Negotiating Language, Literacy, and Identity: Chinese Heritage Learners’ Language and Literacy Socialization

Drawing upon current theories related to sociocultural identity, situated practice, and language and literacy socialization (e.g., Duff, 2019; He, 2010), this study investigates the relationship between Chinese students’ heritage-language (HL) learning and identity. It also considers learners’ investment in their cultural and national roots, life trajectories, economic prospects, and development of new literacies and ways of speaking for transnational as well as local purposes (Darvin and Norton, 2015; Duff et al., 2017; Li and Duff, 2008; 2014; 2018). The research site is one of the largest and most heterogeneous university Mandarin Chinese programs in North America. Longitudinal case studies of four Chinese HL learners were selected from a larger survey. The participants were ethnically Chinese but from distinct Chinese-speaking regions of the world, representing different preferred varieties of oral Mandarin, written orthographies, and geopolitical and cultural affinities. The results yielded insights into the socialization of language, literacy, and identity among contemporary Chinese HL learners in Canada, who are multilingual transnationals. The study contributes to the growing research literature on the experiences and outcomes of language learning for postsecondary HL students, which has implications for Chinese HL program development and pedagogy.