“He Can’t Understand Our Worries”: Chinese-Canadian Parents’ Emotions and Emotional Labor in Heritage Language Maintenance

• In Event: Home, School, and Communities: Promoting Language and Literacy Development

Abstract

This study reports the lived emotional experiences of 56 Chinese-immigrant parents surrounding heritage language (HL) maintenance for their early elementary school-aged children in Canada over three years. Informed by concepts of emotionality and emotional labor in language education, thematic analyses of yearly interview data revealed that the parents experienced a range of positive and negative emotions and these emotions were constantly changing pending on the children’s HL learning outcomes, interactional behavior, and family dynamics. Parents deployed diverse strategies to manage their emotions; and these emotional labor management strategies also impacted their HL planning and practices at home. The study offers significant implications for all educational stakeholders to better support immigrant parents in raising children bilingually in the host country.

Authors

• Guofang Li, University of British Columbia

• Zhen Lin, University of British Columbia