Student ethnic identity and heritage language ideologies at a Chinese Saturday school

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the role of language ideology in four students’ ethnic identity during one stage. I employ Bakhtin’s concepts of ideological becoming, and of authoritative and internally persuasive discourse to explore how the student participants are conscious of language and social worlds, including their heritage language and ethnic group. The data collection in this study took place through semi-structured interviews with four eighth and ninth graders at a Chinese heritage language school in the USA. Based on Tse’s (1998a) ethnic identity development model, three student participants, Arthur, Paul, and Jack, appear to be at Stage 2. However, they express no ideological inheritance: Mandarin Chinese is not my heritage language, which does not fall anywhere along this ‘continuum’ of Stage 2, Ethnic Ambivalence/Evasion, in Tse’s model. Tse (1997) examined the possible links between ethnic identity and language attitude, but Bakhtin’s concepts may provide a more in-depth analysis of the four students’ ethnic identity development. These findings also imply that the Chinese school should provide more opportunities for immigrant students to be exposed to their heritage language and culture, which can help them find connections to the culture and Mandarin Chinese.