What is it about?
This article is about how Chinese immigrant parents in Australia view their heritage language and culture. The study is based on the author's years of fieldwork in the Chinese community in Brisbane, the 3rd largest city in Australia. The data collected through formal and informal interviews with 30 parents truthfully reflect their attitudes, expectations and practices with respect to raising a bilingual child. Our findings are of significant implications to bilingual parenting in immigrant families, language programs in schools, and the multilingual Australian society at large.
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Why is it important?
The topic of heritage language and culture is of practical importance to immigrant families as the world is becoming a global village. The population of immigrants is on increase in many countries around the world. When moving to a new country, the immigrants will be inevitably confronted with the conundrum of whether to pass on their language and culture to their overseas-born children. Their decisions will make impacts on their everyday life, intergenerational communication and even the whole community. Eventually, it will shape the linguistic landscape and language policy of the host country.
Perspectives
As a parent and the author, I wish the parents who are at the crossroads of language choices could get some inspiration from our research. Parents are the first language teacher for their chid(ren). What language choices they make in the familial environment leaves crucial impacts on their child(ren). I hope this article is thought-provoking and life-changing to some of our readers, who are parents or will be parents in future.
Chunxuan Shen
The University of Queensland
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Chinese Immigrant Parents’ Attitudes, Expectations and Practices regarding Their Children’s Chinese Language Maintenance, Heritage Language Journal, August 2022, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/15507076-12340023.
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