Dutch–Chinese repertoires and language ausbau in superdiversity: A view from digital media

Abstract

The Chinese diaspora in the Netherlands is undergoing a dramatic diversification since the 1990s. This is manifested sociolinguistically in a shift from Cantonese and traditional character script to Mandarin and simplified characters as default registers of Chinese. Young people of Chinese heritage critically respond to and (re-) position themselves against these changes. This paper explores their identity work and language identifications and adopts a view from digital media to this end. Such a view provides insight into the unstable and shifting conditions and contexts of being, speaking and learning Chinese in the diaspora.Theoretically the paper builds on a view of language as practice, translanguaging, repertoires and linguistic citizenship, and revisits Heinz Kloss׳ notion of “ausbau” as a concept in language policy and planning. Applied to both language and identity, the revisited notion of ausbau is meant to capture the tension between language/identity as an individual, biographic project involving personal investment and planning, and language/identity as a social, historical project sponsored by nations and states (such as the PRC). In the discussion threads that are presented and analysed, both of these poles provoke critical reflection and stancetaking: critique and resistance to the hegemonic power of the PRC׳s language ausbau, and self-critique in the form of self-depreciating evaluation of personally accomplished language ausbau.This contribution draws on a recently completed two-year ethnographic study in and around a Chinese complementary school in the Netherlands as part of a larger funded project investigating discourses of inheritance and identities in four multilingual European settings.