Understanding Chinese Language and Literacy Maintenance in Mixed-heritage Families: A Two-case Study of Family Language Policy in Alberta
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Informed by family language policy (FLP) framework, I investigate in this study what FLPs look like in two mixed-heritage Chinese-English bilingual families in Alberta, Canada, and the family-internal and external factors influencing the enactment and implementation of their FLPs. Data for this study were collected by multiple methods: parental questionnaires; in-depth interviews, recordings of home talk and literacy activities; related documents and artifact collection; and email communications with the parents. Results indicate that there are three major features of daily home language interaction: the diversity of language use patterns among family members; the dynamic mother-child language use patterns; and Chinese grandparents as a driving force for children’s Mandarin use and learning. In the process of parental language management, Chinese immigrant mothers engage children in varying Chinese literacy learning activities. Although the interactive Mandarin communication has been limited by the inevitable reality that Chinese immigrant mothers have to accommodate monolingual English-speaking fathers’ needs, mothers and children have been keen on investing time and effort in Mandarin-mediated activities. These findings also indicate that micro-level pro-Chinese language ideologies have been interacting and influenced by the educational reality and social tensions in Canada. However, the Chinese immigrant parents still value Chinese language transmission as a mission that needs to carry out through proactive and constant efforts for mixed-heritage children to strengthen the relations with the Chinese side of the family, as well as gain access to the valuable linguistic capital and the rich cultural heritage. This study therefore fills a void in the field of FLP on examining how Chinese immigrant parents support mixed-heritage children in the Chinese language and literacy development under the family-internal and external tensions in Alberta. Implications of this study are that, first, both parents’ mother tongues are equally important for mixed heritage individuals to maintain and develop. Secondly, positive beliefs and attitudes towards heritage language are insufficient, heritage language maintenance still needs de facto language practices and parent-child collaborative efforts can be undertaken. Finally, rather than simply a private issue in family domains, the effective implementation of FLPs requires collaborative efforts by parents, mainstream schools, community, and government.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.022 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".