The Domains Of Chinese Heritage Language Use In The USA: A Study From An Ecological Perspective

Chinese heritage speakers(CHS)refer to those immigrants who grow up in a Chinese home language environment,but then are educated primarily in the dominant language of the host society.In this way,they have developed a bilingual practice of using the dominant language as their primary language and Chinese as their secondary language or home language.As the “transitional generation”,their bilingual practice is a window through which we can see why and how language shift happens,and the potentiality of Chinese being a community language in overseas diaspora.However,the heritage language research field has long been neglecting the bilingual practice of CHS,especially its relationship with CHS’s identity.With CHSs in the United States as research subjects and language ecology(Haugen’s approach)as the theoretical framework,this thesis studies on the status and function of the Chinese heritage language in the sociolinguistic environment of the USA through domain analysis of the CHS’s language behavior,and talks about the relationship between CHS’s bilingual practice and their identity,as well as how this relationship is influenced by the sociolinguistic environment.To reach this goal,this study follows three steps and employs a combined methodology of questionnaire analysis,case studies,interviews and literature research.Through questionnaire analysis,this study figures out the potential domains of the Chinese heritage language in its speakers’ bilingual practice.Through case studies and interviews,this study researches on the features of each domain,and how these features are related to CHS’s identity.Through literature research,this study focuses on how the language ideologies influence the language policy of the U.S.society,and how these ideologies are manifested in the policy texts and case laws related to minority language rights.This thesis presents the following conclusions:Firstly,the core domain of the Chinese heritage language is the family domain.Families are connected with each other through social ties instead of regional aggregations.In this way,ethnic social network domain,ethnic economy domain and Chinese language learning domain are formed outside of the family domain.The ethnic social network domain can be further divided into the inner network featuring social intercourse among ethnic peers and the outer network featuring social intercourse between older generation and younger generation of immigrants,in two of which CHS’s language practice can be vastly different.In the outer social network domain and the ethnic economy domain,the interlocutors with whom CHS communicates are mostly older generation acquaintances and older generation immigrants with limited English proficiency,and Chinese serves as the major communicating language.In the Chinese language learning domain and the inner ethnic social network domain,the interlocutors with whom CHS communicates are mostly ethnic peers,and English serves as the major language.This means that CHS’s use of the Chinese heritage language is related to their “historical” identity,while their use of English is related to their “new” identity.Secondly,since the domains of Chinese heritage language are connected with each other through social ties instead of regional aggregations,the traditional function chain composed of family,family clusters,neighborhood and community proposed by Fishman(1991)does not provide a reasonable solution for the intergenerational continuity of a Chinese-speaking community in the USA.Despite the maintenance of the family domain,the intergenerational continuous Chinese-speaking community relies on the possibility of CHSs developing a peer social network in which the Chinese language serves as a major communication tool.This peer social network is consisted of not only peer CHSs,but also peer Chinese new immigrants and non-immigrants.Chinese community schools can play a vital role in developing CHSs’ Chinese-speaking habits to communicate with their peers in certain domains.Thirdly,the relationship between CHS’s identity and their Chinese language practice interacts with each other in two ways.No.1,CHS has multiple identities,and they will show different aspects of their identity according to the needs of different cultural situations through switching to different languages.No.2,the relationship between CHS’s Chinese identity and their Chinese language practice is complicated,individualized and non-linear.Societal factors serve as the “mediate variable”,determining whether CHS is willing to practice their Chinese identity through use of the Chinese heritage language.Fourthly,since the U.S.is a multilingual and multi-ethnic country with a large immigrant population,English plays a vital role in the formation of its national identity.Therefore,English is on top of the language hierarchy in the U.S.society.In a sociolinguistic environment where the heritage languages are marginalized and immigrants are held skeptical by the mainstream society because of their relationship with their nations of origin,the ecology of heritage languages can be influenced not only by the inner sociolinguistic environment of the U.S.society,but also the international environment outside of the U.S.society.Therefore,the ecology of the Chinese heritage language is determined by combined factors of the language ideologies of the U.S.society,the global status of China,the Sino-U.S.relationship,and how the U.S.mainstream society perceives China and her people.Lastly,this thesis reflects on the theoretical framework of language ecology proposed by Einar Haugen.In the 1970 s when Haugen first proposed the conceptual metaphor of “the ecology of language”,globalization has not yet started to develop,nor have the languages been moving across nations in a large scale together with the immigrant population.Although “the ecology of language” is proposed to study on the language situation in multilingual societies,the multilingual societies at that time are still quite independent and self-regulating with few outside disturbances.However,in a globalized society as we are in now,the language ecology in many societies has fundamentally changed because of the fluidity of languages across nations.As the language travels from its original place to the host society,it brings outside factors with it to the host society.Therefore,when analyzing the interactional relationship between language and its environment from an ecological perspective,it is no longer enough to view language environment solely as the psychological environment of the language users and the social environment of the society.Rather,the outside factors from the international environment should also be taken into account.The theoretical framework of language ecology(Haugen’s approach)should be able to adjust itself according to the social changes to reflect its holistic,dynamic,interactional and situated perspective of studying language in its environment.