“It’s Just Natural”: A Critical Case Study of Family Language Policy in a 1.5 Generation Chinese Immigrant Family on the West Coast of the United States

Abstract

The fast-growing immigrant population in the U.S. and the educational and linguistic characteristics of immigrant families have aroused a keen interest in the growing field of family language policy (FLP), the study of explicit and implicit planning of language use within family homes. Research shows that these informal language planning activities and processes have a profound impact on children’s cognitive development, racial and ethnic identity construction, and academic trajectories. With a particular interest in Chinese immigrant families, this study takes a close ethnographic look at the family language policies that inform the daily language practices of a 1.5 generation Chinese immigrant family on the West Coast of the United States. The study is guided theoretically by Spolsky’s three-component framework of language policy comprised of language practices, language ideology and language management. Findings indicate that the parents’ ideologies about their heritage language greatly impacts the family language policies expressed as a “natural” desire to use Mandarin Chinese at home for maintaining their racial and ethnic identity. This study fills a void in the educational linguistics scholarship, bridging the emergent field of FLP and language acquisition. It also contributes to FLP as a field of sociocultural practice, illuminating how immigrant families maintain heritage languages and ethnolinguistic identities and how these home language practices benefit their children’s social, cognitive and emotional development.