Understanding Heritage Language Maintenance: A Study of Chinese Heritage Families

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

A family’s pattern of language use is critical to the maintenance of a heritage language (HL) (Sofu, 2009). As immigrant children in the U.S. learn English, their pattern of language use changes in their homes (Wong-Fillmore, 1991). The younger they are when they learn English, the greater the effect. However, few studies have investigated heritage language maintenance (HLM) at the familial level in the recent decade.

Given her positionality as community insider, the first author explored the HLM experiences of families of Chinese heritage. The study focuses on families with children from 4 to 6 years old to understand how children’s increased social interactions outside home affect HLM at the familial level. In particular, this study seeks to answer 1.) what language(s) parents choose and/or want to maintain, 2.) what language practices and patterns families use at home and in other social contexts, 3.) what parents’ long-term expectations are for their children’s HL proficiency, and 4.) what family language policy (FLP) and underlying language ideology are.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this mixed-method study consisted of a survey and an interview that were conducted online. The families were initially identified through convenience sampling within the first author’s social circle. Referrals from participating families contributed to snowball sampling. The study included data from four urban-residing families representing diverse child and family characteristics and circumstances (e.g., child with a diagnosed speech delay, grandparents’ involvement in child-rearing, China-U.S. transnational marrying parents, children’s length of schooling experience in the U.S.). Data was collected mostly in Mandarin with some English, representing the participating parents’ language use. Preliminary emergent themes suggest 1.) even though diversity in Chinese languages exists, Northern Chinese languages/dialects are mostly spoken between parents and grandparents and are not expected to be maintained by children, 2.) among the basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, families usually expect their children to master listening, prefer if they can speak and read, but do not expect them to be able to write, 3.) while still learning Chinese, children gradually prefer English over Chinese in discourses with increasing social interactions in the U.S. regardless of parents’ effort of HL input, 4.) parents have the tendency to use less Chinese due to various reasons (e.g., helping children to assimilate to schooling, parental language shift, promoting children’s investment in Chinese), and 5.) parents’ language ideology shapes their FLP which is reflected in their perceptions, expectations and practices of HLM.

By explicitly addressing the intertwining relationships among ideological values and practice related to HLM (e.g., cultural maintenance, family relationships and cohesion, ethnic identity, peer pressure and influence, connection with home country), this project describes the strategies and practices families adopt and struggles they confront on a daily basis to maintain HL. By exploring HLM of young children at the familial level, this project has implications for educators, researchers, and policymakers to better understand and support HLM. It concludes by identifying implications for schools, Chinese communities and parents to support HLM within an English-dominant environment.

Authors

• Yiyang Guan, University of Massachusetts Boston
  Presenting Author

• Mona M Abo-Zena, University of Massachusetts Boston
  Non-Presenting Author