations between a child and her grandmother, (2) screenshots of online chats, and (3) semi-structured interview data with immigrant parents in the family.

Participants were asked to provide an hour of video conversation recordings. The video data for this study were obtained from a short conversation between one child and her grandmother on Facebook Messenger, with the total video length being 48 minutes (see Table 1). Screenshots provided by the families showed conversation samples utilising various semiotic resources, such as writings, emojis, drawings, and videos. In addition, semi-structured interview questions explored participants’ FLP-related ideologies, management, and practices to complement the video and screenshot data. These data revealed the family members’ social, emotional, and linguistic experiences and provided insights into the participants’ use of multimodal communication that influenced their nFLP. Combining video, screenshots, and interview data allows us to triangulate our findings.

Data coding

The recordings of video chats and separately collected screenshots of message exchanges were in Bengali and translated by the first author. The first author reviewed and transcribed video recordings through the ELAN multimodal software (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 2024), where the interaction and embodied actions, such as smiles, were annotated and time-stamped. We then examined how emotions manifested in the families’ day-to-day digital HL communication practices. After careful observation of the video data, the findings were categorised into emotional factors in the form of themes. The previously described Curdt-Christiansen and Huang’s (2020) framework was considered when identifying the themes. For instance, based on our examination, two themes were identified. These themes reflected the specific nature of the emotions displayed in the videos: exhibiting emotional excitement and expressing emotions through instant messages (details provided below). In other words, factors involving emotions (e.g., joy) were specifically identified. Note that while all video conversations were in Bengali, only the English translations are provided in this paper.

Ethical approval was obtained from the University of New South Wales’s human research ethics committee (approval number: HC220021).

Results

Multimodal communication practices

Two themes related to emotional factors in HL practice were identified. These, as described below, are (1) emotional contagion between Isha-C and Nasima-dG and (2) digitally mediated affective communication, driving modally rich HL practice (Zaki & Williams, 2013) between Tutum-C with Anu-dG and Fardin-C with Moya-dG. Next, each example is described in detail, with layouts and screenshots of digital communication between the focal children and the transnational grandparents.

Isha and her grandmother

Fana (the mother) believes that Isha speaks English fluently and understands some Bengali, while Nasima (grandmother) is a native Bengali speaker who speaks some basic English. Bengali was the usual language for video calls, though Isha sometimes switched between Bengali and English. Fana even considers Isha trilingual. Isha’s strength was in English, but she had reasonable Arabic skills from her religious training and could speak and understand Bengali quite well.

Eight-year-old Isha and her grandmother, Nasima, usually connected weekly over video calls. These calls usually took place between Isha’s home in Australia and Nasima’s home in Bangladesh, although occasionally, Nasima might call from elsewhere within Bangladesh. The video calls typically lasted around 48 minutes, although they could be shorter if Isha had schoolwork or other commitments. In this example, Bengali was the dominant language in the interaction, and Isha also adopted translanguaging in specific instances, as described below. During the interview, Fana emphasised the importance of regular video calls between Isha and her grandmother using the Facebook Messenger app: ‘I want to make Isha speak to her grandparents, and they will actually feel more comfortable when she speaks Bangla’. Also, see the following excerpt:

I appreciate that technology for bringing forward the digital communication tools, especially when using these tools, they can communicate with their grandparents from our home country. Our children are learning a lot from this conversation. They are learning some new words, the expression, the emotion they can share with their grandparents . . .. (Fana)

In other words, Fana’s emphasis on regularly making Isha speak to her grandparents makes them feel more comfortable when Isha speaks Bengali in video calls, and the use of Bengali by Isha with her transnational grandparents indicates that maintaining family bonds through HL is a primary goal. Fana also suggests that grandparents will feel ‘more comfortable’ when Isha speaks Bengali, indicating that HL is a crucial factor in fostering familial connection and well-being.

In this conversation, Fana and her husband’s presence somewhere near the child is evident based on their simultaneous voices heard during the video call between Isha and Nasima. In this way, the parents manage Isha’s access to digital communication and occasionally manage her HL communication, sometimes correcting Isha’s Bengali. Fana’s management of digital communication is explicit in the interview: ‘We didn’t give Isha the phone, but if I ask her, can you call Dida (grandma) from my Facebook? She can do that’.

In the interview, Nasima showed a willingness to help her grandchild practice Bengali using digital communication tools. ‘This is a good and easy option since we can talk anytime from Bangladesh. We don’t have to pay, nor do we have to wait for the time’.

The next section will discuss a specific instance where Isha and her grandma bonded during HL practice.

Emotional factor one: Exhibiting emotional excitement or emotional contagion

In this example, we first describe the conversation between Isha and Nasima, followed by an analysis using Norris’s (2019) tools.

During this video conversation with her grandmother, Isha engages in fun and play. She wants to take her grandma Nasima on a virtual tour by playing with the Messenger App’s background settings. Using various gestures and emotional expressions, Isha explains to her grandma how to change the video’s background settings and that she is about to perform this feat immediately (see Figure 1). As an example, she tells her grandma in Bengali that she will take her on a trip to her home: ‘Dēkhō, āmi balabō yē āmi bāṛi calāba’ (Look, I will say that I will go home). Here, she uses translanguaging, moving at ease between different languages, standard or vernacular, to create meaning and experiences and to form understanding and knowledge (Creese & Blackledge, 2015). Isha repeatedly uses the word ‘calāba’ (will go in Bengali) instead of the correct word ‘Calē yābō’. This implies that ‘calāba’ is Isha’s incorrect attempt at saying ‘will go’ in Bengali, where she has combined the Bengali future tense marker ‘-bō’ with the English word ‘go’. Therefore, ‘calāba’ is Isha’s self-created word, while the actual Bengali word for ‘go’ is part of the correct phrase ‘Calē yābō’. She used features of her Bengali and English repertoire to utilise the newly created word ‘calāba’ several times throughout the conversation. The digitally mediated familect (Palviainen, 2020) at this point can thus be described as the language practice of Isha and Nasima using Bengali with each other. Nasima understands Isha’s translanguaging, which is evident through her smile (Figure 1(a)) and her utilisation of Isha’s neologism ‘calāba’ as follows ‘Āmi’ō tōmāra sāthē gārḍēna calāba’: I will also go to the garden (imaginary) with you. During this conversation, at one point, Isha’s mother attempts to manage her translanguaging by repeatedly asking her to use the correct form of the ‘calāba’ neologism – ‘Calē yābō’. However, Isha ignores her mother and continues the conversation with her grandmother.

Figure 1.

Exhibiting emotional excitement.

The term ‘calāba’, created by the immigrant child, Isha, residing in Australia, is indeed an example of translanguaging as it exemplifies the child’s innovative use of her multilingual repertoire to communicate with her transnational grandmother living in Bangladesh in a meaningful and contextually appropriate manner. In this case, due to her limited exposure to Bengali (Isha speaks English fluently and understands some Bengali, as mentioned earlier by her mother), she combines Bengali and English elements to form ‘calāba’, demonstrating her ability to navigate and merge her linguistic resources creatively. This practice is particularly significant in digital communication, where such immigrant children might switch between languages to be able to communicate successfully with their family members (Lexander & Androutsopoulos, 2023).

Isha utilises the unique affordances that the digital communication medium provides to engage in play and bond with her grandmother. Isha touches her mobile screen button to change her video background (Figure 1(b)). Isha then exhibits her emotional excitement to Nasima through combined gestures by making the sound, ‘Da-daaaaaaaa’, raising her hand and with a big smile; Nasima reciprocates Isha, seeing her excitement and the background change with a smile (Figure 1(c)). Moreover, Isha describes to Nasima in HL how the garden is magical and how leaves fall like autumn, gesturing throughout (Figure 1(d)). Isha makes similar gestures with emotional excitement when she changes her background image again, this time with a zoo background (Figure 1(e)). In her usual emotionally excited manner, she explains to Nasima how colourful the imaginary zoo background is, in fact, much better than the original zoo. Finally, Isha changes her background to the original home background, and Nasima becomes ecstatic after seeing all these changes (Figure 1(f)). Nasima’s excitement is visible through her expression, her face breaking into a smile when she tells Isha she is back home (as background) now after a hypothetical tour through various backgrounds. The virtual tour thus provides an opportunity for emotional bonding during HL practice.

In the aforementioned conversation, multiple instances of LLMA can be seen, such as gesturing, talking, and switching between her grandmother and the mobile phone. Therefore, the entire video conversation, which is a larger communication unit formed by chaining multiple series of LLMA, generates an HLMA. Another HLMA identifiable in the conversation is Isha’s background change activity, which involves simultaneously gesturing, talking, and changing the background on the phone. LLMAs within these activities include instances of HL practice. The most emotionally intense period, when the contagion of happiness or, simply put, the sharing of joy and happiness spreads between Isha and her grandmother, also happens when modal density is high with Isha speaking, gesturing, and simultaneously changing the background.

Isha’s playful manipulation of the video background exemplifies Norris’s (2004) concept of the foreground-background continuum of attention, described earlier. In Figure 1(b), Isha shifts her focus between the two HLMAs by touching the screen (foreground) and looking at Nasima (background) while making excited sounds and gestures. This rapid attention switching, enabled by the digital medium, creates a shared experience of exploration and surprise. Nasima’s reciprocal smile (Figure 1(c)) further demonstrates how their emotions are intertwined through multimodal cues, including gestures, facial expressions, and the changing visual environment. This interplay between foreground and background actions highlights how digital communication affords unique opportunities for emotional connection and shared play, with HL practice embedded in the process, potentially contributing to the observed emotional contagion between Isha and Nasima.

This example shares the psychological mechanisms of empathy through which emotions are shared. The positive nature of this transaction means that in the background of HL practice through digital media, an ‘emotional contagion’ (Hatﬁeld et al., 2011, p. 1) exists between Isha and Nasima. While closely related to the concept of empathy, emotional contagion is ‘defined as the transfer of moods or emotions from one person to another’ (Barsade et al., 2018, p. 137) and requires less emotional connection and feeling of how the other person feels, such as a smile (Nasima) when the other person (Isha) smiles and seems excited.

Emotional factor two – instant messaging screenshots with emojis: mediated affective communication

Since digital devices are being used to transmit emotions in HL, we call the process digitally mediated affective communication. This is because emotions, or ‘affects’, are being transmitted through digital tools. Thus, the digital devices mediate not only communication (Norris, 2012) but also emotions.

WhatsApp messaging screenshots were from children Tutum (Figure 2(a) and (b)) and Fardin (Figure 2(c) and (d)). The transnational relatives were a grandmother, Anu, and a grandfather, Moya, respectively. The conversations were part of regular HL text messaging exchanges between the children and their transnational grandparents.

Figure 2.

Text messages and emojis (a, b: Tutum; c, d: Fardin).

Unlike video conversations, instant messaging communications such as WhatsApp follow a different modality relying on text, photos, interjections, very short videos, and emoticons. Emoticons or emojis can help express emotions, such as showing love, and have semantic meanings independently or assist in summarising and supporting the message conveyed through text (Bai et al., 2019). Unlike video communication, where emotions can be instantly streamed and reciprocated, instant messages allow affective communication to be mediated through various media. Emojis and interjections were a regular feature in interacting with the children (mainly female) and the grandparents. Figure 2(a) to (c) use emoticons, along with interjections such as ‘Very Well Done’, ‘Great!’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘Ōlē bābālē’ (a Bengali phrase exhibiting family endearment or affection to young individuals in the family) – all of these constitute LLMA, which is the smallest unit of meaning in communication. These emojis and interjections with messages were provided in response to images and a video sent by the children. This digital sharing included a Bengali song video, a photo of a child in a dance costume, and a drawing representing a fish. Each panel consists of a number of LLMAs that, for each panel, together constitute an HLMA. Each HLMA provides an instance of affection and appreciation that is mediated through a digital medium with embedded HL practice.

An instance of an HLMA is a dance costume photo exchange between the child Tutum-C and the grandfather Anu-dG. The dance costume photo involves multiple LLMAs, such as the four ‘red heart’ emojis from the transnational family members, which were replied to by five ‘face blowing a kiss’ and ‘smiling face with hearts’ emojis (Panels a and c) conveying feelings of love and affection. This exchange may be said to have high modal density due to the combination of photos, text comments, and multiple emojis. This also reinforces our previous observation (with Isha and Nasima) that high modal density is accompanied by a strong display of emotions.

Other LLMAs include ‘the winking face with a tongue’ and ‘face with tears and joy’ (Panel b) emojis representing a sense of fun and excitement in the interaction. The language used in these regular conversations was Bengali, which highlighted the importance of HL practice. In all the panels (a, b, and c), the foreground-background continuum of attention/awareness, which is the level of attention paid to different HLMAs simultaneously, is important in understanding how Tutum and Fardin process and interact with their grandparents within a digital communication context. Depending on what elicits interest, the observer’s focus might shift between the visual content (photos/videos) and the accompanying text messages and emojis.

A somewhat different instant message interaction can be seen in Panel d, where Fardin sent a short video of a Bengali song he sang over the guitar to his grandma, Moya. Moya responds with a ‘thumbs-up’, showing a sign of approval. Like in many Chinese families in Curdt-Christiansen and Iwaniec’s (2023) study, the conversations with boys were less emotional. Thus, digitally mediated affective communications need to be interpreted according to the cultural context in which they occur (Scolari, 2015). This is important since there is evidence of the strong emotional bond between the grandmother and the grandchild and the HL practice that takes place therein, with the mother Narin (Fardin’s mother) stating the following during the interview: ‘Yeah, yes, obviously, the bonding will be stronger, more strong if it’s (the conversation) in Bengali rather than in English’, and the grandmother Moya saying ‘I feel that when Fardin see me over video a sense of affection develops instantly’. While Panel d has the usual LLMA of a thumbs-up, and HL practice is evident through the exchanging of an HL song performance by the child, it also reveals a more reserved communication style with lower modal density and rather less emphasis on emojis or interjections.

Overall, using Norris’s tools, we gain important insights. The most important insight is that HL practice through digital communication media takes place in the context of family bonding through instances of emotional contagion and mediated affective communication.

Discussion

In this study, we have presented analyses of digital HL communication practice with a case study involving a digital video conversation of one child living in Australia (Isha) with her grandmother in Bangladesh and screenshot exchanges between two children (Fardin and Tutum) and their grandparents. By applying Norris’s (2004) MIA tools, the study effectively analyses and showcases the impact of grandparents’ digital communication on children’s lives and HL practice. This study highlights the role of various emotional factors that need to be recognised when investigating nFLP. These emotional factors operated alongside the process of HL practice through various linguistic features, including verbal and non-verbal modalities such as emojis. Our study not only shows that grandchildren and grandparents communicate transnationally through multimodal digital media but also demonstrates that HL practice occurs during these communications, where HL practice is not an end in itself but a means to the end of emotional bonding. Through analysis of the online conversations and supporting interview data, we identified two emotional factors, which we call emotional contagion and digitally mediated affective communication. Emotional contagion and digitally mediated affective communication were visible through embodied actions, such as gestures and smiles, reinforcing existing emotional bonds between the family members when practising HL. Emojis serve as a paralinguistic element (Curdt-Christiansen & Iwaniec, 2023) or a non-verbal modality that accompanies speech. This and other paralinguistic elements have a substantial effect and help support language with visual symbols to express emotions, ideas, and concepts, which may be difficult to convey in words alone. In this study, the exchange of emojis and various HL exchanges can be interpreted as digitally mediated affective communication.

This study utilises some of Norris’s multimodal tools (Norris, 2004, 2019, 2020) to analyse multimodal digital video and screenshot data. This approach enables us to identify the various emotions at play alongside HL practices. We identified various LLMAs, including gestures, emotional outbursts, or conversation, situated within HLMAs, which were sometimes modally dense. The dense combination of modes in each LLMA, further revealed by modal density analysis, also pointed towards more intense emotional exchanges during HL practice having higher modal density and conversely lower density when emotions were less salient.

We gained a nuanced understanding of communication dynamics by dissecting the HLMA of emotional support and analysing individual LLMAs, such as Isha’s changing of the phone background. This approach also unveiled the subtle emotional nuances, like shifting attention between foreground (phone) and background (Nasima) in the foreground-background continuum, highlighting how digital communication offers unique avenues for emotional connection even across distances. In essence, Norris’s framework was vital in uncovering the depth and complexity of emotional exchange during HL practice within these digital interactions.

In methodological terms, our study also demonstrates the value of using data triangulation to understand nFLP, where the video and screenshot data are being triangulated with interview data to enhance the trustworthiness and depth of our findings. The multiple themes identified in this study, i.e., emotional excitement and the use of emojis showing love and affection when practising HL, can be interpreted as a ‘natural language practice’ (Palviainen, 2020, p. 102), which is the default language practice among the families. In line with Norris (2011, 2016) data triangulation thus allows us to draw nuanced interpretations in FLP using data from different sources.

A key distinguishing factor for our study is its inclusion of senior extended family members who are geographically dispersed. While in previous studies, the role of senior extended family members, such as grandparents and caregivers, in the child’s HL and multicultural development (in both HL and migrant country cultures) has been acknowledged (Ruby, 2012; Smith-Christmas, 2018), these extended members were generally located in the same dwelling as the child, and interactions were f2f. In contrast, in the current study, the child’s regular communication with the grandparents, rapport building, emotional bonding, and FLP are realised through virtual platforms. Similar to Palviainen’s (2020) study, which examined FLP practice between transnational family members using digital media; our study emphasises emotions and family bonding through video calls, which help improve the well-being of both members living far apart (Fu et al., 2023).

Technology-driven communication serves the critical role of satisfying the families’ need to maintain emotional bonding, with the exchange of information being secondary (Taipale, 2019a). Overall, in all the investigated cases, the transnational family members employed strategies to ensure that the child could follow and maintain communication – either by reciprocating the emotional excitement that the child showed through embodied actions, such as smiling and following various gestures, reciprocating children’s messages with love and affection through different emojis, by internalising, accommodating and therefore echoing the child’s multilingual practices, such as translanguaging. In all these instances, the focus was on forming emotional bonds and maintaining a basic level of communication rather than developing language and literacy skills. To some extent, this may conform with Jakobson’s concept of phatic communication, which emphasises the role of language as a means of retaining contact and bonding rather than as a means of exchanging knowledge (Kulkarni, 2014).

The emotional bonds between the child and the transnational grandparents have been digitally nurtured to be strong, to the extent that when parents attempt to intrude into or manage the grandparent-child conversations by cueing with appropriate Bengali words and phrases, the child ignores their parent’s intrusion and continues with the conversation. The video communication tools thus form a digital insider space where the child and their transnational family members feel safe to express their emotions (Bose et al., 2024). Indeed, the environment should be a safe space for exploring emotions, including difficult ones, to promote learning and well-being.

While there has been some exploration of the role of emotions in the teacher-student domain (MacIntyre et al., 2019; Mehrabian & Ferris, 1967), there is a scant exploration of the same phenomenon in the family domain, though some recent publications have attempted to address this, as highlighted in the introduction section (Sevinç & Mirvahedi, 2023). Further, the role of emotions in nFLP has been rarely, if ever, explored (Curdt-Christiansen & Iwaniec, 2023). Our study further enriches the nFLP literature by addressing the unexplored area of bonding through emotional factors in transnational families, using the powerful analytical affordances provided by Norris’s (2004) MIA tools. These tools allowed a nuanced and fine-grained analysis of the emotional factors involved during HL practice in digital communication between children and transnational family members.

Indeed, given the evidence from this study and other studies, while existing school policies in countries like Australia encourage children to speak HL at home (Victoria Government, 2023), extending this to include conversations with transnational grandparents could support children’s HL practice and mental health (Ruiz & Silverstein, 2007). Parents and school teachers could encourage their children/students to interact informally with their transnational family members frequently through digital communication media. As our study shows, this could not only help maintain family bonding but also help in HL practice.

Limitations and future research

Our data are focused on interactions between grandparents and their grandchildren. The nature of communications between children and other transnational family members, such as transnational siblings of similar age, transnational uncle, and aunt, may require further research. However, given the strong bonds between children and their grandparents (Jessel et al., 2011), emotions are likely best studied in children-grandparent interactions. Also, while our study focuses on emotions in HL practice, their role in ideologies and management can be the focus of future research. An additional shortcoming is the relatively small scale of our study, which focuses on one case study and some screenshot exchanges between the participants among the Bengali immigrant community in Australia. Diversifying into other immigrant transnational families may be required to expand our study. Finally, our study utilises an FLP lens to approach this issue; other perspectives, such as a sociocultural lens, could have yielded a different set of findings.

Conclusion

This study uniquely harnesses the rich multimodal nature of digital video communication through Norris’s MIA tools to explore the emotional factors in family bonding and the HL practice using digital communication media among immigrant transnational families. Various emotions, including complex processes involving interpersonal emotional regulation, are facilitated by the affordances provided by multimodal digital video data alongside the HL practice, where family bonding rather than HL practice forms the basis of digital communications between the children and their transnational family members. Even when residing abroad, grandparents contribute significantly to children’s HL practice and emotional well-being through digital interactions.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is supported by the Department of Education, Australian Government; NSW Department of Education and Training

Ethical approval and informed consent

All participants provided written informed consent before enrolment in the study. Ethical approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia (approval number: HC220021).

ORCID iDs

Priyanka Bose

Sue Starfield

Nirukshi Perera

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are unavailable to the public or other researchers because they have been provided to the first author for only the analyses associated with this project.

Author biographies

Priyanka Bose is a PhD candidate at UNSW, Australia and a recipient of an Australian government RTP scholarship and Waratah scholarship from the NSW Department of Education. Her research focuses on family language policy, heritage language maintenance among immigrant families, language practices through digital media, multimodality, and systematic reviews.

Sue Starfield is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Education, UNSW. Her research and publications cover tertiary academic literacies, doctoral writing, writing for publication, postgraduate pedagogy, English for Specific Purposes, identity in academic writing, and access and equity in higher education.

Nirukshi Perera is a research fellow at Curtin University. She was the winner of the Australian Linguistic Society/Applied Linguistics Association Michael Clyne Prize for Best Thesis on Immigrant Bilingualism and Language Contact and the joint winner of the Australian PhD Prize for Innovations in Linguistics. Her book titled ‘Negotiating Linguistic and Religious Diversity: A Tamil Hindu Temple in Australia’ is published by Routledge.

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