Nikolay Slavkov is a full professor at the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute (OLBI). From 2017 to 2024, he also served as director of OLBI’s CCERBAL Research Centre. Professor Slavkov’s research on language policy revolves around family language policy and its intersections with language ideologies and the educational system. As famously noted by Bernard Spolsky, Family Language Policy (FLP) is a critical domain within the field of language policy, which has traditionally focused on nation-state or institutional policies. As such, there is agreement among researchers that more research is needed to enhance our understanding of language-related family dynamics, stances, and practices.
Professor Slavkov’s research emphasizes linguistic harmony and inclusion and explores official languages as well as heritage or minority languages in Canada. Through case studies, questionnaires, and interviews with families, he has examined the following:
- How young children learn, forget (lose), and relearn (re-activate) languages;
- What educational pathways and home language use strategies can be pursued by families in order to optimize children’s bilingual and multilingual outcomes;
- How individual language constellations are formed in children’s repertoires, depending on their unique migration, family, and educational trajectories.
Prof. Slavkov’s research has also recently focused on language decolonization, taking a critical stance towards epistemologies of the Global North and shifting the gaze towards linguistic inclusion, acceptance, and social justice.