Language Ideology and Personhood at a Chinese Community Heritage Language School
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-2003 "Our spiritual center" : language ideology and personhood at a Chinese community heritage language school. Peter C. Silver University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Silver, Peter C., ""Our spiritual center" : language ideology and personhood at a Chinese community heritage language school." (2003). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 5501. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/5501 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “OUR SPIRITUAL CENTER”: LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND PERSONHOOD AT A CHINESE COMMUNITY HERITAGE LANGUAGE SCHOOL A Dissertation Presented by PETER C. SILVER Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION September 2003 School of Education © Copyright 2003 by Peter Silver All Rights Reserved “OUR SPIRITUAL CENTER”: LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND PERSONHOOD AT A CHINESE COMMUNITY HERITAGE LANGUAGE SCHOOL A Dissertation Presented by PETER C. SILVER For Wan Weirong ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to acknowledge my dissertation director, Jerri Willett. I will always be grateful for her wisdom and guidance. I am also indebted to the other members of my committee, Alan Feldman and Donald Gjertson, who freely offered their time and insight. Thanks, too, to Theresa Austin, who encouraged me to peruse this topic. It is not possible to express the debt I owe to my wife, Wan Weirong, without whose material, intellectual, and emotional support I could not have completed this project. Finally, I want to thank members of the Chinese School for so generously offering their support. v ABSTRACT “OUR SPIRITUAL CENTER”: LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND PERSONHOOD AT A COMMUNITY CHINESE HERITAGE LANGUAGE SCHOOL SEPTEMBER 2003 PETER SILVER, B.A., SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY M.A., SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY ED.D. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Jerri Willett This dissertation is an ethnographic study concerning language maintenance efforts at a Chinese heritage language school in a North American community. This research employs the construct of language ideology-members’ common sense notions about language and language learning—to explore important aspects of what it means to speak, act, think, and feel like a member of the community. It is argued that the heritage language school is the center of a moral project helping to mediate cross-cultural experience so that children maintain positive social identities. Methodology involves discourse analysis and ethnographic observation. Interviews and texts are transcribed and analyzed to suggest structure and pattern. The analysis finds evidence to support the conclusion that notions of language and language learning reflect traditional patterns of Chinese thought and culture but that these are reconfigured to suit American circumstances. It is suggested that the subject position of Overseas Chinese helps members maintain stable notions of self as Chinese. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .. ABSTRACT . vj LIST OF TABLES .. CHAPTER 1. OVERVIEW AND CONTEXT .1 1.1 Introduction .1 1.2 Statement of the Problem .2 1.3 Significance of the Study .3 1.4 Context for the Study .5 2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION .10 2.1 Overview .10 2.2 Language Ideology.10 2.2.1 Language Rationalizations .12 2.2.2 Language Attitudes .15 2.2.3 Cultural Models & Cultural Codes of Speaking .18 2.3 Ethnography of Communication and Language Ideology .21 2.4 Research Questions .24 3. RELATED LITERATURE .28 3.1 Overview.28 3.2 Language Ideology and Language Maintenance .28 3.3 Heritage Language Schools .33 3.4 Language Loss Among Chinese in America .35 3.5 The Chinese Community Heritage Language School.37 3.6 Functions of the Chinese Language School .43 3.6.1 Ethnic Identity .47 3.7 “Acting Chinese”: Two Views of Chinese Identity .50 3.7.1 Confucianism as a Cultural Code .51 3.7.2 Language and Ritual .55 3.7.3 Chinese as Social Identity .60 3.7.4 Foundations of Ethnic Identity: Idioms of Biology, Psychology, and Cultural and Social Identity .61 3.7.4.1 Idiom of Biological Identity .62 3.7.4.2 Idiom of Psychology.65 3.7.4.3 Idiom of Social and Cultural Identity.66 3.7.4.4 Cultural Pragmatic Idiom .73 vii 4. RESEARCH FRAMEWORK 78 4.1 Introduction .. 4.2 Ethnography of Communication .79 4.2.1 Ethnography and Discourse Analysis .81 4.2.1.1 Linguistic Analysis .85 4.2.1.2 Narrative Analysis .87 4.2.2 General Procedures.88 4.3 Data Collection .90 4.4 Setting and Participants .96 4.5 Trustworthiness .97 4.6 Researcher Perspective . 99 4.7 Limitations .100 4.8 Further Research .100 4.9 A Note on Transcription .102 5. ANALYSIS .103 5.1 “We are all Chinese”: Connection Building .103 5.2 “Our Spiritual Center”: World Building.112 5.2.1 Children Should Study Something Fun .117 5.2.2 They Will Know They are not Alone.124 5.2.3 Just Like a Church .125 5.3 “To Value Education”: Building socioculturally identities.129 5.3.1 “A Little Bit Different”: Contrasting Chinese and American Education .130 5.3.2 “A Perfect Person”: Political Building .136 5.4 “The Very Simple Reason is Because We are Chinese”.141 5.5 “Trying to Be an American”: Three Stories .147 5.6 “Are You Mad at Me?”: Resistance and Harmony in a Scene of Cross-Cultural Communication .154 5.6.1 Wong Laoshi’s class .157 5.6.2 Speaking and Listening.158 5.6.3 Reading and Writing. 167 5.7 Two Festivals .180 Vlll 5.7.1 “Not Like Us”: A Multicultural Festival .181 5.7.2 Chinese New Year Celebration .186 6. SUMMARY, FINDINGS, DISCUSSION, AND IMPLICATIONS .193 6.1 Summary .193 6.2 Findings .194 6.3 Discussion and Implications.199 6.3.1 Implications for a Multicultural Society .202 BIBLIOGRAPHY .208 ix LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Key Features of Communication .60 2. Data Collection Summary .92 3. Key Features of a Chinese Culture of Learning. 109 4. Ong Laoshi Interview Segment . 126 5. Difference Between American and Chinese in Educational Matters .136 6. Response to “Is Chinese School Important to You”.145 7. Additional Responses .146 8. Conversation between Ong Laoshi and Guo Laoshi segment.182 x CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW AND CONTEXT But now she wants to be Chinese, it is so fashionable. And I know it is too late...I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could / know these two things do not mix?—From The Jov Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989) To what shall I compare myself, so blown by the winds? To a lone sand-gull between the Earth and Heaven— Du Fu (eighth century A.D.) 1.1 Introduction Amy Tan’s character, Lindo Jong, is hardly the first immigrant to reproach herself for somehow failing to pass on cherished ways of being, or to wonder at America’s power to commodify, absorb, and assimilate. From their earliest experiences in America, immigrants have used language as a defense against loss of communal ways. As Joshua Fishman (1980) observes: “de-ethnization and Americanization on the one hand and cultural-linguistic self maintenance, on the other, are equally ubiquitous throughout all of American history.” Some nations, Canada and Australia among them, have made linguistic and cultural maintenance a matter of public policy. Stephen Krashen (1998) sets forth a number of “practical arguments” for doing so-including “national well being,” “individual well being,” and encouraging harmonious relations between generations. Other scholars (Brecht & Ingold, 1998; Fishman, 1980) have similarly noted how our nation has placed little value on developing heritage language as a national resource. Despite compelling reasons to regard heritage language as a public trust, responsibility for the protection of the mother tongue, along with its myths, traditions, and customs, falls most often upon ethnic communities themselves. Yet, while ethnic communities may be unable or unwilling to take on this responsibility, an even greater risk, some argue, lies in placing the treasure of heritage language in the care of public schools. The intimate connection between language and social identity has caused Pool (Woolard, 1998) to describe language planning as “identity planning”—a responsibility that groups should entrust to public officials with only greatest caution. Moreover, as Denhauer and Denhauer point 1 out, “language reversal cannot be done to one or for one by others” (King, 2000, p. 168). Fishman amplifies the need for individual communities to take responsibility for keeping the home language alive: The final disturbing matter is the touching belief of many marked linguistic minorities that bilingual education will save their language...Those who want bilingual education badly for language maintenance purposes or co-purposes must come to realize that unless in their own homes, in their own communities, in their own cultures, in their own social institutions and in their own local economies, bilingual education will not only do nothing for them, it will do less than nothing (Guthrie 1985, p. 225) Indeed, it is the family, Alba (1990) reminds us, that provides ethnicity with its most potent rationale— that of descent, and it is within the family that members first encounter linguistic and cultural traditions and the sense that these are worth holding on to. Given public indifference toward the preservation of minority language and culture in the United States, many immigrant groups have rallied community resources and expertise to organize heritage language instruction.