Chinese Australian Multilingual Family Experiences

Bo HU

ORCID# 0000-0002-5440-1753

Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

October 2018

Melbourne Graduate School of Education

The University of Melbourne

Dedication

I dedicate this thesis to my father, Hu Yunfeng (1960–2015). I miss you every day.

谨以此文献给我的父亲胡云峰

Abstract

This thesis investigates experiences of transnational multilingual Chinese Australian families who have diverse Chinese linguistic and cultural backgrounds and are dedicated to Chinese language maintenance in Metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences are framed under the enquiry of language policy and planning (LPP), particularly family language policy, which has a strong theoretical basis in sociolinguistics. Informed by LPP studies, an analytical framework for understanding Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences was developed in this thesis to answer the following major questions: 1) How do transnational Chinese families engage in Chinese language planning in the community language school (CLS) and in the home?; 2) What language(s) do they use at home? What do the languages mean to the families? How do they talk about the language decisions they make?; and 3) What are the perceptions and experiences of the children in relation to Chinese language learning and their identities? This research adopted an ethnographic case study approach with various methods including interviewing, observations and collection of student work samples. Between February and October 2015, fieldwork was conducted in a Chinese CLS with three participating families. The research uncovered three major findings. Firstly, this research found that the initiation of community language planning (CLP) can be an extended and joint form of family language planning, merging various legal and political factors. The CLP process is stimulated by changing sociopolitical situations and is fundamentally affected by immigrants’ legal citizenship arrangements. Putonghua has become the exclusive planning subject and the acquisition planning of Putonghua in teaching practice becomes a de facto prestige planning for the Chinese variety. Family language policy in relation to the necessity of Chinese maintenance is primarily a parental identity practice. It is situated on a language ideological continuum with one end informed by an essentialist ethnic authenticity discourse and the other end informed by language assimilation. This study extends the concept of family language policy as systematic and enduring language experiences, language use rules or other language practices that occur in the home and significantly influence children’s language proficiency. Secondly, this study identified the socioemotional function of someone’s mother tongue, which is manifested by its sense of naturalness, its symbolism of ‘hometown’ and

‘family’, its ‘unlearnability’ and its role in determining sub-Chinese community membership. Meanwhile, there exists a classic language shift situation—from regional languages to a dominant community language, before dominance shifts to the main societal language. This sequence of language shift has produced a problematic grandparent–grandchild communication model with a potential decrease of family intimacy. On the other hand, the relatively ‘closed’ nature of private households and proud regional Chinese-identity recognition creates the possible maintenance of regional Chinese languages by second-generation Chinese Australians, without overwhelming ideological interactions with the Mandarin Chinese discourse. Thirdly, this research suggests that Chinese Australian children are trapped in a conflicted ideological space where parents and community educators ‘push’ the learning, while mainstream society typically misunderstands the learning. It can undermine families when their community efforts towards language learning are considered the major reason for non-Chinese-background students’ underachievement in Mandarin courses and assessment, a popular belief that is currently held by the Australian mainstream. Finally, Chinese Australian children’s multilingual experiences involve multiple dimensions ranging from dynamics of ethnicity, physical appearance, language, transnational journey to their syncretic cultural practices and tension-filled highly sensitive classroom experiences that position, challenge and shape their identities. This thesis proposes a framework for informed multiglossic family language planning and enhanced multilingual experiences as a theoretical and practical implication of this research contributing to the field of family language policy/planning and the Chinese Australian community.

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Declaration

This is to certify that:

i. this thesis comprises only my original work towards the Doctor of Philosophy except where indicated in the Preface

ii. due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used

iii. the thesis is fewer than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, figures, references and appendices.

Signature:

Bo Hu

Preface

Parts of this thesis have appeared in the following presentations:

Hu, B. (2018). Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences, Variation and Change in Chinese, La Trobe University. Melbourne, Australia, February 9, 2018.

Hu, B. (2016). Language policy dynamics, micro and macro perspectives: Australian Chinese language education discourses, Multidisciplinary Approaches in Language Policy and Planning Conference, University of Calgary. Calgary, Canada, September 1-3, 2016.

Acknowledgements

To all my research participants—the children, parents, school leaders and other people I met during my fieldwork—I owe a profound and enormous debt of thanks. Thank you so much for your trust and for allowing me to step into your life. Xiexie Nimen! I wish to extend my sincere gratitude to my two supervisors, Professor Joseph Lo Bianco and Dr Catherine Yongyang Wang. To Joe, I have much appreciated all your support during the entirety of my PhD candidature. I benefited tremendously from your intellectual guidance, which enabled me to finally complete this journey. To Wang laoshi, I really have cherished all your encouragement and shared experience of attempting to make sense of Australian Chinese family life. Xiexie Nin! Special thanks to my Advisory Committee Chair Professor Johanna Wyn for providing me invaluable feedback and constructive advice. To Dr Julie Choi from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and Associate Professor Carsten Roever from the School of Languages and Linguistics, I wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart for so many encouraging and inspiring discussions. To my PhD colleagues Rebecca Hetherington and Trent Newman, whom I always worked with in our Thesis Writing Workshop (a grassroots LPP and ‘nonofficial’), thank you for being so supportive. I will miss our conversations and laughter. I wish you all the best with your lives and future careers. To my father, mother and my sister, thank you for your unconditional love and support—I will not let you down (感谢爸爸妈妈和妹妹无条件的支持与爱, 我不会辜负你们对我的期望!). To Troy, thank you for being part of my life during this journey. You and Bao Bao (our cat) mean a lot to me. Capstone Editing and Elite Editing provided copyediting and proofreading services, according to the guidelines laid out in the university-endorsed national ‘Guidelines for Editing Research Theses’.

Table of Contents

Dedication ...... i Abstract ...... ii Declaration ...... iv Preface ...... v Acknowledgements ...... vi Table of Contents ...... vii List of Tables ...... x List of Figures ...... xii List of Abbreviations ...... xiii Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1 1.1 The Controversy: Who Is to Be the Learner? ...... 2 1.2 Context: Migration, Community and Language ...... 7 1.2.1 Chinese migration to Australia ...... 7 1.2.2 Chinese community languages schools ...... 13 1.3 Research Questions ...... 18 1.4 The Researcher ...... 18 1.4.1 Childhood translocal multilingual experiences ...... 19 1.4.2 Education and professional background ...... 20 1.5 Thesis Structure ...... 21 Chapter 2: Literature Review ...... 23 2.1 Introduction ...... 23 2.2 Language Ecology ...... 26 2.3 Language Policy and Planning ...... 32 2.3.1 Shifts in LPP understanding: From the macro to the micro, but macrocentric ...... 32 2.3.1.1 Language planning ...... 33 2.3.1.2 Language policy and key elements of LPP studies ...... 34 2.3.2 Chinese language, pluricentricity and Chinese language planning ...... 41 2.4 Family Language Policy and Planning ...... 46 2.4.1 Terms ...... 46 2.4.2 FLP research: Ecological analysis of multilingual experiences ...... 47 2.4.2.1 Society and FLP: ‘Power-inflected’ language ideologies as mediating link ...... 51 2.4.2.2 Multilingual experiences of parents, grandparents and communities .... 56 2.4.2.3 Children’s multilingual experiences ...... 65 2.5 Chapter Summary ...... 74 Chapter 3: Methodology ...... 78 3.1 Qualitative Study Design ...... 78 3.2 Ethnographic Multiple-Case Study ...... 80 3.3 Research Context ...... 83 3.3.1 Research site ...... 83 3.3.2 Participants and sampling process ...... 84 3.3.2.1 The Li family ...... 88 3.3.2.2 The Guo family ...... 88 3.3.2.3 The Tan family ...... 89 3.4 Data Collection ...... 92

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3.4.1 Interviews ...... 94 3.4.2 Observations and documents ...... 97 3.5 Data Analysis ...... 100 3.6 Trustworthiness ...... 103 3.7 Ethical Considerations ...... 106 3.8 Chapter Summary ...... 108 Chapter 4: Learning ‘Chinese’ in TCS ...... 109 4.1 Why was TCS Established? ...... 109 4.2 Which Chinese Language Should Your Children Learn? ...... 114 4.3 Do You Like Learning Chinese? ...... 120 4.3.1 The Li family: David and James ...... 121 4.3.2 The Guo family: Sophia and Henry ...... 128 4.3.3 The Tan family: Alex and Luke ...... 135 4.3.4 Summary ...... 140 4.4 To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese ...... 142 4.5 Chapter Summary ...... 153 Chapter 5: Speaking Regional Languages and/or Mandarin at Home ...... 156 5.1 The Wuxinese-Speaking Li Family ...... 156 5.1.1 Mr Li: ‘It’s the sound of hometown’ ...... 157 5.1.2 Speaking Wuxinese and being Wuxinese ...... 159 5.1.3 Summary ...... 160 5.2 The Fuqingnese-Speaking Guo Family ...... 161 5.2.1 Language shift and MT ‘confusion’ ...... 162 5.2.2 Speaking Fuqingnese, Cantonese and Southern Min ...... 166 5.2.3 Swearing in Fuqingnese ...... 169 5.2.4 Putonghua is more expressive but Fuqingnese is closest to heart ...... 173 5.2.5 Summary ...... 175 5.3 The Teochew-Speaking Tan Family ...... 177 5.3.1 Speaking Teochew and English, but not Mandarin ...... 178 5.3.2 Ms Tan: ‘I was a bit regretful, I half regretted speaking dialect to them’ .... 181 5.3.3 Summary ...... 182 5.4 Regional Language vs Mandarin ...... 184 5.4.1 ‘Shanghainese kids can’t speak Shanghainese’ ...... 185 5.4.2 An Australian Shanghainese family ...... 192 5.4.3 Summary ...... 196 5.5 Chapter Summary ...... 198 Chapter 6: FLP and Children’s Multilingual/Multicultural Experiences ...... 201 6.1 The Li Family ...... 201 6.1.1 Watching Chinese television as a de facto language policy ...... 201 6.1.2 David’s and James’s multilingual and multicultural experiences ...... 212 6.1.2.1 Being Wuxinese: Connection with Wuxi through family bonds and food ...... 213 6.1.2.2 Syncretic cultural practices: Food habits, lifestyle, learning attitudes and family dynamic ...... 217 6.1.2.3 Teacher Tu: ‘Your roots are still in China…your face will never change’ ...... 221 6.1.3 Summary ...... 224 6.2 The Guo Family ...... 225 6.2.1 Systematic FLP ...... 225 6.2.2 Sophia’s, Henry’s and Evelyn’s multilingual and multicultural experiences ...... 231

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6.2.2.1 Evelyn: ‘Benjamin is a White guy. He’s bad’ ...... 231 6.2.2.2 Sophia: ‘they were picking on me, it’s unfair, it’s so rude’ ...... 234 6.2.2.3 Speaking Chinese in child care ...... 240 6.2.2.4 ‘Saving face’ for teacher ...... 242 6.2.2.5 ‘Complicated’ and ‘confusing’ names ...... 243 6.2.2.6 Personalities, food habits and television watching ...... 245 6.2.3 Summary ...... 251 6.3 The Tan Family ...... 254 6.3.1 General and VCE-focused FLP ...... 254 6.3.2 Luke’s multilingual and multicultural experiences ...... 258 6.3.2.1 Being Australian, being Chinese and being Malaysian ...... 259 6.3.2.2 Lifestyle, food habits and connections with Malaysia and Australia .... 268 6.3.3 Summary ...... 276 6.4 Chapter Summary ...... 277 Chapter 7: Discussion and Conclusion ...... 281 7.1 Revisiting the Research Questions ...... 282 7.1.1 Acquisition planning for Putonghua: Research Question 1 revisited ...... 282 7.1.1.1 CLP: Discussion of Findings 1 and 2 ...... 282 7.1.1.2 FLP: Discussion of Findings 4 and 8 ...... 284 7.1.2 Habitual home language practices and language shift: Research Question 2 revisited ...... 288 7.1.2.1 Socioemotional function of a MT, language shift and language ecology: Discussion of Findings 5, 6 and 7 ...... 288 7.1.3 Living as Australian-born Chinese: Research Question 3 revisited ...... 292 7.1.3.1 Negative community language learning attitudes: Discussion of Finding 3 ...... 292 7.1.3.2 Being Chinese and Australian, cultural practices and classroom experiences: Discussion of Finding 9 ...... 294 7.2 Implications: Towards a Framework for Informed Multiglossic FLP and Enhanced Multilingual Experiences ...... 297 7.2.1 Develop informed multiglossic FLP ...... 298 7.2.2 Improve the quality of multilingual being and living ...... 302 7.3 Reflections, Limitations and Possibilities ...... 304 References ...... 307 Appendices ...... 328 Appendix 1: Plain Language Statement Sample ...... 328 Appendix 2: Consent Form Sample ...... 333 Appendix 3: Interview Guideline Sample ...... 336 Appendix 4: School Leader 1 Data ...... 338 Appendix 5: School Leader 2 Data ...... 343 Appendix 6: The Li Family Data ...... 346 Appendix 7: The Guo Family Data ...... 369 Appendix 8: The Tan Family Data ...... 405 Appendix 9: Supplementary Data ...... 429 Appendix 10: Conventions Used in Data Presentation ...... 435

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Research Questions ...... 18

Table 2.1 Key Elements of Language Policy and Planning Studies ...... 37

Table 3.1 Research Participants ...... 85

Table 3.2 Information on the Three Participating Families ...... 90

Table 3.3 Overview of Data Sources ...... 93

Table 3.4 Interviews (including Conversations) with Participants (Primary Data) ...... 96

Table 3.5 Theme Levels ...... 103

Table 4.1 Early History of The Chinese School ...... 110

Table 4.2 Chinese Language Hierarchy ...... 114

Table 4.3 The Li Family Children’s Mandarin-Learning Experiences ...... 121

Table 4.4 The Guo Family Children’s Mandarin-Learning Experiences ...... 129

Table 4.5 Key Content of Excerpt 7-F2 (Turns 1–14) ...... 132

Table 4.6 The Tan Family Children’s Mandarin-Learning Experiences ...... 135

Table 4.7 To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese ...... 142

Table 5.1 The Li Family’s Home Language Experiences ...... 157

Table 5.2 The Guo Family’s Home Language Experiences ...... 161

Table 5.3 The Tan Family’s Home Language Experiences ...... 177

Table 5.4 Experiences of Language Shift and Maintenance ...... 184

Table 5.5 Lily and Her Cousins’ Communication Model ...... 187

Table 5.6 David, James and their Cousins’ Communication Model ...... 187

Table 6.1 The Li Family’s Language Policy ...... 202

Table 6.2 The Li Family Children’s Multilingual and Multicultural Experiences ...... 213

Table 6.3 The Guo Family’s Language Policy ...... 227

Table 6.4 The Guo Family Children’s Multilingual and Multicultural Experiences ... 231

Table 6.5 The Guo Family’s Surnames ...... 244

Table 6.6 The Tan Family’s Language Policy ...... 254

Table 6.7 The Tan Family Children’s Multilingual and Multicultural Experiences .... 259

Table 6.8 Identity Indicators in Luke’s Written Language Production ...... 265

Table 6.9 Examples of Appearance when Defining Chineseness in Music ...... 266

Table 7.1 Revisiting the Research Questions ...... 281

List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Australians are too lazy to master Chinese (Orton, 2016a)...... 2

Figure 1.2. Why learn Chinese if other students speak it at home? (Hibbert, 2016)...... 3

Figure 1.3. Learning Chinese: Put off by fear of being unable to compete (Blair et al., 2016)...... 3

Figure 2.1. Working theoretical framework for the ecology of Chinese ...... 31

Figure 2.2. Analytical framework for understanding Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences ...... 41

Figure 2.3. Overlapping Chinese language policy and planning (LLP) spheres...... 45

Figure 3.1. Fieldnote sample (original left, translation right)...... 100

Figure 5.1. Family connections and language use patterns in the Guo family...... 162

Figure 5.2. Communication model between overseas Chinese descendants and their China-based cousins...... 191

Figure 6.1. David’s drawing of ‘Mr Dongguo and a Wolf’...... 210

Figure 7.1. A framework for informed multiglossia and enhanced multilingual experience...... 298

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List of Abbreviations

ACARA Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority

ATAR Australian Tertiary Admission Rank

CLB child language brokering

CLP community language planning

CLS community language school

F1 Family 1 (the Li family)

F2 Family 2 (the Guo family)

F3 Family 3 (the Tan family)

FLP family language policy/planning

H High

L Low

LOTE Languages Other Than English

LPP language policy and planning

MT mother tongue

OPOL one parent, one language

SES socio-economic status

SL1 School Leader 1

SL2 School Leader 2

SLQZ San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec

TCFL Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language

TCS The Chinese School

US United States

VCE Victorian Certificate of Education

VTAC Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC)

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Located in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia is a multilingual and multicultural country, with its first known arrival of a Chinese person occurring in 1818. An old

Chinese saying states, ‘Unlike trees, people thrive on moving’ (人挪活, 树挪死)—

Chinese people have a long history of transnational living and moving. In this era of globalisation, the scale of Chinese immigration has been expanding along with ‘the re- emergence of China’ in world affairs (Lo Bianco, 2007, p. 3). In these circumstances, the population composition of Australia’s Chinese population has itself been changing.

Between the 2011 and 2016 censuses, Chinese-born people increased from 6 per cent to

8.3 per cent of the total overseas-born population, comprising the largest such group after those born in England (14.7 per cent) and New Zealand (8.4 per cent).

According to the Australian Census of Population and Housing conducted in 2016

(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017), among the languages other than English (LOTE) used in Australia, Mandarin Chinese has the largest number of speakers, at 2.7 per cent of the total population. Earlier census data revealed that Mandarin speakers accounted for

1.1 per cent and 1.6 per cent of the total population in 2006 and 2011 respectively. Clearly, the number of Australia’s Chinese speakers and learners has been steadily increasing. On their journey to Australia, transnational Chinese bring with them the Chinese language along with their culture and complex lived experiences.

Australia’s Chinese communities have always been passionate about maintaining

Chinese language use among their Australian-born descendants. By 1913, even during the highly restrictive times of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 (the ‘White

Australia’ Policy), a Chinese ethnic school for the Chinese had been established in

Melbourne and another two in Sydney (Djité, 1994, p. 113). Ethnic schools in Australia are commonly referred to as community language schools (CLSs), referred to as

complementary schools in the United Kingdom and heritage language schools in the

United States (US). The latest statistics reveal that among LOTE in the state of Victoria, the Chinese language has the highest number of enrolled students (15,366) in CLSs

(Ethnic Schools Association of Victoria, 2018a).

However, this does not suggest that Australia has ‘enough’ Chinese speakers.

Section 1.1 specifically illustrates the decade-long controversy surrounding Chinese education. Section 1.2 examines the context of this study by introducing Australia’s

Chinese migration, community and languages. Section 1.3 addresses specific research questions, informed by the current and historical situations discussed in Sections 1.1 and

1.2 in relation to Chinese Australians and their languages. Section 1.4 introduces the researcher and situates him within the study. The researcher’s own multilingual and transnational experiences have informed the current study, and it is the responsibility of the individual readers of this thesis to draw their own interpretations of the researcher’s voice. Section 1.5 outlines the thesis structure.

1.1 The Controversy: Who Is to Be the Learner?

During the period 14 to 17 March 2016, issues arising from learning Chinese were discussed extensively in one of the Australia’s major daily newspapers, The Sydney

Morning Herald (see Figures 1.1–1.3).

Figure 1.1. Australians are too lazy to master Chinese (Orton, 2016a).

Figure 1.2. Why learn Chinese if other students speak it at home? (Hibbert, 2016).

Figure 1.3. Learning Chinese: Put off by fear of being unable to compete (Blair et al., 2016).

In the article ‘Australians are too lazy to master Chinese’, it was reported:

We are fast approaching a situation here where only Australians of Chinese ethnicity will speak Chinese. This should alarm both economic and strategic planners…Obstacles and disincentives discourage non-Chinese students from taking up or persevering with Chinese as a second language; to the point where only 5 per cent of those who enroll in it at secondary school continue it to year 12. Last year, there were 400 year 12 students of Chinese as a second language – 20 per cent fewer than in 2008…Relying on the language capabilities of Asian-Australians for all of Australia’s relationships and engagement will not be adequate. (Orton, 2016a)

The title of this article implies a sharp divide between Australians and Chinese despite the fact that the latter are labelled in the article as ‘Australians of Chinese ethnicity’ and ‘Asian-Australians’. In effect, the article is saying that the increasing numbers of

Chinese speakers, the result of migration and language maintenance initiatives, are not valued. Rather, the article suggests that the increasing numbers are a problem which should ‘alarm both economic and strategic planners’. An unspoken agenda appears to underlie these statements—that is, it is in the national interest for Australia to have more people learning Chinese and that although numerous people are already learning and maintaining Chinese, they are not the ‘right’ (read ‘white’) people. This perspective not only devalues the community language status of multiple Chinese languages but marginalises linguistic-minority children.

Two groups of learners of Chinese are placed at the centre of the debate: children from Chinese-speaking backgrounds and Australians from non-Chinese-speaking backgrounds. The articles highlight a controversial situation: the former group discourage their non-Chinese-speaking peers from learning Chinese in the language classroom, thus, the latter group cannot compete with the former in high-stakes Chinese language exams.

According to the Australian Curriculum, with regard to second languages, Chinese language learners are divided into three major categories: second language learners, background language learners and first language learners:

Second language learners are those who are introduced to learning the target language at school as an additional, new language. The first language used before they start school and/or the language they use at home is not the language being learnt.

Background language learners are those who may use the language at home, not necessarily exclusively, and have varying degrees of knowledge of and proficiency in the language being learnt. These learners have a base for literacy development in the language.

First language learners are users of the language being learnt who have undertaken at least primary schooling in the target language. They have had their primary socialisation as well as initial literacy development in that language and use the target language at home. (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2016, pp. 4–5)

The term ‘target language’ used by ACARA in the above quotation refers to

Mandarin Chinese. This categorisation by ACARA provides us with a broad overview of a highly complex reality in relation to learners of Chinese, which is where the controversy is rooted. Under the Australian Constitution, education is a state or territory responsibility.

In the state of Victoria, upon successful completion of Year 12 students receive the

Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) which provides pathways to tertiary education or employment. In the state of New South Wales, the equivalent of the VCE is the Higher

School Certificate. Both provide various Chinese programmes for different streams of learners. The issue discussed in the news reports exists nationwide, but Victoria and New

South Wales are the typical cases.

This controversy between ‘mainstream’ Australia and the local Chinese community has continued for a decade. In 2008, a report entitled ‘Chinese language education in Australian schools’ (Orton, 2008) was published. It highlights a situation that is still present in Australia: ‘Almost all of those who begin Chinese as a classroom- taught language quit before Year 10’ (Orton, 2008, p. 18). Particularly, ‘by senior secondary school, the teaching and learning of Chinese in Australia is overwhelmingly a matter of Chinese teaching Chinese to Chinese’ (Orton, 2008, p. 5). This statement provoked a backlash from Australia’s Chinese community because Chinese Australian children were not recognised as ‘Australians’—a recurring and ongoing issue. For example, on 8 August 2016 an article ‘Return to Language Discrimination is Racism’ published in a community newspaper specifically targeting the comment in Orton’s (2008) report.

This debate has led to the potential change of eligibility for Australian-born

Chinese children appearing for the VCE Chinese exam, on the basis of the ‘common perception’:

despite the different levels of Chinese language courses that are available, students who do not have a Chinese language background are currently discouraged from continuing with their study of Chinese language as part of their senior secondary program of study. This, it is argued, is because of concerns they will not be able to compete on an equal level with those who do have a background in Chinese language. (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2013, p. 4)

Although the change of language assessment policy was not successful owing to the Chinese community’s fierce resistance, the controversy regarding ‘who is to be the learner’ never disappears. It has always been a focal point when discussing the ‘problem’ of Australia’s Chinese education in media and in academia. Scrimgeour (2014, p. 154), in his book chapter ‘Dealing with “Chinese Fever”: The challenge of Chinese teaching in the Australian classroom’, specifies that the priority of current Chinese teaching in

Australia is to focus on learner complexity and meet the needs of diverse students. It should be noted that ‘Australian classroom’ here refers to mainstream Chinese language

classrooms. Apparently, the presence of students who have been previously exposed to the Chinese language and culture poses challenges in the ‘Australian classroom’. Thus far, community language education and the mainstream seem to contradict, rather than complement, each other.

The latest report, ‘Building Chinese language capacity in Australia’ (Orton, 2016b) published by the Australia-China Relations Institute, addresses the same issue:

Year 12 numbers taking Chinese vary from state to state and year to year, with a rise in L1 students but only a small rise in the total number of local students of any kind taking the subject and an overall drop over the past eight years of some 20 percent in the number of classroom learners taking L2 Chinese to around just 400; senior classes in some long-running L2 Chinese programs have been decimated; this is largely due to the presence of crushing numbers of home speaker learners being assessed as L2, who fill the high score quotas.

Students who speak Chinese at home usually enrol in the lowest level in order to get high marks; this does little to develop their accurate but often limited language skills and does nothing to assist them in constructing a rich and stable bilingual, bicultural identity. (p. 18)

This description has portrayed or stereotyped children of Chinese heritage as preventing mainstream peers from attending Chinese classes and achieving high scores in Chinese exams because they speak Chinese at home. The controversy reflected in

Orton’s (2008, 2016b) studies revolves around the ultimate purpose envisaged for

Chinese language learning: language maintenance for Australian Chinese communities or second language learning for non-Chinese-background Australians. This is too sharp a dichotomy in what is ultimately a heterogeneous broad continuum. Identically, the extensive media coverage of this question is based on precisely this binary. In other words, it assumes that we must choose whether we are going to teach ‘Anglo-Australian’ children or ‘Chinese’ children.

This is a massive oversimplification of a complex sociolinguistic reality that has many gradations on a continuum of Chinese knowledge. It is true that children of Chinese ethnicity might speak Chinese at home, but what variety of Chinese do they speak? They might not have any Mandarin competence. If they do, they may also have varying degrees

of Mandarin ability from full native-like proficiency to only listening proficiency. For a

Mandarin-speaking child, each of the four skills (i.e., listening, speaking, reading and writing) has different levels that constitute part of their linguistic repertoire, which may not adequately help them achieve high scores in Chinese exams. However, these Chinese- background children, their families and all of their efforts and struggles in relation to learning Chinese—the subject of this study—are mostly not discussed in the Australian mainstream. Therefore, this thesis aims to present Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences.

The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows. Section 1.2 sets the context of the research. Specifically, Section 1.2.1 outlines different phases of Chinese migration to Australia and Australian society’s reaction to the presence of Chinese people and their languages. It is this history of immigration that created community-based schools (Clyne

& Kipp, 2006). Section 1.2.2 provides an overview of Chinese CLSs—a key domain with which thousands of Chinese Australian families deeply engage but which has nearly no representation in the mainstream debate on Chinese education. The overview is mainly focused on Victoria where the research is undertaken.

Section 1.2 defines and highlights the historical status of Australia’s Chinese as a

‘community’ language. Moreover, the experiences of Chinese Australian families and communities that appear later in this thesis are, in fact, an extension of that history.

Modern Chinese Australians’ experiences can be better interpreted when a link is made between the past and present.

1.2 Context: Migration, Community and Language

1.2.1 Chinese migration to Australia

At present, the Australian Chinese community is very heterogeneous, and it has many vintages of migration, with longstanding arrivals from the early nineteenth century to much more recent arrivals. Records show that at least 18 Chinese people lived in

Australia before 1848, and that they were mainly housekeepers, craftsmen and indentured labourers (Smith, Chin, Louie & Mackerras, 1993; Wang, 2001, p. 198). In the late nineteenth century, China, ruled by the Qing dynasty, experienced turbulent times—long- lasting peasant-led uprisings, especially the Taiping Civil War (1851–1864) in the South, and natural disasters such as floods and famine (1849–1878) across most regions of the country (Wang, 2001, p. 197). These are some important push factors that forced Chinese people to move overseas to survive.

The discovery of gold in Australia in the 1850s pulled a continuous flow of

European and Chinese immigrants into the country. The number of Chinese immigrants peaked at approximately 38,000 in 1861, that is, 3.3 per cent of the total population of

Australia. Victoria was the major destination for Chinese miners. Notably, there were very few free Chinese settlers. Instead, earlier immigrants were brought into the country under contract to foreign speculators and, later, under a ‘credit-ticket system’ which meant they had to work for years before being able to pay their passage money and reclaiming their freedom (Wang, 2001, p. 198).

Before the Gold Rush, most of the Chinese in Australia were from Fujian province, and during the Gold Rush the majority were from Guangdong province (Jones, 2008;

Wang, 2001). Accordingly, Cantonese and Hokkien were the main Chinese languages spoken in Australia. Clyne (1991a, p. 24) describes this period as ‘accepting but laissez- faire’ (up to the mid-1870s), in which Australian society accepted the use of LOTE but an explicit language education policy did not exist. Similarly, according to Lo Bianco

(2003, p. 15), the nineteenth century was a period of general tolerance of ‘language pluralism’.

However, anti-Chinese sentiment was growing gradually. The Chinese have always been considered ‘outsiders’ on the basis of their different ‘manner, colour, language, customs and methods of working’, and their differences were highlighted when

miners competed in the dwindling goldfields (Smith et al., 1993, p. 120). Anti-Chinese legislation, specifically An Act to Make Provision for Certain Immigrants, was passed in

Victoria in 1855 to restrict the intake of Chinese immigrants. The population of Chinese declined following a series of anti-Chinese Acts across Australia and the proportion of

Chinese immigrants reduced to 1.1 per cent of the total Australian population by 1891

(Djité, 1994, p. 98). Another reason for this decline was that over half the Chinese had returned to their place of origin by 1889 after the decline of the goldfields (Wang, 2001, p. 200). This period featured ‘tolerant but restrictive’ (1870 to the early 1900s) language attitudes towards community languages.

The Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 (the ‘White Australia’ Policy) forcibly restrained most non-European immigration. By then, Australia had 30,000 Chinese people (Jones, 2001). The notorious ‘Dictation Test’ was introduced to serve this purpose.

Potential immigrants seeking to enter Australia were required to write a 50-word passage dictated by an immigration officer in any European language. Between 1902 and 1909, the Dictation Test was undertaken 1,359 times and only 52 people passed (Ryan &

McNamara, 2011, p. 182). After this period, not one person passed the test until its abolishment in 1958. The implementation of the Dictation Test is such a classic example of the use of ‘language’ as a powerful tool to exclude and discriminate against migrants.

From 1914, Australia entered the stage of ‘rejecting’ LOTE (Clyne, 1991a, p. 24).

The two World Wars were other major events that had a considerable impact on the life of Australian Chinese. Chinese immigration declined and remained at a relatively low level owing to the operation of the White Australia policy and the then-turbulent social and political situation of China. Over the next few decades, Chinese immigration grew following the relaxation of discriminatory immigration laws (Jones, 2001, p. 216).

Chinese immigrants in the 1950s were mainly from Hong Kong and Southeast Asian countries, such as Malaysia and Singapore. The White Australia policy was finally

dismantled in 1973 after 25 years of constant effort. The end of this policy ushered in multicultural policies, including adoption of the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975, enacted by the Whitlam Government.

From the 1970s to early 1980s, most Chinese immigrants were from Hong Kong,

Malaysia, Singapore, Timor, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Cantonese, Hokkien,

Teochew, Hakka and Hainanese were widely spoken within the Chinese communities

(Jones, 2001, p. 218). The 1970s marked the beginning of Australia’s ‘accepting’ attitudes to multilingualism (Clyne, 1991a, p. 24). Although English was still promoted (Clyne,

1991a, p. 25; Lo Bianco, 2003, p. 21), minority languages were respected and formal education in LOTE was advanced. The federal government started providing these ethnic schools with financial support from 1981 (Smith et al., 1993, p. 116) under the Galbally

Report.

From 1984 to 1996, a total of 75,480 Hong Kong–born Chinese arrived; most were professionals and entrepreneurs admitted under the skilled immigration programme

(Mak, 2001, p. 221). From 1981 to 1990, the number of immigrants from Taiwan was approximately 5,500, and this increased to 19,500 by the mid-1990s (Jones, 2001, p. 218).

However, it was not until the 1980s, when student migration expanded, that the number of Mandarin-speaking Chinese started to increase. China’s adoption of ‘reform and opening up policy’ and the Tiananmen Square protests were the major driving forces of migration during this period (Smith et al., 1993, p. 122).

Australia adopted its first national language policy—the National Policy on

Languages written by Joseph Lo Bianco in 1986 on behalf of the Hawke Government— in 1987. It was a standalone and comprehensive official language policy. Following the introduction of the policy, enrolment in Mandarin at primary schools rose sharply for the first time in Australia’s educational history despite the long history of Chinese as a community language in the country (Djité, 1994, p. 112). Since the 1990s, China has

become one of the top three immigrant-exporting countries to Australia along with the

United Kingdom and New Zealand. Chinese Australians who were born in China doubled between Census 1986 and Census 1991 and grew by 40 per cent to 111,000 people by the end of 1996 (Jones, 2001, p. 219). Beijing and Shanghai replaced the southern provinces of China, such as Guangdong and Fujian, as the main places of origin of immigrants

(Jones, 2001, p. 219).

As mentioned in the Section 1.1, Australia’s latest census (Australian Bureau of

Statistics, 2017) shows that people born in China still constitute the third largest overseas- born population, and Mandarin (2.7 per cent of the total Australian population) has become the most spoken community language, followed by Arabic (1.5 per cent),

Cantonese (1.3 per cent), Vietnamese (1.3 per cent), Italian (1.2 per cent) and Greek (1.1 per cent). From the 1990s to the present, Australia’s language policies have demonstrated a restrictive ideology in which the values of languages and communities were subordinated to instrumental and economic motivations and language polices were considered a tool to achieve national trade or security goals (Lo Bianco, 2001). In the case of Chinese, learning the language is considered a national interest for Australia’s economic prosperity and security concerns, for example, as shown in the subheading of the news report ‘Australians are too lazy to master Chinese’ (see Figure 1.1).

The Chinese Australian diaspora is highly diversified. The history of Australian

Chinese is a history of dynamics between the Chinese and the Australian society and people. Different waves of Chinese immigration into Australia are characterised not only by people’s different countries of origins, different Chinese languages and different economic and professional statuses, but also Australia’s changing attitudes towards

Chinese migrants and multiculturalism.

From the above review, it is clear that Chinese migration to Australia has been

‘pushed’ by both environmental conditions and sociopolitical circumstances of the source

country and ‘pulled’ by the potential for wealth and a better life in Australia. On 26

January 2018, the Prime Minster of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, in his Australia Day speech, stated ‘each one began with an arrival on our shores, hope buoyed by optimism that a new life would be built in this new home’ (Seneviratne, 2018). This statement captured the sentiment underlying the motive for transnational Chinese migration¾a hope that is powerful but ‘imagined’ in nature. Meanwhile, a great possibility existed of

‘returning’ to the home country. The mechanism governing the connection between the source country and the host country should be further examined in the current study under the ever-changing contexts.

Historically, the Chinese have experienced widespread discrimination in Australia enforced by a series of official discrimination Acts. During the process, ‘language’ was employed to exclude people in a dramatic and disastrous manner, as observed in its use in the Dictation Test. Conversely, Chinese Australians have been deeply influenced by

Australia’s movement for equal rights. ‘Multiculturalism’, officially introduced since the

1970s, has legitimised the community language status of the Chinese language.

Accordingly, the previous discriminatory xenophobic sentiments among Australians towards Chinese population, their languages and cultures were challenged. CLSs are supported through government funding. This movement ushered in a new era of Chinese living in Australia.

However, it is still very necessary to examine Chinese Australians’ experience of racism because ‘ethnic and race-based discrimination’ is closely related to migrants’

‘mental health and wellbeing’ (Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, 2008, p. 1). As discussed in Section 1.1, the Chinese community considered the controversy or issue about the interface between children of Chinese background and Anglo-Australian children who learn Mandarin to be an ethnic and race-based matter, rather than a simple

‘language’-based issue as many people may have claimed.

From the Gold Rush period onwards, ‘Chinese’ refers to various varieties of the

Chinese language. Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew have a longer history as community languages in Australia, compared with Mandarin. Chinese of Guangdong and Fujian origins constituted a large cohort of early immigrants, while people of Beijing and

Shanghai were considered newcomers, and the former account for a substantial proportion of Australia’s Chinese population. Thus, it is critical to represent experiences and languages of Chinese transnationals of different migration phases in the present study to understand the complexity surrounding Australia’s Chinese people and their languages.

1.2.2 Chinese community languages schools

In Australia, the Chinese language is a ‘community’ language, although it can be taught as a ‘foreign’ language. The generation of the term ‘community language’ corresponds to the emergence and increase of multiculturalism as a part of the Australian identity in the 1970s. According to Clyne (1991a, p. 3):

This term [community languages] has been used in Australia since about 1975 to denote LOTE and Aboriginal languages employed within the Australian community. It legitimises their continuing existence as part of Australian society.

This means community languages are actively being used on a daily basis in

Australia. Conversely, in regard to ‘foreign’ languages, as in foreign language education, it is assumed that speakers of the target language live in a foreign country and the language does not necessarily have a real presence in learners’ everyday life. The distinction between ‘community’ and ‘foreign’ is necessary, not only because it reflects

Australia’s ethnolinguistic diversity but because it would have pedagogical and sociological implications (Lo Bianco & Slaughter, 2009). For example, when learning a

Chinese language, learners could make use of the existing linguistic and cultural resources in the local Chinese community, rather than solely rely on teachers’ classroom input.

This status of Chinese as a community language and its implications for language education are also acknowledged by the stakeholders of The Chinese School (TCS). As

School Leader 1 (SL1) said,

As I mentioned before, ‘Is Chinese a foreign language [in Australia]?’ Chinese is our ethnic language, and it is also an asset to Australia. Australia has such a strong Chinese community, right? It is Australia’s asset, not a burden.

The clear-cut dichotomy between language maintenance among Chinese- background children and second language learning among Anglo-Australian children (see

Section 1.1) is an exact manifestation of treating Chinese as a ‘foreign’, as opposed to

‘community’, language. Thus far, we observe that Chinese education in the mainstream

Australian schools adopts a strictly foreign language approach, whereas the complementary community-based education adopts a community language approach.

The two approaches to the Chinese language should not have been polarised.

First, defining Chinese as a ‘community’ language can help legitimise and reinforce the local Chinese community’s Australian identity, which the researcher, throughout the ethnographic fieldwork, found crucial to the sense of belonging and wellbeing of parents and children. Second, an explicit acknowledgement of Chinese as a community language is a starting point for taking advantage of the Australian Chinese diaspora’s linguistic and cultural resources, which would ultimately contribute to

Australia. As SL1 said, the Chinese language is ‘Australia’s asset’. In 2016, the Australian

Council of Learned Academies published a report entitled ‘Australia’s diaspora advantage: Realising the potential for building transnational business networks with Asia’, which focuses specifically on the Indian and the Chinese business communities in

Australia (Rizvi, Louie & Evans, 2016). The report considers ‘language skills, cultural knowledge and global networks’ a ‘diaspora advantage’ in the business context (Rizvi et al., 2016, p. 9).

By contrast, the ‘diaspora advantage’ is yet to be valued in the context of

Australia’s Chinese language education. As a reminder, the news report ‘Australians are too lazy to master Chinese’ (see Figure 1.1) explicitly states that ‘relying on the language capabilities of Asian-Australians for all of Australia’s relationships and engagement will not be adequate’. The language advantage of Chinese Australians is viewed as a problem.

Therefore, it is worth addressing this perception.

Another distinction to be made is related to the term ‘heritage language’, which is widely employed in the North American context to refer to languages other than the dominant ones of the society. The use of ‘heritage’ implies language users’ connection with their ancestry, and it is historical in nature. The vitality of the language in modern days and ongoing dynamic language development per se are unfortunately not indicated through the term ‘heritage’. Conversely, community language is still alive and active in the present and it is part of a community—thus, it is part of an ecology of language.

Directly linked with community language is the notion of community language education, which is grassroots language planning, and such education has always been initiated by immigrant Chinese parents. According to the Department of Education and

Training Victoria (2018):

Community language schools (CLS) enable students to maintain their mother tongue or heritage language. A community language is defined as a language used on a daily basis by members of a cultural or linguistic group resident in Victoria to communicate with family members and within their own community.

Community language schools were previously known as after-hours ethnic schools. They provide languages education programs, that are complementary to those provided by mainstream schools and the Victorian School of Languages, to students from Prep to Year 12 (depending on the language) outside mainstream school hours, i.e., after school or on weekends.

As of 2018, there are around 1,400 CLSs in Australia (Community Languages

Australia, 2018), and more than 200 in Victoria, covering 55 languages (Ethnic Schools

Association of Victoria, 2018b). Specifically, 27 Chinese schools are registered as CLSs in Victoria as of 2018. Of these, 15 have established their own websites, from which key

information about school history, programmes and other useful resources can be obtained.

The following description will provide a general picture of Chinese schools from synthesising online information about the 15 individual schools.

The majority of Chinese CLSs in Victoria are not-for-profit institutions and aim to maintain and promote Chinese language and culture among Chinese-background speakers. Moreover, these CLSs can be further categorised according to the particular interest that each school represents within the Chinese community. Some of the 27 schools are affiliated with various Chinese societies of Australia, some were founded as missionary activities, while others are independent language-specialised schools. While most were established by migrants from Mainland China, others were created by people from Hong Kong, Taiwan or other regions of Southeast Asia.

All these different interest groups, with their different ideological beliefs and traditional cultures within the broader Chinese community, make the teaching of Chinese as a community language complex and dynamic. The different factors must influence

‘what to teach’ and ‘how to teach’ in a CLS. For example, the choice of ‘simplified characters’ or ‘traditional characters’, the adoption of the ‘Pinyin system’ or the ‘Zhuyin system’, the use of ‘Mandarin’ or ‘Cantonese’ as the language of instruction and the selection of textbooks can all become planning issues during the process of language education and vary across different schools.

Overall, Chinese community schools were established between the 1970s and

1990s. The size of each school differs substantially. The largest has around 5,000 students distributed across various campuses in Victoria. Mandarin is taught in about 24 of these

Chinese schools, and even those schools that mainly offer Cantonese programmes provide a certain amount of time (20 to 30 minutes) for teaching Mandarin. Schools with a large student population typically offer more types of programmes designed for learners from

Preparatory Year up to VCE level (Years 11 and 12).

Chinese CLSs offer language programmes together with Chinese culture–related courses and/or the subjects of mainstream schools. For language programmes, students are assigned to different types of language classes according to their age and proficiency levels. Before Year 1, early learning and preparatory programmes are available to children. Those programmes tend to motivate them to learn Chinese through various interactive activities. From Year 1 to around Year 9, more academically oriented language programmes focused on improving learners’ Chinese listening, speaking, reading and writing skills are offered. After this stage, students are encouraged to attend VCE-focused training programmes, which is the final year level of learning Chinese in CLSs.

In addition to language programmes, courses such as Chinese calligraphy, dance and other Chinese culture–related sessions are taught in some schools. Further, subjects like Mathematics and English language are taught in some community schools. In summary, Chinese is both a community and foreign language in Australia. However, by imposing a sharp dichotomy between the two approaches to Chinese education, a controversy has been created over the legitimacy of Chinese leaners (i.e., Chinese- background community language learners versus second language Anglo-Australian learners, as introduced in Section 1.1).

While discourses in the education context want to problematise the value of

Chinese-speaking Australians, as shown in media representations, others, such as the diaspora research in the business context, actually actively value the unique position of the diaspora community in mediating between Australia and China. Therefore, at least for the sake of providing a fair and balanced perspective, it is important to pay heed to the voices of Chinese-speaking Australians, especially, Chinese-speaking young people.

Taking more of a community language approach to Chinese, the present study aims to challenge mainstream society’s simplistic view of children from Chinese-speaking families by examining multilingual Chinese Australian families’ experiences. These

experiences are the collective story of efforts by the community and individual families to maintain the Chinese language in Australia.

This study includes one Chinese CLS (given the pseudonym of TCS in the thesis) in Victoria and three individual families with children who were in Junior Year

(preparatory), Upper Primary (Year 6), Junior Secondary (Year 7) and Senior Secondary

(Year 11) as multiple cases. The three Chinese families have different places of origin, arrival times and Chinese language backgrounds, through which the heterogeneity of

Chinese Australian families is expected to be reflected.

1.3 Research Questions

The present research intends to address three research questions with different points of reference (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Research Questions

Question Point of Question Chapter Reference 1 Mandarin How do transnational Chinese Mainly in Chapter families engage in Chinese language 4; partly in planning in the community school and Chapter 6 in the home? (Sections 6.1.1, 6.2.1 and 6.3.1) 2 ‘Chinese What language(s) do they use at Mainly in Chapter dialects’ home? What do the languages mean to 5 the families? How do they talk about the language decisions they make? 3 An emphasis What are the perceptions and Mainly in Chapter on children’s experiences of the children (from their 6; partly in experiences own perspective as well as that of Chapter 4 (Section their parents) in relation to Chinese 4.3) language learning and their identities?

1.4 The Researcher

Many applied linguists themselves began their careers through transnational (or translocal – involving mobility within multilingual or multi-ethnic countries) experiences at home or abroad. Their theoretical orientation to language learning and use, as well as identity, often reflects those experiences and histories. (Duff, 2015, p. 60)

My own translocal and transnational experience has heavily shaped my own language attitudes, uses and identities, which, in turn, have influenced the conduct of the present research. The following narrative serves the purpose of situating myself in this study and also provides a base on which readers can make their own judgements and interpretations of the findings and stories of research participants. Further, key theoretical constructs that appear in my story anticipate some aspects of the experiences of the three families participating in this research. Regardless of our geographic location, as human beings, on a daily basis, we experience ‘multilingualism’, in which we deal with constructs such as mobility, language ideologies, language uses and other social factors that help to define who we are.

1.4.1 Childhood translocal multilingual experiences

I was born in 1985 in Pianguan, a small country town in Northern China under the administration of a city called Xinzhou in Shanxi province. Deciding to make a better life for our family, my father migrated to Xinzhou City, and my mother followed him later.

My father’s initial intention to move out of the country town¾‘for a better life’¾has always been a powerful driving force that motivates Chinese people’s translocal and transnational living and moving.

I remained with my grandparents in Pianguan until I was 9 months old before joining my parents. I have a sister who was born in 1990, five years after me. During 1992 to 1993, she lived with my grandparents in Pianguan before settling back in Xinzhou with our family¾this is the most prominent reason why, currently, she speaks the Pianguan dialect while I cannot. This shows that different lived experiences of early childhood life can largely foster different language competences among siblings. Specifically, my grandparents played a major role in my sister’s maintenance of the Pianguan dialect.

During my time living in Xinzhou, my family always returned to Pianguan for

Chinese New Year, together with my cousins who lived in different parts of the province.

I clearly remember that I liked talking a lot, especially when my cousins and I were walking down the street in Pianguan. This is because by speaking Putonghua we could draw much attention from other local children and adults, which made me feel very special. However, although I grew up in Xinzhou I had never associated myself with being a Xinzhou person, because I could not speak the local language (i.e., Xinzhou dialect), but most importantly, because I believed the Xinzhou dialect sounded rough and uncivilised.

As a Putonghua-speaking Pianguan background child, my early experiences show that even children at a young age are able to develop a clear sense of language attitudes and identities. In my case, Putonghua was absolutely the prestigious language variety, whereas the Xinzhou dialect was not valued. The place where I grew up did not ensure my emotional affiliation with it. Instead, the close social networks with my extended family of Pianguan origin and frequent return trips to Pianguan contributed enormously to the construction of my Pianguan identity. Therefore, I continue to believe that Pianguan is my hometown, although I only have receptive use of Pianguan dialect at home. This complex nonlinear relation between children’s identity, language use and attitudes, birthplace, hometown identification, place where children grew up, family social networks and return trips needs to be examined in the current study.

1.4.2 Education and professional background

A more self-conscious awareness of language use and attitudes, and the ways in which these influenced personal identities, developed with my experience of higher education, an experience of travelling within and across borders. This experience of higher education has continued to shape who I am as I pursue my PhD. In one way or another, all of my tertiary education and professional background is related to ‘language’.

I studied for a Bachelor of Arts in English language in Jiangxi province of

Southern China from 2004–2008. Then, I was admitted to a Master’s in Radio and

Television Language Communication (The Practice of Broadcasting and Hosting) in

Beijing in 2008. Next, I worked briefly as a news presenter for a local television in suburban Shanghai in 2010. These experiences of engaging with the mainstream Chinese media greatly influenced my perspectives on language issues regarding China’s sociolinguistic reality. In the present study, self-reflection and data interpretation that draws on these experiences are explicitly pointed out.

At the end of 2010, I left for England to prepare for a better future. From there, I joined the millions of Chinese people who travel across the globe. I studied for a Master’s degree in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL). During my two-year stay in

England, I worked part time as a Mandarin teacher in a complementary Chinese school focusing on teaching Mandarin to British-born Chinese children on Saturdays. My research interest in Chinese as a community language originated during this period and resulted in my Master’s dissertation, a qualitative case study project entitled ‘Teachers’

Beliefs and Practices in Young Chinese Heritage Language Learner’s Classrooms’.

Eventually, this research interest led me to perform this PhD research.

1.5 Thesis Structure

This thesis considers multilingual Australian Chinese families’ experiences in an era characterised by super-diversity, transnationalism and globalisation. It comprises seven chapters.

Chapter 1 has provided the context of the study. Through elaboration of the decade-long controversy over Chinese education in the Australian society, it showed that

Australian-born Chinese children are stereotyped and problematised in the mainstream.

A formal representation is not available of voices of Chinese-background children and their families regarding their experiences of engaging with the ‘Chinese language’, which represents a far more complex sociolinguistic reality than the mainstream would have assumed, as shown in the debate. This chapter has presented this problem and the present

study’s intention to explore it. Then, a brief history of Chinese migration to Australia and an overview of Chinese CLSs in Victoria were introduced before outlining the research questions. The researcher’s background was also introduced.

Chapter 2 reviews critical theoretical concepts and relevant literature for this study.

This chapter situates the study in the field of family language policy/planning (FLP) as an extension of language policy and planning (LPP) studies, which has a strong theoretical basis in sociolinguistics. Therefore, concepts such as language ecology, LPP and FLP are examined. In addition, recent FLP studies that directly inform the current study are extensively reviewed. The review of FLP is organised thematically according to three themes—dynamics between the broader society and family language; experiences of parents, grandparents and communities; and children’s multilingual experiences.

Chapter 3 outlines the research methodology. The philosophical underpinning of the current qualitative research is outlined. Then, the ethnographic multiple-case study approach is justified, followed by the detailing of this thesis’s ‘cases’¾one Chinese CLS, including its key informants, and three individual Australian Chinese families. Next, the data collection, analysis and ethical considerations are explained.

Chapters 4–6 present the research findings. Chapter 4 answers the first research question with a focus on ‘Mandarin’. Chapter 5 deals with the second research question on ‘regional languages’. Chapter 6 is devoted to exploring experiences of children.

Chapter 7 presents and discusses the key findings of the study, its theoretical and practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future work.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The present study of Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences is approached via a series of sociolinguistic constructs. In particular, the study is framed under the inquiry of FLP which is developed from the LPP field. LPP, as a sociolinguistic concept, is informed by the general research interests and other key theoretical concepts in sociolinguistics. For this reason, this chapter starts with a brief review of sociolinguistics, from its historical origin to the various types that feature different research foci (Section 2.1). The chapter then proceeds to the sociolinguistic notion of language ecology (Section 2.2) and a review of the LPP field (Section 2.3). The shifts in

LPP understandings in academia are examined, followed by an analysis of the nature of

Chinese language. Next, FLP (Section 2.4) is given due weight in subsequent review, from the conceptualisation of critical terms to the examination of related FLP studies across diverse sociolinguistic settings worldwide. This chapter summary also presents the ways in which the research questions are informed by the literature (Section 2.5).

2.1 Introduction

Sociolinguistics explores the relationship between language and society, specifically between ‘language use and social structure’ (Coulmas, 1997, p. 1). The field of sociolinguistics originated against the backdrop of the inability of linguistic theories at the time to explain the phenomenon of multilingualism. Questions dealing with functional roles of languages are similar to questions that social scientists, rather than linguists, would consider (Hymes, 1967, p. 10). However, at least during that period in academia, social scientists were unable to answer such questions owing to insufficient linguistic training. Conversely, linguists were exclusively interested in the investigation of linguistic structure of speech as opposed to its social and functional roles (Hymes, 1967, p. 10). That is, studies on the interaction between language and social context, which

focus on the social aspects of language, did not fit into linguistic research as it was then understood. Eventually, sociolinguistics began to emerge as a distinctive discipline to examine language-related issues traditionally researched by anthropologists.

From a sociolinguistic perspective, language is considered an index of a speaker’s social and individual background information, such as ‘social class, status, region of origin, gender, and age group’ (Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert & Leap, 2009, p. 6). The indexical facets of language relate to particular characteristics of speech, for example, accent, from which a speaker’s ‘social group (or background)’ could be signified.

Moreover, the characteristics are brought about by the speaker’s lifestyle permitting a certain degree of consistency (Mesthrie et al., 2009, p. 6).

Given the ‘language as a social and cultural phenomenon’ perspective (Trudgill,

2000, p. 21), sociolinguistics covers issues of language and society at the macro- and micro-levels. The categorisation of macro and microsociolinguistics is described as the linguistic dimensions of society and social dimensions of language respectively:

Stated in very general terms, micro-sociolinguistics investigates how social structure influences the way people talk and how language varieties and patterns of use correlate with social attributes such as class, sex, and age. Macro-sociolinguistics, on the other hand, studies what societies do with their languages, that is, attitudes and attachments that account for the functional distribution of speech forms in society, language shift, maintenance, and replacement, the delimitation and interaction of speech communities. (Coulmas, 1997, p. 2)

From this explanation, we can observe that macrosociolinguistics focuses on the society from the viewpoint of language while microsociolinguistics pays more attention to language. Key topics of macrosociolinguistics include code-switching, bilingualism and multilingualism, language spread and shift and maintenance, language and identity, language planning, ‘writing as a communication mode’ and language choice (Coulmas,

2013). Major concerns of microsociolinguistics are language and social class, language and gender, language and age, language variation and change, and politeness (Coulmas,

2013).

Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences, the subject of the present research, consist of real-life stories that concern people’s use of multiple Chinese varieties and English, language attitudes, language maintenance activities and individuals’ identities in Australia. These research foci highlight social and cultural features of language which are the essential concern of sociolinguistics, especially that of macrosociolinguistics. As a result, sociolinguistics theories are employed as parameters for this study. Sections 2.2 and 2.3 propose a theoretical framework for understanding

Australian Chinese multilingual families’ experiences alongside the literature review.

Interpretation of the experiences first requires revisiting the concept of language ecology (Haugen, 1972) which situates language in sociopolitical, sociocultural and socio-economic contexts. It further enriches social dimensions of language and establishes strong connections among various languages in the society and in the linguistic repertoire of individuals. This concept makes an analysis of the dynamics of various social factors, language policy and FLP possible in subsequent chapters. This is discussed in Section 2.2.

The action-oriented characteristic of the ecological approach leads to an inclusion of LPP theory as a central concept in the framework in this thesis. Traditional public documents–focused LPP research will be extended to the language practice–focused approach to reflect the reality of linguistic diversity and multilingualism. This conceptual extension is significant, especially in the era of globalisation in which the mobility of people has increased and languages and cultures constantly transcend national borders.

In addition, the sociolinguistics of Chinese is briefly outlined introduced in Section 2.3 and is combined with Lo Bianco’s (2007) Chinese language planning framework.

FLP is structured within the concept of LPP to transcend traditionally heavily focused domains, such as nation-state and government, as the locus of LPP studies into people’s homes. Accordingly, the recent literature on FLP is reviewed and organised in

accordance with ‘ecological dynamic contexts’ and ‘language planners’ (i.e., parents, grandparents and children). The review of FLP studies not only contextualises the present research but yields significant insights into FLP mechanisms and other aspects of multilingual encounters, which are further developed in Chapters 4–6. The discussion on

FLP is presented in Section 2.4.

By employing these theories, data on Chinese Australian multilingual families’ experiences can be assembled in a guided manner and then unpacked properly with the potential to generate new knowledge in response to the three research questions (see Table

1.1).

2.2 Language Ecology

The Norwegian American scholar Einar Haugen (1972) introduced the term

‘language ecology’ in the 1970s by imparting a metaphorical use of the biological term

‘ecology’ which vividly shows language’s intrinsic connection with society. In this conceptualisation, society is considered the genuine environment of a language. The concept has brought the central research concern of sociolinguistics into focus:

Language ecology may be defined as the study of interactions between any given language and its environment…The true environment of a language is the society that uses it as one of its codes. Language exists only in the minds of its users, and it only functions in relating these users to one another and to nature, i.e., their social and natural environment. Part of its ecology is therefore psychological: its interaction with other languages in the minds of bi- and multilingual speakers. Another part of its ecology is sociological: its interaction with the society in which it functions as a medium of communication. The ecology of a language is determined primarily by the people who learn it, use it, and transmit it to others. (Haugen, 1972, p. 325)

We can note from Haugen’s (1972) above definition that language is no longer treated as an inanimate entity that is composed of ‘cold’ linguistic symbols. Instead, it interacts with both the natural environment and the social world through its contact with other language users. Ever since, ‘language ecology’ has gradually developed to attend to a range of issues of ‘social, educational, historical and developmental’ nature (Ansaldo

& Lim, 2017, p. 1). For example, Hornberger (2002, p. 33) further elaborates the ‘living’

and ‘changing’ character of language: ‘languages, like living species, evolve, grow, change, live and die in relation to other languages and also in relation to their environment’. That is, from the ecological perspective, language is by no means a static and monolithic code system.

This concept is also strongly aligned with the world’s multilingual reality and its language users. To understand this reality, we need to analyse two dimensions of the ecology: languages as the medium of social interaction and individual multilingual speakers’ management of different languages. That is, an ecological approach to multilingual experiences requires examinations of language choice at both societal and interpersonal levels. Moreover, the specification of determinants or stakeholders of a language ecosystem—speakers, learners and those who transmit languages, for example, parents or teachers—provides the current study with more focused units of analysis for understanding multilingualism in a transnational context.

To specifically investigate an ecology of a given language, Haugen (1972, pp.

336–337) proposed 10 interdisciplinary questions. If these questions are applied to

Australia’s Chinese community language, the following aspects can be generated, constituting an ecological model for the current inquiry:

1. the ‘classification’ of the Chinese language along with other languages in

Australia, including English (see Section 1.2 for the status of Chinese as a

community language)

2. the ‘users’ of Chinese classified by their demographic location, social class,

religion or any other features (see Section 1.2)

3. the ‘domains’ of Chinese use and whether such use is free from constraints (see

Chapters 4–6)

4. the concurrent languages used by Chinese speakers (see Chapter 5)

5. the ‘internal varieties’ of the Chinese language, including its regional, social and

contactual dialects (see Chapters 4 and 5)

6. the nature of Chinese ‘written traditions’—written languages and their connection

with speech (see Section 2.3.2)

7. the issues of language standardisation (see Section 2.3.2 and Chapter 4)

8. the ‘institutional support’ that the Chinese language has received (see Section

1.2.2 and Chapter 4)

9. Chinese users’ language ‘attitudes’ and their correlation with users’ identities

(Chapters 4–6)

10. the positioning of the Chinese language in relation to other languages in an

ecological classification system.

Haugen (1972, p. 336) specified these ecological aspects of language being studied across the disciplines of linguistic demography, sociolinguistics, dialinguistics, dialectology, philology, prescriptive linguistics, glottopolitics and ethnolinguistics.

Although there certainly exist overlaps between these fields of either macro- or micro- focus, the interdisciplinary quality of the ecological approach to language has been explicit.

The present study approaches the aforementioned aspects from a more ethnographic sociolinguistic stance, and it aims to show how these aspects play out within

Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences. Thus far, we have revisited and revealed the nature of the ecological perspective on languages. It should be emphasised that this theoretical perspective needs to be applied to practical sociolinguistic issues in the real world. In his book, Linguistic ecology, which examines the politics of language,

Mühlhäusler (1996, p. 2) points out that the ecological approach to language is ‘action- oriented’. In other words, linguists should not only engage with theoretical ‘linguistic

games’ but also ‘nonlinguistic issues’ relating to language diversity and multilingualism, for example, ‘language maintenance and shift’ (Fishman, 1991; Pauwels, 2016).

Similarly, Hornberger (2002, p. 33) calls for scholarly actions to counteract language loss and synthesises language ecology into three themes: language evolution, language environment and language endangerment. Specifically, language evolution refers to different languages coexisting and developing in an ecosystem; language environment is the context in which languages ‘interact with their sociopolitical, economic, and cultural environments’; and language endangerment is the situation when languages are threatened with extinction owing to insufficient environmental support

(Hornberger, 2002, pp. 35–36). Although Hornberger’s interpretation and development of language ecology has a more societal focus, these three themes can, and should, be applied at the interpersonal level (see Figure 2.1). By bringing Hornberger’s (2002) theorisation into the construction of an analytical framework, it is expected to highlight the ‘language shift’ issues among Chinese community language speakers and the action- oriented character of this thesis.

In the current research context, ‘language endangerment’ sets the tone for the entire study and acts as an alert for the decreasing competence of Chinese community languages among children of Generation 1.5 or 2, although, in a general sense, the

Chinese language per se is not endangered, depending on ‘which Chinese language is referred’ (i.e., Mandarin or other Chinese varieties). Such an alert is also a driving force for community-based language planning, or purely family language planning, to reverse language shift.

Further, ‘environments’ are domains where social factors originate, and they involve multilayered national and institutional spheres of research concern. For instance, the ‘environment’ of Australia’s Chinese language includes, but is not limited to, overlapping domains of the nation-states of Australia and China and other Chinese-

speaking countries and regions, Australia’s Chinese language providers (educational institutions) and Australia’s Chinese users’ homes. When ‘language environment’ is being explored, social forces interacting with language require careful examination.

Given the diversity of Australia’s linguistic resources, ‘language evolution’ appears to be complex, represented in both societal and institutional dynamics between various languages and individual’s choices of different linguistic codes. This evolutional aspect of language ecology (Hornberger, 2002) is advanced based on the sociological and psychological dimensions of language as described in Haugen’s (1972) original conceptualisation. Particularly, at an interpersonal level, ‘language evolution’ in the current study is reflected by the interactive coexistence of Chinese speakers’ multiple languages in their repertoire, and their translingual practices.

Therefore, taking an action-oriented stance to provide evidence concerning

Chinese community languages in Australia, the researcher developed a working ecological framework for the Chinese language (see Figure 2.1) on the basis of Haugen

(1972) and Hornberger (2002).

Figure 2.1. Working theoretical framework for the ecology of Chinese with ellipsis referring to any other possible language, or language variety or domain.

Owing to the essential role of individual speakers in determining language ecology, Chinese Australian children’s linguistic repertoire is placed at the centre of the diagram. A person’s linguistic repertoire contains their available languages and varieties of the language with different degrees of proficiency and also involves different competence types (Martyniuk & Sheils, 2012). Moreover, in the repertoire different languages and language varieties of a same language according to different domains are embedded. For example, a speaker of Chinese heritage in Australia may speak Mandarin, other Chinese varieties and/or English of different styles, conforming to requirements of each ‘domain’, which is defined by locations, participants and topics (Fishman, 1972). In

Figure 2.1, outside the linguistic repertoire are domains that could contribute towards the ultimate language abilities or linguistic repertoire of a Chinese community language user.

Major possible domains are homes, CLSs, mainstream day schools and countries of origin.

Within the language ecological system, a change of a linguistic or nonlinguistic variable may cause a change of another because of the interactive and dynamic character of the system.

By adopting the ecological approach with a focus on the issue of ‘language maintenance and shift’, it is possible to investigate Australia’s Chinese language which exists in language users’ linguistic repertoire, in its sociopolitical, socio-economic and sociocultural contexts. In the contexts, both societal and interpersonal focal points have been identified according to the linguistic ecological perspective: language classification, usage domains, varieties of a language, standardisation, institutional support, demographic features of users, the degree of users’ multilingualism, written language, language attitudes and identity. In addition, these ecological aspects of the Chinese language can be thoroughly studied through the subtheoretical lens of LPP which is also action-oriented in nature. LPP theory helps unpack the actions of participants of each domain (i.e., language planners) to contribute towards the ultimate language abilities of each individual Chinese learner. The next section focuses on a review of LPP from the field’s historical development to its recent approaches. It will enhance the complexity of the working conceptual model.

2.3 Language Policy and Planning

2.3.1 Shifts in LPP understanding: From the macro to the micro, but macrocentric

The LPP construct was developed with the emergence of LPP as a discipline during the 1960s, although language planning practices started much before this period.

After the Second World War, linguists were engaged in a process of solving language problems in recently independent countries. The term ‘language planning’ was employed to describe such efforts made by them, and ‘language policy’, in a narrow or historical sense—‘an officially mandated set of rules for language use and form within a nation-

state’—was considered the outcome of ‘planning’ (Spolsky, 2012, p. 3). This may roughly outline the still-controversial relationship between these two closely related components contained in the term LPP: policy and planning.

The whole field was originally named ‘language planning’, as proposed by

Haugen, in 1959. Since the 1990s, the combined expression of ‘language policy and planning’ is commonly used to refer to the field (Hornberger, 2006, p. 24). Therefore, this is also the stance of the present study which should contribute to general conversations of LPP. The following sections review the development of the field by tracing shifts in understandings of ‘language planning’ and ‘language policy’ and especially the manner in which the present study incorporates these terms into its conceptual framework.

2.3.1.1 Language planning

‘Language planning’ in the early scholarship of the field exclusively concentrates on the planning of linguistic forms, for example, ‘orthography’ or ‘grammar’, to achieve the standardisation of a language in a ‘non-homogeneous speech community’ (Haugen,

1959, p. 8). Such a focus is later defined as ‘corpus planning’ in the literature (Kloss,

1969). Linguists are major actors in this early conception of language planning.

The 1970s were characterised by the phase of what Ricento (2000, p. 206) has called ‘classic language planning’. Language planning activities were conducted as government initiatives for the prosperity of the whole of society (Jernudd & Nekvapil,

2012, p. 26). During this phase, ‘language planning’ consisted of intentional changes in the ‘language code’ (linguistic forms) and in ‘speaking’ (language use) (Rubin & Jernudd,

1971, p. xvi). Government organisations were supposed to be key actors in planning.

Cooper (1989, p. 45) further described language planning as follows:

Language planning refers to deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure or functional allocation of their language codes.

This was the first time that ‘acquisition’ was incorporated in planning. In addition, we can observe that linguistic structures are assigned functions; this type of planning is called ‘status planning’ by Kloss (1969). However, the language planning actors in

Cooper’s definition are not obvious. Generally, ‘status planning’ and ‘corpus planning’ are initiatives at the national level, while ‘acquisition planning’ can be, but has not always been, carried out by the government through formal schooling. For instance, as complementary education providers, CLSs are essential settings where children of diverse linguistic and cultural background ‘maintain their mother tongue or heritage language’

(Department of Education and Training Victoria, 2018).

Based on this analysis, the present study adopts an inclusive concept of ‘language’ planning: all intended behaviours that function to modify a language itself or its use, regardless of who initiates the activities. Language planning, in the context of ‘home’, forms a significant part of families’ multilingual experiences. Based on this, ‘family’ language planning is defined in Section 2.4.1. The next section considers what language policy is in a general sense.

2.3.1.2 Language policy and key elements of LPP studies

In his recent book, Language policy, Johnson (2013) provides a comprehensive concept of language policy after critically reviewing the concept as defined by leading

LPP scholars such as Kaplan and Baldauf (1997), Schiffman (1996), Spolsky (2004),

McCarty (2011) and Tollefson (1991):

A language policy is a policy mechanism that impacts the structure, function, use, or acquisition of language and includes:

1. Official regulations – often enacted in the form of written documents, intended to effect some change in the form, function, use, or acquisition of language – which can influence economic, political, and educational opportunity;

2. Unofficial, covert, de facto, and implicit mechanisms, connected to language beliefs and practices, that have regulating power over language use and interaction within communities, workplaces, and schools;

3. Not just products but processes – “policy” as a verb, not a noun – that are driven by a diversity of language policy agents across multiple layers of policy creation, interpretation, appropriation, and instantiation;

4. Policy texts and discourses across multiple contexts and layers of policy activity, which are influenced by the ideologies and discourses unique to that context. (Johnson, 2013, p. 9)

It is clear that status planning, corpus planning and acquisition planning are included in Johnson’s (2013) conceptualisation of language policy, specifically represented by the change of language ‘function’, ‘structure’ and ‘acquisition’ respectively. In other words, the change of language itself and language use are influenced by language policy. Although the notions of language planning and language policy seem to be identical, the major distinction here rests on the intentionality of language planning while language policy can be unintentional or ‘not planned’ (Johnson, 2013, p. 3). This section presents interpretations, reviews and critiques of each language policy element.

In doing so, it is expected to capture the core of the notion. Owing to the intricate relationship between language policy and language planning, understanding the former will contribute to our understanding of the latter.

The first policy element¾‘official regulations’¾is the most commonly recognisable form of policy. Moreover, the concept links language planning (i.e., deliberate language change of linguistic forms and uses) with ‘economic, political and educational opportunity’, which is filled with social power, justice and injustice. This has also been suggested by Robert L. Cooper’s (1989) book, Language planning and social change. LPP is rarely just language policy and planning—the government uses it to achieve nonlinguistic goals, for example, to unify or divide a nation, to include or marginalise minorities and to improve or prevent communication between different ethnic groups. As an illustration, Qing Shi Huang (259 BC–210 BC) was the first Chinese emperor of a united China and his Shutongwen (书同文) (‘writing the same language’)

policy was part of his nation unification strategy to facilitate written communication between people using diverse vernaculars (Chang & Holt 2014; Wang, 2013).

The second element refers to policies of the implicit nature, that is, language policies other than official documents. Such policies derive from people’s belief system which is profoundly powerful in influencing individuals’ linguistic behaviours. Spolsky

(2004) also secures the crucial status of the belief system in his definition of language policy, considering language policy as language attitudes, language practices and language management/planning/intervention. However, Spolsky’s (2004) definition does not attend to the configuration of these three elements. Instead, the three elements are paratactic. Considering language practices¾an overarching entity that includes all linguistic behaviours¾to be ‘language policy’ reduces the defining and explanatory power of the concept. Importantly, the second element in Johnson’s (2013) definition acknowledges different domains where language policy is formed, for example,

‘communities’, ‘workplaces’ and ‘schools’. Language policy at the macro-national level expands to micro-levels across a wide range of social domains. Family LPP gains a place within such theorisation.

The third and fourth elements enrich the theory by the specification of people (i.e., language planners), processes and contexts in the course of LPP. In the current LPP field, research has been devoted to unlocking its multifaceted character through the examination of the macro and the micro, for example, studies on the LPP ‘onion’ (Ricento

& Hornberger, 1996); the ethnography of language policy (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007;

Johnson, 2009, 2011, 2013); microlanguage planning (Chua & Baldauf, 2011); and

‘Language Planning Policy’ (Lo Bianco, 2010; Lo Bianco & Aliani, 2013). Table 2.1 illustrates key factors emerging from these studies—levels, processes (including policy goals), language planners and social contexts.

Table 2.1 Key Elements of Language Policy and Planning Studies

LPP study Levels Processes Discourses/Social Language contexts planners

Ricento and National Formal policy Indicating Ö+´ Nation (e.g., Hornberger goals declaration ‘goals’, politicians) Ö: (1996) ‘values’ and discourse ‘identities’ of each ´: level competing discourse

Institutional Policy Ö+´ Institutions (e.g., interpretation programme and directors) implementation Interpersonal Ö+´ Classroom (e.g., teachers) Johnson (2009, National Creation Discourses inside policy Creators 2013) Goals: policy texts; intertextual texts discourses; discursive discourses; ‘dynamic Institutional Interpretation social, historical and Interpreters physical contexts’ Interpersonal Appropriation Appropriators Chua and Supra Country Standardised The ‘wider social and Country, Baldauf (2011) macro actions, cultural’ factors government processes, goals ministries, and texts international institutions Policy Translation Regional states, provinces Macro State

Policy Translation

Micro Provincial Personalised Local institutions, actions, large Policy Translation processes, goals communities and texts Infra Individual Small micro communities, families, individual choice Lo Bianco Official Policy intention The ‘wider social and Authoritative (2010); Lo (formal texts) political forces’ bodies Bianco and Aliani (2013) Civic Interpretation Social groups, (iterative debate) media Interpersonal Implementation Community (communicative schools, families, behaviour) teachers, students and parents

From Table 2.1, it can be observed that LPP is conducted at different societal levels and domains. There are not only national and institutional language policies but community and family policies. Each domain is a social context characterised by distinctive and competing ideologies. Each context has language planners who have different lived experiences, beliefs and attitudes. All of these LPP components are influenced by the broader social, cultural and political factors. As Spolsky (2004, pp. ix– x) states, ‘language policy exists within a complex set of social, political, economic, religious, demographic, educational and cultural factors that make up the full ecology of human life’ and ‘language and language policy need to be looked at in the widest context and not treated as a closed universe’.

Spolsky’s (2004) belief is consistent with the overall consideration of sociolinguistics and the language ecological framework established in the previous section. This ecological statement regarding the LPP field is particularly helpful for comprehending the complexities of the ‘bigger picture’ where LPP practices and research situate. In turn, micro-LPP activities can be better understood.

Although micro-levels are legitimised in the field, apart from Micro Language

Planning (Chua & Baldauf, 2011), other approaches are still macrocentric, which can be reflected by the theorisation of policy ‘processes’, because there has been an implied assumption of the existence of a national or macropolicy in the first place, followed by its interpretation and then implementation or appropriation. According to Chua and

Baldauf (2011), planning activities can occur at any administrative level without a fixed sequence. Meanwhile, all these levels are connected to some degree and can influence one another—although they are connected, community and family-based language planning are not necessarily the implementation of the macro-LPP (Chua & Baldauf,

2011, p. 938). However, a conceptualisation of grassroots LPP is lacking.

Therefore, to break down the linear link between policy creation, interpretation and implementation, in this thesis, ‘policy processes’ is replaced by the term ‘language policy/planning experiences’, which accounts for a considerable part of Chinese

Australian families’ multilingual experiences. This conceptualisation also shifts the analysis focus from ‘policy texts’ to ‘people’.

From the above analysis, it is clear that language policy studies have internalised the element of ‘planning’ and yielded critical LPP research themes, such as language planning and social (in)justice, policy domains, processes, discourses laden with beliefs and attitudes, and language planners, which contribute to the overall understanding of the policy mechanism. However, the term ‘policy’ itself, as in ‘language policy’, has an unfortunate connotation of policy as official written documents. Therefore, the present study attaches different points of emphasis to ‘policy’ and ‘planning’ and continues to develop the terms within the ‘family’ context in Chapters 4–6.

For the time being, the term ‘language planning’ is used extensively to highlight the deliberate efforts of language-regulating activities as mentioned at the end of Section

2.3.1.1, while the term ‘language policy’ is considered more ‘text’ or ‘language use rule’ based. The concept of ‘family’ language policy is framed through this line of reasoning

(see Section 2.4.1). In this thesis, critical notions such as language attitudes and practices are referred to without revising the terms, instead of by an overarching term ‘language policy’. Language attitudes are considered ‘the beliefs about language and language use’

(Spolsky, 2004, p. 5). The beliefs about specific aspects of the Chinese language and its use will be elaborated through a set of questions (see interview guidelines in Appendix

3).

According to Spolsky (2004, p. 5), language practices refer to ‘the habitual pattern of selecting among the varieties that make up its linguistic repertoire’, which in his recent work is considered the ‘real language policy’ (Spolsky, 2012, p. 5). This view of language

practice as ‘habitual pattern’ provides an analytical tool for practice analysis, but would also restrict our understanding of people’s linguistic behaviours that are either not

‘habitual’ or not patterned. For example, multilingual speakers’ language practices in effect include individualistic ‘momentary actions’ characterised by the creativity and criticality of the actions (Li Wei, 2011, p. 1224), which are transformative in nature.

Therefore, to widen the language pattern analysis to a more comprehensive scope, a broad definition of language practice may be required. In this thesis, language practices, or language use, are loosely described as individuals’ linguistic behaviours.

This thesis argues that multilingual experiences can be more thoroughly examined based on theoretical insights produced by individually defined concepts of ‘language planning’, ‘language policy’, ‘language attitudes’ and ‘language practices’ than by treating all of them as ‘language policy’. Informed by this review of LPP studies, Figure

2.2 presents an analytical framework for understanding Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences based on Figure 2.1. The framework reflects key language planners of each sociolinguistic domain and research issues of LPP concern (i.e., language planning experiences; language ideologies; language planning; social (in)justice; and sociopolitical, sociocultural and socio-economic contexts). As mentioned in Section 2.2,

Chinese Australian children’s ‘linguistic repertoire/language abilities’ is at the centre of the framework. Additionally, sociopolitical forces that influence Chinese Australian family language planning and other multilingual experiences need to be particularly included when making sense of their language attitudes and behaviours.

Figure 2.2. Analytical framework for understanding Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences with ellipsis referring to any other possible language, or language variety or domain.

The next section presents the overall and complex contexts of Chinese FLP and the theorisation of FLP.

2.3.2 Chinese language, pluricentricity and Chinese language planning

Chinese language planning cannot be conducted without first understanding the nature of the language. As Li Wei (1992, p. 44) highlighted, it is helpful to first differentiate between spoken and written Chinese. Regarding its spoken form, the seemingly simple term ‘Chinese language’ is rather complicated and can be classified into at least seven subgroups—Mandarin, Wu, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, Cantonese and Min

(Norman, 1988, p. 181). It is important to note that ‘Mandarin’ within this categorisation refers to a group of Northern Chinese regional languages that are labelled Beifanghua (北

方话) (‘northern speech’) in modern Chinese, and Mandarin is by no means a single language variety.

Not all of these seven Chinese varieties are mutually intelligible, whereas the written form of Chinese has been through ‘an uninterrupted history’ of more than 3,000 years and people who speak different Chinese varieties ‘share the same written form’

(Bradley, 1991, p. 305). For this reason the unification of Chinese writing¾Shutongwen, as mentioned in Section 2.3.1—is generally considered one of the major contributions of the first Chinese emperor. However, as assumed from a language evolutionary perspective, written Chinese has undergone a dramatic change over time.

At present, the ‘Modern Standard Chinese’, ‘Modern Standard Mandarin’ or simply ‘Mandarin’ is a product of official language planning across multiple Chinese- speaking communities. There exist ‘polycentric norms of correctness’ for the Chinese language (Lo Bianco, 2007, p. 5), that is, the notion of ‘standard Chinese’ or ‘standard

Mandarin’ varies.

Different varieties of Mandarin have been developed: Mainland China’s

Putonghua (普通话) (literally, ‘common speech’), together with its phonetic system

Pinyin ( 拼音) (literally, ‘spelling sound’) and writing scripts Jiantizi ( 简体字)

(‘simplified characters’); Taiwan’s Guoyu (国语) (literally ‘national language’) along with its official transliteration system Bopomofo and Zhengtizi (正体字) (‘traditional characters’); and Singapore’s and other Southeast Asian communities’ Huayu (华语)

(literally, ‘Chinese speech’) and Jiantizi. These Mandarin varieties differ in relation to

‘lexis, phonetics, and discourse norms’ (He, 2008, p. 3). All these dimensions of

‘Mandarin’ have added to the diversity of the language, complexity and contested nature of Chinese language planning, especially when learners of modern Chinese are from families speaking a regional Chinese language.

In Chinese-speaking countries, regions and other communities, people refer to non-standard modern Chinese as Fangyan (方言), literally ‘regional speech’ and also translated as ‘regional language’. However, in practice, people often if not always translate Fangyan to the English word ‘dialect’, which automatically degrades the status of Chinese languages other than the modern standard variety. Therefore, we must always be mindful of the tension between speaking Fangyan and the learning of the government- standardised variety of Mandarin.

This diversity of the Chinese language, including different Mandarin variations and non-Mandarin Fangyan varieties, is formed in those various Chinese speech communities, or ‘centres’. It is reported that 1.3 billion Chinese speakers reside in

Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and worldwide Chinese diasporic communities (Li Wei & Zhu Hua, 2010, p. 155). It is the wide range of demographic and geopolitical Chinese-speaking ‘centres’ that create the ‘pluricentric’ or ‘polycentric’ nature of Chinese.

According to Clyne (1991b, p. 1):

The term pluricentric was employed by Kloss (1978 II: 66–67) to describe languages with several interacting centres, each providing a national variety with at least some of its own (codified) norms. Pluricentric languages are both unifiers and dividers of peoples. They unify people through the use of the language and separate them through the development of national norms and indices and linguistic variables with which the speakers identify.

Evidently, the difference between various national Mandarin varieties indexes the differences between national identities that Chinese speakers hold. Respective government language planning activities regulate each standardised variation of Chinese to fulfil specific political purposes (e.g., separation or unification). In other words, language planning always has ‘personal and national identity consequences’ (Lo Bianco,

2007, p. 9).

Moreover, Clyne’s (1991b) conceptualisation acknowledges the ecological interactive feature of these ‘centres’. In the current globalised world that is characterised

by ‘super-diversity’ (Vertovec, 2007, 2009), the intensity of interactions among these various ‘centres’ is increasing. That is why it is crucial to examine how these centres interact at both national and interpersonal levels, and how people negotiate their identities when planning which Mandarin variety to acquire (see Section 4.2).

In addition, as Lo Bianco (2007, p. 9) commented, Chinese language planning of all Chinese-speaking political communities is both jurisdiction and culture based. The

‘sentiments of affiliation, ownership and identification with Chinese’ originating from

‘Great Traditions’ (Fishman, 1969, 1973) or ‘national ideological identities’ (Spolsky &

Shohamy, 1999, p. 59) drive Chinese planning. This aspect requires us to examine closely how the ideology of ‘being Chinese’ or ‘Chineseness’ under the overarching ‘Great

Traditions’ functions in language planning, especially when people in the Australian

Chinese community are originally from different ‘centres’ of the language (see Section

4.4).

Overall, Chinese language planning occurs across multiple interrelated planning spheres, such as jurisdiction, sovereignty, influence, retention and recovery, and acquisition (Lo Bianco, 2007). Particularly, Australian Chinese families’ Chinese language planning involves the intersection of 1) source countries’ official language planning within their own jurisdiction, 2) source countries’ language promotion activities beyond national borders, 3) Australian Chinese communities’ language maintenance initiatives and 4) Australian mainstream society’s Chinese language teaching and learning.

Figure 2.3 illustrates the overlapping Chinese language planning spheres that are part of

Australian Chinese families’ multilingual experiences.

Source country Source country LPP LPP

Chinese community’s language maintenance LPP

Australia’s Chinese acquisition LPP

Figure 2.3. Overlapping Chinese language policy and planning (LLP) spheres.

As shown in Figure 2.3, Chinese-speaking source countries’ language planning activities both within and beyond boarders interact with Australian Chinese communities’ language maintenance and the wider society’s learning Chinese discourse. This is a language ecologic business that involves various ‘centres’ of the Chinese language and diverse Chinese population in Australia. As to the source country sphere, in this current research we particularly need to pay attention to the changing situations of ‘politically and economically more powerful centres’ (Clyne, 1991b, p. 1) and language planning that is associated with the change. In the Chinese ‘retention and recovery’ sphere, we should explore the ‘emotional and identity issues’ concerning the point of ‘Chineseness’ that

‘invoke negotiation and debate about questions of language’ (Lo Bianco, 2007, p. 13).

The Australian Chinese household is a site for all the aforementioned spheres of language planning to ‘meet’ and ‘interact’, and these dynamics produce the outcomes of family language planning, which forms a substantial proportion of families’ multilingual

experiences. The next section reviews the subfield of LPP: FLP, covering both the theorisation of FLP and relevant FLP literature with diverse sociolinguistic contexts.

2.4 Family Language Policy and Planning

2.4.1 Terms

Following the trend of LPP research (from the macro to the micro, although macrocentric), family language policy, an under-researched area (Li Wei, 2012, p. 1), has attracted researchers’ attention. In the present field of FLP, King, Fogle and Logan-

Terry’s (2008) definition of family language policy is the most cited:

Family language policy can be defined as explicit (Shohamy, 2006) and overt (Schiffman, 1996) planning in relation to language use within the home among family members. (p. 907)

First, we can note from this definition that family language ‘policy’ is actually defined as

‘planning’, and these two constructs are not differentiated. Second, family language policy is described as having an ‘explicit’ and ‘overt’ nature. If we link this definition with the general theorisation of ‘policy’ in LPP (see Section 2.3.1.2), it should be clear that ‘policy’ could be ‘implicit’ and de facto, and it is derived from individuals’ belief systems and practices. Thus, there exists an inconsistency in how ‘policy’ is viewed in the fields of LPP and FLP, regardless of their direct correlation.

Third, this definition confines FLP to a single domain (i.e., ‘home’) and to a limited number of people (i.e., ‘family members’) which cannot fully reflect the lives of transnational people in diasporic communities. As illustrated in Figure 2.2, in the case of

Chinese, community language planning (CLP) is a critical part or even an extension of family language planning. That is, research on Chinese FLP should not be restricted to an individualistic ‘family’; rather, it should be viewed as a collective enterprise that involves families and their communities.

Similar to the general term ‘language policy’, ‘family language policy’ has connotations of ‘official’ and ‘written’ texts, which does not accord with the reality of

language planning. Therefore, to minimise the connotation, this thesis adopts the term

‘family language policy/planning’ (FLP) to refer to this specific subfield of micro-LPP.

By doing so, the work of this study is made more accessible to laypeople or community members interested in the general concern of the FLP field, such as home language attitudes and uses and multilingual speakers’ identities. To put it simply, people always

‘plan’ their lives, but do not always develop ‘policies’.

On the basis of the working definitions of ‘language policy’ and ‘language planning’ (see Section 2.3.1.2) and review of the definition of ‘family language policy’

(King et al., 2008), in the present thesis family language policy is, for the time being, defined as follows:

As a component embedded within families’ multilingual experiences, family language policy refers to language use rules of both explicit and implicit nature within a family. Family language planning refers to intentional language-regulating activities undertaken by parents and the community to influence children’s language competence.

This concept of family language policy is constructed in a narrow sense, rather than as a broad policy mechanism (e.g., Johnson, 2013). In addition, the conceptualisation distinguishes between family language ‘policy’ and family language ‘planning’. However, the definition of these terms is by no means static and definite, since later sections of this study develop the understanding of these terms in line with the analysis of Chinese

Australian families’ multilingual experiences. The nature of these FLP terms is revisited in later chapters (e.g., see end of Section 6.1.1).

After clarifying the definition of FLP, the next question is related to determining the scope of FLP research. This question will be answered through a review of relevant

FLP studies below.

2.4.2 FLP research: Ecological analysis of multilingual experiences

FLP research has been developed into a transdisciplinary enterprise of study, and it incorporates theoretical perspectives of language policy, child language acquisition,

language socialisation and home literacy (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009, 2015; King et al.,

2008; Ren & Hu, 2013; Schwartz, 2010).

The origin of FLP can be traced to the first half of the twentieth century which was marked by studies on one-person, one-language, now widely known as one parent, one language (OPOL) (King, 2016, p. 726; Smith-Christmas, 2016, p. 2). Early OPOL research was mainly documentation of linguists’ own children’s language development trajectories produced by the OPOL method. The term OPOL was coined in 1902 by

Maurice Grammont, a French linguist. Later, Grammont’s friend, another French linguist,

Jules-Antoine Ronjat, and his German wife used the OPOL method to raise their son and then recorded the successful journey in Ronjat’s (1913) work (as cited in Smith-Christmas,

2016, p. 2). OPOL-oriented FLP research exclusively examines children’s language competence¾how well they could acquire their multiple home languages or otherwise.

This line of research is still being conducted in a more thorough and longitudinal manner.

For example, Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert’s (2004) work aims to provide parents and teachers with practical advice on successfully raising bilingual or multilingual children by using the OPOL strategy. FLP research under this category focuses more on the middle-class elite families in Europe or its diaspora contexts. Another stream of FLP research, with which the current thesis aligns, has a more sociolinguistic approach from which a formal conceptualisation of family language policy emerges with the general development of LPP (King, 2016, p. 727).

This review is based on the most recent publications in the FLP field—a thematic issue in International Journal of Bilingualism considering transnational families’

‘ideologies, identities, agency and imagination’ (p. 1) edited by Kendall King and

Elizabeth Lanza (2017); two successive special issues of Journal of Multilingual and

Multicultural Development, ‘Multilingual Encounters in Transnational Families’ edited by Elizabeth Lanza and Li Wei (2016) and ‘Language Policy and Practice in Multilingual,

Transnational Families and Beyond’ edited by Li Wei (2012); the special issue of ‘Family

Language Policy’ in the Language Policy journal edited by Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen

(2013); Successful family language policy, edited by Mila Schwartz and Anna Verschik

(2013); and any other relevant FLP works from these key authors. It is clear that the current trend of FLP studies have gone beyond the foci of classic European middle-class families and started to represent diversified experiences of transnational populations and their families.

Along the sociolinguistic orientation, influenced by Spolsky’s (2004) model, considerable FLP research attention (e.g., Moin, Protassova, Lukkari & Schwartz, 2013;

Schwartz, Moin & Klayle, 2013) is being given to issues regarding FLP aspects, such as how do parents think about languages (i.e., language ideologies), what efforts parents have made to help children achieve multilingualism (i.e., language management) and how family members use languages at home (i.e., language practices). Especially, FLP research aims to understand internal/interpersonal and external/societal factors that contribute to these attitudes and practices, and correlations between each FLP aspect.

This thesis argues that the dimensions of FLP have already transcended the tripartite framework (Spolsky, 2004) in the current field, as will be shown in the following review, and that adding new FLP aspects leads to a deeper understanding of experiences of FLP. For example, Doyle’s (2013) study of the FLP of 11 intermarried families in

Tallinn, Estonia, starts from the framework of language practice–ideology–management and concludes with an incorporation of ‘challenges’ and children’s ‘experiences, practices and attitudes’ (pp. 161–169) based on qualitative data. In fact, the last two aspects can be placed under an overarching category of ‘experiences’, which could include both language attitudes and behaviours.

In addition, the restricted conceptualisation of language practices as patterns

(Spolsky, 2004) (see Section 2.3.1.2) has confined ‘language practices’ analysis in FLP

studies to the description of ‘patterns’ of home language use. Further, necessary qualitative explanations of ‘why the patterns’ or ‘what do the patterns mean apart from indicating language shift’ are not often provided. As commented by Zhu Hua and Li Wei

(2016a, p. 655) on the direction of FLP research:

more attention needs to be paid to the diverse experiences of the individuals and to the strategies they use to deal with the challenges of multilingualism, rather than the overall patterns of language maintenance and language shift.

Namely, ‘bilingualism and multilingualism need to be studied holistically as experiences, rather than outcomes’ (King, 2016, p. 728).

At present, FLP studies cover diverse family types, including, but not limited to, transnational or immigrant families of different generations (e.g., Curdt-Christiansen,

2009; Zhu Hua & Li Wei, 2016a), local families with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds (e.g., Curdt-Christiansen, 2016, 2015), international adoptive families (e.g.,

Fogle, 2013b), intercultural families through mixed marriages (e.g., Doyle, 2013; Okita,

2002; Yates & Terraschke, 2013), indigenous families (e.g., Patrick, Budach &

Muckpaloo, 2013) and highly educated middle-class local families (e.g., King & Fogle,

2006).

The following review is organised around three major interrelated FLP themes according to the categories of ‘dynamic contexts’ and ‘language planners’: 1) interactions between the wider society and individual families in relation to language ideology and use (e.g., Curdt-Christiansen, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016; Gallo & Hornberger, 2017;

Pérez Báez, 2013; Seloni & Sarfati, 2013); 2) the social and/or linguistic role of parents

(especially mother) and/or grandparents (e.g., Curdt-Christiansen, 2009, 2013b; De

Houwer & Bornstein, 2016; King & Fogle, 2006; Fogle, 2013b; Ren & Hu, 2013), as well as communities’ experiences (e.g., Patrick et al., 2013); and 3) children’s (including siblings’) multilingual experiences (e.g., Antonini, 2016; Conteh, Riasat & Begum, 2013;

Curdt-Christiansen, 2013a; Fogle, 2013a; He, 2016; King, 2013).

This review illustrates how language planners work in specific social and demographic situations of language use; how language attitudes, use and parental strategies are in play; and what other FLP dimensions need to be teased out through the

‘multilingualism as experiences’ lens.

2.4.2.1 Society and FLP: ‘Power-inflected’ language ideologies as mediating link

Although multilingualism seems to have been celebrated for its adding to the diversity of a society, there have always been dominant languages in a given society or speech community. For example, English has enjoyed absolute prestigious status as the lingua franca in this multilingual globalised world.

Curdt-Christiansen’s (2016) FLP study focuses on the interplay between language ideologies and practices in three multilingual families (Chinese, Malay and Indian) in

Singapore. Centring around English and the mother tongue (MT), this research proves how inconsistent family members’ language attitudes, practices and expectations can be.

First, family members show clashing language ideologies; second, ideologies and practices are contradictory; and third, practices and expectations are not consistent. This inconsistency indexes the power of the dominant language (English) and powerlessness of the MT (Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay and Tamil) in a highly competitive society, although all of them are official languages of Singapore. As Curdt-Christiansen (2016, p.

706) states:

the overt language policy that favours English language, the pragmatic concerns about children’s educational achievement, and the overriding weight of the economic value associated with English have ‘coerced’ the parents/caregivers to explicitly and implicitly, deliberately or unintentionally, choose the preferred code in their everyday linguistic practices.

Consequently, although the cultural values of the MT are clearly acknowledged by parents and the national language policy, daily language practices of family members are still heavily English mediated. MT education has not been invested in at the macro- governmental level or the micro-family level in a practical sense, except for the ascription

of symbolic cultural values to the MT. Curdt-Christiansen (2016, p. 694) concludes that

‘language ideologies are “power-inflected” and tend to become the source of educational and social tensions which in turn shape family language practices’. Particularly, the education system and English as Medium of Instruction policy are the sources of ‘social inequality’ (Curdt-Christiansen, 2012).

Conversely, although the MT is ‘defeated’ by English, the ‘symbolic cultural values’ attached to the MT deserve our attention. As shown in Mother Kavitha’s narratives, the MT’s values are assigned in relation to ‘race, tradition, values and identity’, which are elicited from parents’ aspirations for their children’s bilingual competence in the future:

We all take English as our first language as it is the official language of communication, work and business. At the same time our mother tongue is very important for us because it’s closely associated with our culture, race, tradition, values and identity as an individual. Thus learning both languages helps us to be effective bilinguals. I want my child to be a good bilingual as well by speaking and writing both English and Tamil at a high standard level. (Curdt-Christiansen, 2016, p. 705)

Parental ‘expectations’ and ‘aspirations’ should be viewed as a potentially important aspect of FLP because they are part of the driving forces consciously or subconsciously for not only families’ language attitudes and uses but people’s entire life.

Moreover, ‘expectations’ and ‘aspirations’ are directly linked with family members’ sense of wellbeing. This aspect is explored in more detail below.

In Curdt-Christiansen’s (2014) study, the tension between English and the MT is exemplified around ‘pragmatic values of multilingualism’. Specifically, this is the polarised conflict between considerable English instrumentalism worldwide and ‘cultural values and heritage roots of Chinese language’ (p. 46)/‘the beauty of Chinese language’/‘the linguistic value of Chinese language’ (especially Chinese ‘proverbs and idioms’) (p. 47).

The case of Singapore illustrates how powerful instrumental and utilitarian values of a language (i.e., English) can be in defeating minority languages (even if the minority

languages are official languages) in a globalised world. The case shows the power of national language policy and dominant language attitudes in shaping intimate FLP.

Singapore represents a typical image of what it means to be ‘successful’ as a competitive

Chinese society. This can also extend to community and interpersonal levels and be represented by ‘Chinese as model minority’ discourse in the diaspora settings and ‘what it means to be a successful Chinese person’ respectively. As Ren and Hu (2013, p. 67) state, ‘because of the high stakes carried by academic achievement in a society that practices meritocracy and elitism, the educational system of Singapore is highly competitive’. In the present study on Chinese communities in Australia, this statement can also be related to Chinese parents’ aspirations for their children’s high academic achievement in a very general sense. Additionally, when it comes to exams or other types of competitions, the competitiveness of students of Chinese heritage can be legitimately expected and is discussed in Section 1.1.

A context more similar with that of the Chinese community in Australia is Quebec, where Chinese is viewed as a community or heritage language (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009).

It is illustrated how a sociopolitically more powerful language (i.e., English) created the sense of ‘inequality’ among Chinese immigrant parents, even among highly educated professionals, for not being native English speakers (p. 362) and how this language ideology exerts a great influence on their FLP decisions.

Hegemonic linguistic ideologies, for example, monolingual normativity or

‘monolingual White normativity’ (e.g., Fogle, 2013a), have also proved their influence of producing parents’ negative language attitudes towards heritage languages and ultimately the loss of the language (Pérez Báez, 2013; Seloni & Sarfati, 2013). Seloni and

Sarfati (2013) revealed that the dynamics between language ideologies at the societal level and language practices at the home level led to the loss of Judeo-Spanish. Judeo-

Spanish has been the MT of Turkish-Ottoman Jews for many centuries; however, the

negative language ideology of community members themselves to Judeo-Spanish was later produced by two waves of societal monolingual language ideology. Particularly, an exclusive preference for French during the Ottoman Empire and then ‘Turkish only’ language attitudes during and after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey forced

Judeo-Spanish to the ‘linguistic periphery’ (Seloni & Sarfati, 2013, p. 7). These negative feelings towards the MT finally caused the shifting of the home language. This is different from what Curdt-Christiansen (2009, 2012, 2014, 2016) described as the dichotomy between dominant language and minority language—this is the case in which negative attitudes towards cultural values of the minority language are generated within the community itself. A similar situation was also documented by Pérez Báez (2013).

Pérez Báez (2013) conducted nearly a decade of research on San Lucas Quiavini

Zapotec (SLQZ) speakers in the diaspora community in Los Angeles. SLQZ community members in the US are originally from Oaxaca, a southern state of Mexico. The research shows that the language loss of SLQZ resulted from, first, parents’ negative language attitudes about heritage language maintenance related to ‘place of birth’, ‘multilingualism’ and ‘impact belief’ (Pérez Báez, 2013, p. 42). Next, schools and peer groups¾‘language intervention effectors’¾that produce dominant language ideology re-strengthened parents’ negative language attitudes and children’s nonheritage language use (Pérez Báez,

2013, pp. 42–43). Specifically, children would go through the language shift from the real heritage language (i.e., SLQZ) to the wider community’s dominant language (i.e.,

Spanish), followed by the shift from Spanish to the society’s dominant language (i.e.,

English). Moreover, the study calls for the breakdown of stereotypes about American

Mexican transnationals as a monolithic group and one that only considers Spanish as their heritage language. This point is particularly relevant to the Chinese diaspora community.

The shift from SLQZ to Spanish resembles that from Chinese regional languages to standard Mandarin, and that of Spanish to English resembles that of Mandarin to English.

The power configuration of these languages is clear, but it needs to be challenged to preserve linguistic diversity and heritage language maintenance.

For transnational and immigrant families, dynamics between the societal forces and their FLP are not only reflected through the imposition of the dominant language ideology but through the enforcement of immigration policies. Gallo and Hornberger

(2017) illustrated how immigration policy is enacted as family language policy and how immigration policy produces ‘unintended language education consequences’ (p. 1) for children who potentially would live on either side of the US–Mexico border. Their study focuses on the population of Mexican immigrants and their mixed-status families (i.e., some family members are legal residents while others are not) in the US in general and specifically examined the experiences of eight-year-old Princess, whose father was deported back to Mexico shortly before the study.

According to the data (Gallo & Hornberger, 2017, p. 7), Princess had ‘no desire to visit or live in Mexico’ before her father’s deportation. Similarly, her father himself no longer felt a connection with Mexico and had not been to Mexico for 20 years. Their previous family language policy was heavily shaped by the English-only ‘monoglossic ideologies’ in the US. After her father’s deportation, the family language policy was negotiated between Princess and her parents, especially, her mother, around the ‘imagined’ future lives and educational opportunities in Mexico—specifically, the imagined challenges of maintaining English in Mexico. Conversely, owing to the ‘monoglossic ideologies of schooling’ in Mexico (i.e., Spanish-speaking schooling), Princess’s mother had to start teaching Princess Spanish skills—‘the basics, such as the short, common words’ (Gallo & Hornberger, 2017, p. 8). Overall, the study shows the absolute prestigious status of English and how immigration policy and ‘monoglossic ideologies of schooling’ in both countries play a decisive role in influencing private language planning.

For the current research, within the context of Australia and its Chinese community, the aforementioned FLP research drives us to think carefully about the dynamics between dominant language ideologies (within the community as well as the mainstream) and FLP experiences, particularly when Australia’s community/foreign/Asian language-in-education policies are currently driven by trade volumes, which is of great instrumental focus. In relation to community languages, high market value has been attached to Mandarin Chinese.

Informed by the reviewed studies, the following specific questions, relevant to

Research Questions 1 and 2 (see Section 1.3), need to be addressed in the present thesis:

• How are English, Modern Standard Mandarin and other diverse Chinese varieties hierarchically structured in terms of ‘power’? • How would Mandarin’s market values work to influence FLP? • How would people respond to the potential tension between Mandarin and other Chinese regional languages? • What would occur when English meets Chinese in the FLP context? Can negative attitudes towards heritage language be identified? If yes, what are people’s experiences related to these attitudes? • What is the role of Australia’s immigration policy in influencing families’ language decision-making?

2.4.2.2 Multilingual experiences of parents, grandparents and communities

Parents, as primary language socialisation agents, play an essential role in children’s language development. From this development perspective, De Houwer and

Bornstein (2016) reported the findings of a four-year study that traced continuity in mother’s language choice. The significance of the continuity lies not only in its role in children’s language acquisition but in its socioemotional implication. As De Houwer and

Bornstein (2016, p. 682) revealed, various circumstances can affect whether a mother uses one language constantly: 1) if children do not respond to that language (Curdt-

Christiansen, 2014), 2) when healthcare professionals or childcare workers advise parents

or other caregivers to change the language choice (King et al., 2008), 3) when parents or other caregivers reconsider the advantage of speaking particular language(s) and 4) children’s general ‘level of language development’.

The findings show the existence of continuity of mothers speaking only one language to their children in a general sense; yet, it is hardly possible to comply with a strict OPOL family language policy. As De Houwer and Bornstein pointed out (2016, p.

691), although such a policy cannot guarantee successful bilingualism (De Houwer, 2007), without it the possibility of raising active bilingual children will be reduced significantly.

That is the reason adequate ‘quantitative and qualitative linguistic input’ supplied by parents is considered key to raising bilingual children successfully (Curdt-Christiansen,

2013a, p. 293).

Although the present thesis adopts more of a sociolinguistic ethnographic approach than a focus on children’s language development, De Houwer and Bornstein’s

(2016) study sheds light on the following research foci that are directly relevant to the

Chinese community language context: 1) parental, specifically maternal, language modelling through language/word choice, and children’s language use; 2) the types of socioemotional meanings embedded in home language (i.e., dialects) for family members;

3) the other factors or circumstances that can influence parental language choice; and 4) the response of parents to advice about home language choice. The literature continues to reveal that parents’ language practices are influenced not only by language attitudes but by their general beliefs in education, childrearing and family (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009,

2013b; Fogle 2013b; Ren & Hu, 2013).

Fogle’s (2013b) work illustrates the language policy of one type of non-traditional families¾transnational adoptive US households. Fogle (2013b, p. 99) argued for an extended theorisation of ideological aspects of FLP, which should incorporate not only

‘language’ ideologies but cultural beliefs about ‘family, childhood, and caregiving’, and

this is a theoretical argument of the current thesis as well. This argument would develop the tripartite language policy concept (Spolsky, 2004) by drawing data from the home domain. It shows FLP decisions are influenced by the broader societal language ideology

(i.e., monolingualism), as we may have assumed based on the review in the previous section. More importantly, the decisions are related to parental beliefs about ‘children’s particular cognitive and emotional capacities, educational needs’ and parents’ ‘desire to form a family bond’ (Fogle, 2013b, p. 98). In the present thesis, we explore how Chinese parents think about their Australian-born children as individuals and what the former’s beliefs are about who their children are (see Chapter 6). These beliefs are critical for

‘keeping home languages alive and supporting young children’s identity formation’

(Conteh et al., 2013, p. 87).

In her comparative study of two ethnic Chinese families in Singapore and

Montreal, Curdt-Christiansen (2013b) also pointed out that parents and their associated family culture exert a profound ‘imperceptible influence’ on children regarding their language use, identity and cultural practices. Further, under the circumstances that grandparents maintain a close relationship with the family, their roles as powerful language planners cannot be underestimated (Bissoonauth, 2017; Gregory, Long & Volk,

2004; Jessel, Gregory, Arju, Kenner & Ruby, 2004).

By focusing on 10 transnational Chinese families in Quebec, Curdt-Christiansen

(2009) identified that parents’ schooling history, immigration experiences and Confucian values are significantly responsible for their high expectations (see also Ren & Hu, 2013) and according FLP for their children. In addition, King and Fogle (2006) explained how

FLP is shaped through maternal attitudes to bilingualism after examining 24 Spanish-

English-speaking families in Washington D.C. As in most classic early FLP studies, ‘elite bilingualism’ (p. 707) and middle-class families were featured, rather than transnational families. However, the study unveiled three major non-macro-interpersonal forces that

formulate family language decisions: child-raising advice (i.e., popular literature), as observed in De Houwer and Bornstein’s (2016) review; personal networks (i.e., friends and extended family members); and parental personal experiences of language learning.

We can observe that FLP is clearly a business of ‘networks’, or ecological systems, even for families that adopt the OPOL approach, as also transnational households.

Applying an ecological lens to FLP, we can observe that parents’ language planning behaviours are affected by not only their own experiences but by that of their families and communities, which are ‘often across generations’ (Conteh et al., 2013, p.

84). Therefore, understanding the experiences of other family or community members, for example, grandparents and community elders, is not optional in FLP studies. First, senior community members’ experiences can transcend time and space and provide people with incredible insights into how language use is evolving along with the changing sociopolitical circumstances. As an example, in Seloni and Sarfati’s (2013) study, two

Turkish-Jewish elders share their multilingualism experiences and the study proves that the use of oral life history or narratives is valuable for data collection and analysis.

Second, grandparents and other family members enrich nuclear families’ language ecology by influencing parents’ and children’s cultural values, language attitudes and uses. Ren and Hu (2013, p. 70) illustrated vividly how Wendy’s grandmother has influenced both her daughter’s (i.e., Wendy’s mother’s) and granddaughter’s (i.e.,

Wendy’s, who is a Singaporean Chinese individual) language attitudes that are Chinese identity oriented:

[Wendy grandmother states] We must learn Chinese, because we are Chinese, and it’s our mother tongue. You see, many foreigners now can speak Chinese well. As a Chinese, if you didn’t know how to speak this language, wouldn’t that be something to be ashamed of?

[Wendy mother states] My mother always tells us yin shui si yuan (饮水思源, ‘never forget one’s roots’). After all, we are Chinese. We mustn’t forget our mother language.

These narratives not only show the effects of the grandmother’s language attitudes and use, but also the language ideology that shows a strong connection between ‘being

Chinese’ and ‘speaking Mandarin’—ethnic authenticity discourses. Moreover, the notion of ‘mother language’ is brought up. In the grandmother’s narrative, it should be noted that ‘Chinese’ refers to Mandarin rather than Hokkien, which is her MT (Ren & Hu, 2013, p. 70). That is why she also has been planning Wendy’s and her sister’s Hokkien through the teaching of ‘some Hokkien words and sentences’ when she was watching ‘Hokkien

TV shows and news programme’ or listening to ‘Hokkien radio programmes’ (Ren & Hu,

2013, p. 70). However, apparently, the grandmother has placed more weight on Mandarin than on Hokkien when planning and expanding the children’s linguistic repertoire.

Compared with the ideology of ‘we must learn Chinese (Mandarin), because we are

Chinese, and it’s our mother tongue’ attached to speaking Mandarin, ‘hopefully, this (i.e., the planning activity for Hokkien through media) will get into their head’ (Ren & Hu,

2013, p. 70) is her expectations for her grandchildren’s Hokkien. The hierarchy of the

Chinese language in relation to FLP is clear.

Curdt-Christiansen (2013b) also explored how grandparents serve as ‘models’ who ‘transmit cultural and linguistic knowledge’ (p. 355), which has an ‘imperceptible’ but considerable effect on children. As Sayang’s grandmother states about her beliefs on education:

Play is play, learning is learning, the two things shouldn’t be mixed. If you play while you are practising writing, how can you concentrate? The ancient adage says that reading needs three organs: the heart has to concentrate, the eyes have to see, the mouth has to speak [reading aloud by mouth, seeing clearly by eyes, then comprehending by heart]. Therefore, learning should not be mixed with play. (Curdt-Christiansen, 2013b, p. 361)

We can observe that grandparents employ ancient classic thoughts to support educational beliefs. For the current thesis, this reminds us to pay special attention to

Chinese cultural ideological factors in FLP. Sayang seems very responsive to the

grandmother’s language attitude management, and will children involved in this study do the same?

Taking a multilingualism as experience stance, Zhu Hua and Li Wei’s (2016a, p.

665) ethnographic study focused on both parents’ and grandparents’ perspectives on multilingualism and how individuals deal with challenges caused by multilingualism.

Their FLP resulted from such rich and complex experiences.

The three focal families in this study (Zhu Hua & Li Wei, 2016a) show the complexity of Chinese populations’ background and experiences in the diaspora context.

The first family is originally from Southeast China and has an ethnic Korean background.

They choose to maintain Korean as opposed to Mandarin among their children through community schooling owing to their stronger sense of being Korean than being Chinese.

A critical life event that has dramatically influenced the parents’ family language decision is their first trip to South Korea. This case demonstrates the dynamics of critical life events (i.e., the trip to South Korea), the selection of a particular ‘identity’ from a hybrid cohort of identities, home language choice and language maintenance decisions.

The second family contains both the second (i.e., British-born parents) and third generations (i.e., British-born children) of British Chinese. The second family’s experiences unfold the changing hierarchy of the Chinese language in the diaspora (see also Li Wei & Zhu Hua, 2010). The originally Hakka-speaking background parents acquired Cantonese—then the lingua franca in the British Chinese community—and now they have been planning their children’s Mandarin Chinese learning. During the interview of the mother, it was clear that the British-born Chinese mother has created perfect imagined roots that are located in Hong Kong and Mainland China, where her children could gain a lot more employment ‘opportunities’ if they learn Mandarin well. This is related to what Zhu Hua and Li Wei (2016a, p. 661) called the ‘typical diasporic mentality of living in one place and thinking of (living in) another place’.

The focal participants of the third family are grandparents who were highly educated English language teaching professionals in China, challenging the assumption that the transnational elders’ non-English-speaking competence would isolate them from the society. The fact is that being highly proficient in English does not equip this elder couple with a complete sense of wellbeing on living in a foreign country. Moreover, they feel that their Chinese is undergoing attrition and they could not understand the type of modern Chinese language that is being used among the younger Chinese-speaking generation. This fact shows that multilingual experiences are highly emotion inflected. In this case, being able to and then unable to use one’s MT effectively is a very distressing matter.

These three cases are exemplifications of what Zhu Hua and Li Wei (2016a, p.

655) urged: FLP research should pay more attention to those ‘diverse experiences’ and challenge-dealing strategies instead of the general linguistic patterns of language shift.

By doing so, I believe that the research findings would be more available to those participants and other members of the community. Key themes from this research (Zhu

Hua & Li Wei, 2016a) that provide direct insight into the current thesis are as follows: interactions between return trip to parents’ place of origin, identity manifestation and selection and language use; changing hierarchy of the Chinese language; the ‘roots’ discourses and ‘diasporic mentality’; pragmatic values of learning Chinese and Chinese maintenance; and emotional aspects of multilingualism.

In addition to experiences of parents and grandparents, as shown in the domain of

‘home’, experiences of ‘communities’ through community-based organisations have representations in the FLP literature. Taking an ethnographic action-research approach,

Patrick et al.’s (2013) study discussed how urban Inuit families retain connections with their ‘homeland’ through a family literacy programme at Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre.

This article argued for the critical role of grassroots language planning (e.g., the Inuit

Family Literacy Programme) initiative when ‘more structured language learning and policy directives’ at the state-level are missing (Patrick et al., 2013, p. 51). The aim of the family literacy programme is:

to support families in developing urban Inuit identities and family language policies anchored in traditional Inuit cultural practices, providing an opportunity for parents to make literacy decisions as part of family language policies, and for children and other family members to engage in culturally relevant literacy practices as a family. (Patrick et al., 2013, p. 51)

The study specifically documents the use of two linguistically and culturally Inuit- centred literacy practices, the ‘photovoice’ and the ‘sculpin fishing song’ activity. Both activities highlight ‘how objects, as circulating resources, become privileged as focal points of interactions involving linguistic and cultural learning’ (Patrick et al., 2013, p.

58).

First, Patrick et al.’s (2013) research reminds us that LPP research should always be ‘action-oriented’ (see also Section 2.2). In other words, it should have practical implications for real linguistic situations, for example, language endangerment. Second, this research also acknowledges the power of community-based language planning activity, although its emergence in the current Inuit case resulted from the absence of societal macro-language policies. Third, as stated in the purpose of the family literacy programme, identity and FLP go hand in hand and both are embedded in ‘cultural practices’. This requires us to view identity, FLP and cultural practices as a dynamic system through which we can tease out each element and its connections with others.

Linking it to the current thesis project, that is, by understanding cultural practices of family members of Chinese households, we may obtain insights into people’s identity recognitions.

Fourth, it should be noted that family language policy in this work (i.e., two literacy practices) is designed by researchers and community educators and it is expected to shape individual families’ language policy and practices. Theoretically, this originated from its action-research design. Differently, the current thesis starts from the initial

inquiry of ‘what is happening in terms of FLP in the families and in the communities’. It is more grounded in the field (i.e., speech communities) in the first place, rather than language revitalisation initiatives. Finally, the object-based cultural practices in the Inuit

FLP recognise the importance of semiotic resources in language and culture socialisation.

In the Chinese case, I argue that Chinese television programmes, books and textbooks can be considered such culture-laden semiotic resources.

In summary, as authoritative language planners for children’s bilingual development, parents, grandparents or community members have developed a wide range of language and literacy activities to support multilingualism and language maintenance both at home and in the community. In the literature, they are, first, parents’ consistency use or input of the target or community language to children (e.g., De Houwer &

Bornstein, 2016); second, creating a home literacy environment through providing and utilising literacy resources, for example, reading books, creating artwork and watching television programmes and DVDs (e.g., Curdt-Christiansen 2013b, 2014; Ren & Hu,

2013; Xiao, 2008); and third, seeking external assistance, such as private tutoring (e.g.,

Curdt-Christiansen, 2012, 2014, 2015; Ren & Hu, 2013) and community-based complementary language and literacy programme/schooling (e.g., Conteh et al., 2013;

Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; Patrick et al., 2013).

Owing to the role of key family members and the community in general in influencing children’s language and identity development, FLP studies have devoted considerable efforts to understanding and theorising about their experiences. Specifically, the literature has focused on the following themes, which should also be considered and further developed in the current thesis. First, the ideological factors that have contributed to caregivers’ language use and/or its consistency (e.g., language attitudes, general beliefs in family, education and child raising); second, the internal and external forces that form these factors (e.g., parental histories of education and immigration, childrearing advice,

personal networks and experiences of community and other related people); third, the cultural features of these factors (e.g., Confucian thinking and Inuit object-based cultural practice); and fourth, language and literacy support initiatives.

In addition, particularly, for the present thesis, the following questions, which can be considered elaborations of Research Questions 1, 2 and 3 respectively (see Section

1.3), need to be interpreted and discussed according to Australia’s Chinese diaspora context:

• What are the specific language and literacy activities that have been conducted at home as well as at the community school to foster children’s multilingual identities and development, how are semiotic resources being used in these activities and what cultural messages can we obtain from these resources? • How do parents with diverse Chinese linguistic backgrounds negotiate between their regional identities (that are associated with their regional Chinese language), the MT, FLP of Mandarin for their children and use of other languages or language varieties? • How would the interplay between identity, FLP and cultural practices be exemplified?

2.4.2.3 Children’s multilingual experiences

Children’s experiences are significantly underrepresented in FLP research compared to that of parents. According to Fogle (2013a, p. 177), ‘Few studies have documented children’s perspectives on FLP, their own language ideologies in relation to

FLP, or their perceptions of their own agency in FLP processes’. Against this backdrop, young adult children’s multilingual experiences were explored in Fogle’s (2013a) work.

Particularly, that study focused on five young adults of different ethnic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds who spent their childhoods in the Southern US. The interactions between ‘race, place and language’ emerged from young people’s narratives of bilingualism and family language policy. Children’s multilingual experience provides

FLP research with sites beyond home for us to understand the contested nature of speaking a home language that is different from the dominant one of the society.

Fogle (2013a) found that children’s passive bilingual proficiency or the rejection of being bilingual results from parents’ poorly planned family language policy and, more importantly, the identity struggles of displaying and alleging their bilingualism. These struggles are caused by general language ideologies about bilingualism (e.g.,

‘monolingual White normativity’) within a particular ‘place’ (Fogle, 2013a, p. 196).

In Fogle’s (2013a, pp. 183–184) study, a research participant, Shannon, shared the experiences of how her Khmer (heritage language) competence was maintained by engaging in ‘Cambodian cultural practices of politeness, apology, and shame’ during childhood, when explicit parent-initiated language planning strategies were missing. This is what Curdt-Christiansen (2013b) called ‘implicit learning and imperceptible influence’ in a heritage language-rich linguistic environment. Moreover, Shannon’s sharing of struggles embedded in the emotional exchange between her mother (Khmer speaking) and herself once again highlighted a unique aspect of FLP: the emotional or psychological dimension.

Because of lack of Khmer, Shannon had to shift code to her dominant language

(i.e., English) to understand her mother, and English became the language of ‘emotional bonding’ (Fogle, 2013a, p. 186). We could imagine that emotions expressed in Khmer by her mother could be compromised to a large extent once the emotions have to be negotiated in English, of which the mother only has a basic competence.

In addition to the connection between language choice and emotional bonding, as noted in the previous section, the relationship between language choice and ethnic authenticity is a crucial one in influencing children’s and families’ wellbeing. In Fogle’s

(2013a) study, one participant was Robyn, born to a Filipino Tagalog-speaking mother and African American English-speaking father. Being ‘biracial and bilingual’, Robyn was

not accepted by Tagalog-speaking individuals as an ‘authentic’ or a ‘legitimate’ Tagalog speaker because of her appearance, and she was not accepted by her African American friends either due to her ‘Asian lisp’ when talking (Fogle, 2013a, pp. 186–187). Further, in Jessamyn’s case, the identity of being Hispanic was hidden by ‘pretending’ not to know how to speak Spanish (i.e., ‘racial passing’) when she was in school to avoid racial stereotypes. Later on, she became very comfortable about displaying her Spanish competence outside of home, influenced by her Spanish-speaking peer group at university

(Fogle, 2013a, pp. 192–193).

Fogle’s (2013a) study not only requires us to think about empowering young people through representation of their lived multilingual experiences but to think thoroughly about the intersections between language use, emotional bonding with family members, ethnic authenticity and legitimacy, and children’s self-identity recognition and identities ascribed by others. Importantly, we should always keep in mind that these experiences are situational and contextualised and these identities are evolving.

Likewise, King (2013) shared a ‘tale of three sisters’ (17-year-old Diana, 12-year- old Debbie and one-year-old Daniela) of Ecuadorian heritage and showed in what way their language identities are ‘constructed, constrained and performed’ (p. 49) through their families’ multilingual experiences in the US. These children’s multilingual experiences present the interplay of dominant language ideologies (especially language learning ideologies), family language practices and their linguistic identities that are either positioned by others or self-attributed (King, 2013, p. 49).

King’s study draws on a ‘transnational lens’ that aims to examine ‘how everyday practices of ordinary people produce cultural meanings that sustain transnational networks and make possible enduring translocal ties’ (Glick Schiller, Basch & Blanc-

Szanton, 1992, p. 7, as cited in King, 2013, pp. 50–51). It shows that connections with the home country are ‘not past-oriented but present and future-oriented and also ripe with

apparent contradictions’; moreover, ‘both real and imagined’ connections to either hosting country or home country ‘coincide and are mutually reinforcing’ (King, 2013, pp.

61–62). Here, the nature of the ‘connections’ has been shown.

Adopting this ‘transnational’ stance will also be beneficial for the present thesis.

As mentioned previously, Chinese families’ language planning has always been community based and ‘transnational’ and involves community and family members who reside in hosting countries, source countries and/or other Chinese diasporic communities worldwide. Another significance of King’s (2013) research is the fact that it examined one single household through which a relatively complete ecology of family dynamics, that is, ‘collective family life’ (King, 2013, p. 53), can be shown. Further, this study critiques the literature in relation to the role of each child in the family dynamics. For example, the eldest child, Diana, plays an essential role in using and potentially preserving the heritage language instead of initiating the language shift. This role is associated with her years of living with her grandparents in Ecuador and separation from her parents owing to her parents’ immigration status in the US. Conversely, the youngest, one-year-old US-born Daniela, was positioned by all her family members as an ‘English- speaking’, ‘American’ and ‘White’ child, despite the fact that she was exposed almost exclusively to Spanish in the home environment (King, 2013, p. 58).

For the current study, King’s (2013) research suggests considering the connections of the three participating families with their countries of origin and the children’s experiences with these ‘home’ countries and with Australia (e.g., see Section

6.1.2.1). Another focus area is the interplay between birth order, birth place and identity among the children in a household (e.g., see Section 6.3.2.1).

The following review shifts the focus to experiences of another group of younger children, specifically, their language brokering practices. Antonini’s (2016) work acknowledged the fact that the linguistic practices of child language brokering (CLB) is

a form of ‘unrecognised language service’. I would add that CLB is an important but unrecognised aspect of FLP.

A language brokering study is interdisciplinary. It originates from translation studies and is regarded as a form of ‘natural translation’ (Harris, 1977). It is ‘natural’ because people involved in this practice have generally not received any formal interpreting and translation training. Bilingual children are the major language planners in this language practice. Therefore, engaging with CLB conceptualisation and practices can potentially empower children. The findings reported in Antonini’s (2016) article were based on the narratives of both written and graphic forms elicited from bilingual transnational school children. Younger children’s rich and diverse language brokering experiences are identified.

Although these children are Generation 1.5 (as opposed to the locally born

Generation 2), their voices are extremely significant for the representation of young transnationals’ lived experience. Moreover, for the current research of Chinese in

Australia, newly arrived Generation 1.5 children are often students who need help from

Australian-born Chinese children (Generation 2) in the school setting. By listening to the voices of Generation 1.5, we can not only better understand CLB in general but better interpret Australian Chinese children’s interactions with their newly arrived Chinese peers through language brokering.

Antonini’s (2016) study shows that young people who just arrived in a new school of a new country will have to face a serious emotional crisis before they are capable of adapting to their new life. Factors that cause the emotional crisis are related to language competence, loneliness and even food preferences. Especially, the loneliness can result from lack of local social networks and family cohesion. The initial transnational experience for young people is not always as exciting as people would assume. Under this circumstance, relatively experienced transnational children and locally born children

of similar linguistic and cultural background play a vital role in supporting these new arrivals through language brokering. Meanwhile, this practice can also be very challenging for young language brokers.

In Antonini’s (2016, p. 718) data, a five-year-old transnational child, Elena, was described as a ‘very shy girl’ by her 12-year-old language brokers Ling and Shu Bin, and she was also described as ‘stupid’ by her other classmates. The problems of language brokering among Ling, Shu Bin and Elena are Elena’s lack of competence in using both her first language (i.e., Chinese) and second language (i.e., Italian). Consequently,

Elena’s unreceptive classroom behaviours created tensions between herself and the language brokers. These experiences create a very upsetting picture of new, especially very young, transnational children’s school life, which deserves particular attention in both school settings and academia.

Overall, Antonini’s (2016) work showed that CLB is a highly emotion-involved language practice for young people. For the present thesis, scholarly attention should be paid to experiences of both Chinese heritage children as language brokers and their newly arrived peers of similar background needs. Moreover, the researcher should be mindful of naturally occurring language brokering practice between Chinese heritage language children and their parents. In regard to the next study (Li Wei, 2011) to be reviewed, the focus shifts to three transnational youths with a Chinese background whose experiences can be considered an extension of those very young Chinese children in Antonini’s (2016) study. Collectively, this might present us a trajectory of Chinese children’s multilingual life across time and space.

Li Wei (2011) studied three young university-level British Chinese individuals’

(Lawson, Chris and Roland) experiences of being multilinguals in the United Kingdom, where the ideology of monolingual normativity is perpetuated. Instead of examining linguistic patterns, Li Wei (2011) focused on critical ‘moments’ of these young adults’

multilingual translanguaging practices, from which critical dimensions of these practices, such as ‘creativity’ and ‘criticality’, are captured. Specifically, the study showed that multilingual speakers creatively mobilise their rich linguistic resources, for example, to form jokes, nicknames and any other amusing language behaviours, or to critique conventions imposed on them (Li Wei, 2011). Through these practices, a strong multilingual identity is constructed and demonstrated.

Lawson and Chris are British-born Chinese and attended Chinese complementary schools during childhood. Both shared their experiences of complementary schooling and showed their then-Chinese learning attitudes. For example, Lawson said, ‘it wasn’t very interesting…Actually it was fun to be with my friends’, and Chris said ‘the teachers were dead serious’ (Li Wei, 2011, p. 1227). The negative feelings towards weekend Chinese schools are related to or reflected by the school and teachers’ enforcement of ‘Chinese only’ policy, students’ poking fun of teachers in English, and teachers’ teaching methods

(e.g., rote learning) and content (e.g., Chinese history and folk stories) (Li Wei, 2011, pp.

1227–1228). In the current thesis, it is important to further examine children’s attitudes to, and experiences of, community-based schooling in the context of Australia from multiple perspectives (e.g., see Section 4.3).

In addition, Li Wei (2011, p. 1228) presented a very powerful statement from

Lawson which deserves to be revisited here:

Our parents think we speak too much English. My friends and teachers think we only speak Chinese, because we look Chinese. Nobody seems to understand who we are. We speak both Chinese and English. That’s a fact. It’s easy to understand, isn’t it? Why don’t people just leave us alone and let us speak whatever we can speak! You told us we are bilinguals. I like that. I really want to be bilingual and I want to be treated like a bilingual. I don’t speak Chinese only; I don’t speak English only; I speak both! That’s who I am. That’s who we are.

Lawson’s statement demonstrates the intersection between weekend Chinese school’s ‘Chinese only’ policy and the mainstream school or multilingual society’s stereotype about multilingual populations. The dominant society’s monolingual mindset and separate bilingualism ideology (Creese & Blackledge, 2011; Curdt-Christiansen,

2015) are indicated. Under ideological circumstances, community language speakers are trapped in a ‘space’ where both their parents, members of their community and friends and teachers outside of their community have misperceived ‘who they are’. This is significantly related to the general discourse that Australian Chinese children also face, as shown in Section 1.1. In addition, it shows that researchers can play a very active role in the research process through which meanings are constructed and negotiated with participants. For example, Lawson was informed of the concept of ‘bilingual’, which in turn helps him understand, identify with and construct his multilingual identity.

Conversely, since starting university, Lawson’s positioning, in relation to the stereotypes created both at home and in the society, had been developing and shifting away from the restricted ideological ‘space’. He formed a confident and proud multilingual and transnational identity through the creation of ‘translanguaging space’.

Together with Fogle (2013a), Li Wei’s (2011) work again reminds us that learning a community language or language maintenance for heritage speakers should always be viewed as an ongoing process as a journey. In particular, individual families’ language planning decisions should not be judged by academics in relation to when and why should a family or a young person learn the community language. Language attitudes and language maintenance motivations are constantly evolving along their life stories which are highly context based. In other words, the decision to learn (or not learn) a community language is never a single irrevocable one; rather, it is situational and momentary.

Choosing to learn a community language at a young age, as many community members or academics promoted, does not ensure the learning would continue all the way to learners’ adulthood. Successful learning outcomes during childhood might not be maintained into adulthood. Similarly, if children choose not to learn a heritage language at a certain age or show resistance to the learning at a certain point of life, it does not indicate that they will not wish to learn it in the future. Moreover, the current thesis should

pay special attention to participants’, especially young individuals’, creative language practices and its role in forming multilingual identity.

Children’s multilingual experiences are rich, complex, emotion inflected and evolving. These experiences are often related to their birth order, birth place, parental home countries, cultural and ethnic identities, FLP, multilingual identities and practices, cultural practices, and societal language and racial ideologies (e.g., Antonini, 2016; Fogle,

2013a; King, 2013; Li Wei, 2011). The aforementioned key themes and their interactions require further development in the present thesis.

As children, living a multilingual life means constantly negotiating with dominant monolingual and potentially racist discourses, dealing with challenges caused by parental-initiated language planning and facing emotional and identity consequences of home language shift and loss. Meanwhile, being multilinguals, such children are capable of undertaking cross-lingual and intercultural services for their families, communities and schools, which needs to be greatly acknowledged and valued. Their multilingual practices at specific ‘moments’ can be featured by its ‘creativity’ and ‘criticality’ (Li Wei, 2011) and their unique identities of being transnational multilinguals emerge from the practices.

This is another reason that language practices in FLP study should not be confined to language use patterns.

Moreover, children’s multilingual practices are sometimes accompanied by stressful sociolingual and sociocultural challenges and conditions (e.g., Antonini, 2016).

The emotional and psychological aspect of home language use and family intimacy deserves particular attention in the FLP conceptualisation. Further, children’s attitudes to community language schooling are constantly evolving. An analysis of their experiences should focus on a particular period, but with a developmental perspective.

Therefore, to understand Chinese Australian children’s multilingual experiences, the following FLP issues, corresponding to Research Question 3, need to be addressed:

• whether or not children like learning Chinese in CLSs and why; • the cultural practices that can be identified in children’s life and how these practices are linked with their Chinese competence and identity; • sibling dynamics and language influence; • children’s interaction with English monolingual ideology, stereotypes and other racial discourses; • multilingual children’s language service practices (e.g., language brokering) and creative language practices and identities; • ways in which our understanding of the emotional aspect of FLP can be enriched through analysing children’s transnational multilingual encounters.

2.5 Chapter Summary

This chapter has laid the theoretical foundation for the entire study through an examination of three interconnected areas of sociolinguistic literature¾language ecology,

LPP and FLP. The understanding of Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences is based on this body of knowledge. The review traced the historical development of LPP studies under the field of sociolinguistics. It showed that although LPP research has extended its domain from the societal sphere to the local community even to the family level, language policy research is still considerably macro- or societal-centric.

Community and family-initiated language planning lacks theorisation.

Since the word ‘policy’ carries a strong connotation of ‘policy as written governmental texts’, the present thesis uses the term carefully when discussing policy issues in the household domain. Particularly, family language ‘policy’ is employed to refer to both overt or de facto ‘language use rules’ or ‘language contracts’ made by family members. Meanwhile, family language ‘planning’ broadly refers to family members’ and communities’ deliberate efforts to influence children’s language ability. This conceptualisation challenges Spolsky’s (2004) tripartite language policy (attitudes– practices–management) framework. This thesis argues against the extensive

inclusiveness of ‘language attitudes and practices as policy’ because this theorisation reduces the defining and explanatory power of ‘policy’.

Transnational Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences are framed in the field of FLP, which is a conceptual extension of traditional LPP studies. The study of families’ multilingual experiences, as a whole, is a linguistic ecological business which requires a close analysis of people and their situated sociopolitical, sociocultural and socio-economic environments. As a result, this language ecology approach aims to tackle issues of language endangerment—in the current study, ‘language maintenance and shift’—among Australian-born Chinese children.

Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences involve various language planners (e.g., children, parents, relatives, teachers and community school leaders) within various language planning domains (e.g., homes, community schools, source countries and day schools) through various interconnected language planning initiatives (e.g., home language maintenance, dominant community language maintenance and dominant society language learning) (see Figure 2.2). All of these language planning activities benefit children’s ultimate language abilities and the richness of their linguistic repertoire.

Especially, the CLS plays a key role in Chinese Australian families’ language planning.

Therefore, it should be conceptualised within FLP. However, the majority of existing FLP literature exclusively focus on the activities within ‘homes’. This appears to contradict the ecological nature of language planning. The current thesis argues that FLP analysis should transcend domain boundaries and capture multiple voices and practices outside of home.

The ecological nature of language planning determines the contested characteristic of people’s multilingual experiences. Although the review of FLP studies is organised according to ‘contexts’ and ‘language planners’, in reality, family experiences are dynamic and ‘messy’. Chinese Australian families’ language experiences

are filled with family members’ diverse, and sometimes contradictory, language attitudes, practices and aspirations resulting from hegemonic societal language ideologies (e.g., monolingual normativity).

Language ideologies function as mediating link between the wider society and

FLP. Consequently, a language hierarchy is created¾different values and power are attached to home language (e.g., non-Mandarin Chinese varieties), dominant community language (e.g., Mandarin) and dominant language in the mainstream (e.g., English).

Parents and grandparents are important language socialisation agents and language planners and they work together with communities to produce an interactive language planning network. In addition to the interaction between societal language ideology and FLP, the FLP research on parents’ and grandparents’ experiences unpack what ideological factors and circumstances form what kinds of language behaviours, language-regulating initiatives, identities and cultural practices. Further, FLP research aims to explain the underlying personal or cultural causes of ideological factors. More recently, FLP research has tackled issues of families’ multilingual challenges and their coping strategies.

FLP studies extensively address the following integrally related facets: 1) language behaviours, especially mother’s language use; 2) family language planning activities (e.g., home literacy environment creation and external assistance); 3) expectations and beliefs (e.g., beliefs related to language, education, family and child raising); 4) internal and external forces (e.g., personal education and immigration history, expert advice on child raising, personal networks and other community members’ lived experiences) that foster these expectations and beliefs; and 5) cultural features of the expectations and beliefs (e.g., Confucian values). As Fogle (2013b) argued, FLP studies need to extend the ideological aspect and should not only focus on ‘language attitudes’.

This is another attempt to challenge Spolsky’s (2004) tripartite framework. Although

family language planning interacts with other social domains and it is ecological in nature, it is still a private matter of a household and it involves very intimate emotions of family members. The emotions can be further aroused when family members deal with multilingual challenges. Therefore, this emotional or affective aspect of FLP needs to be specifically examined in the present study.

Children’s multilingual experiences are under-researched, although their agency has been well acknowledged in academia. These experiences are rich, complex and changing. They are filled with personal emotions, family intimacy, transnational stories, language maintenance practices, identity conflicts and struggles caused by race and multilingualism. Therefore, FLP research on children’s experiences have examined their community language maintenance attitudes; the interplay between their language use and family bonding, language use and ethnic authenticity, cultural practices and language maintenance, dominant language ideology and struggling multilingual identities; and their birth order, birth place and identity. In addition, two dimensions of children’s language practices need scholarly examination—language service practices (e.g., CLB) and translanguaging practice which has been proved to be a critical construct from which their multilingual identities emerge.

The next chapter discusses the methodology utilised in the present study to approach Chinese Australian families’ experiences in a systematic manner.

Chapter 3: Methodology

The multilingual experience-oriented research questions (see Section 1.3) considered in the present study and the researcher’s general interest in exploring the meaning of Chinese Australian families’ lived experiences within the context of language planning processes and FLP theories indicate the study’s qualitative nature. As a result, the present enquiry is positioned within a qualitative and constructivist paradigm and adopts an ethnographic multiple-case study approach.

Section 3.1 justifies the use of qualitative research methodology by linking its features (Yin, 2011) with the focus of the present study. Section 3.2 provides a detailed explanation of the approaches to research—case study and ethnography. Section 3.3 outlines the context of the study, presenting information on the research site and the participants. Section 3.4 outlines the methods of data collection. Section 3.5 explains the data analysis processes, while Section 3.6 considers the issues of research validity and reliability and Section 3.7 outlines ethical considerations. Section 3.8 summarises the chapter.

3.1 Qualitative Study Design

The qualitative design (Berg & Lune, 2017; Cooley, 2013) adopted in the current research stems from a relativist ontology with a constructivist epistemological stance

(Creswell, 2013). The essential commitment of this is that not one but multiple forms of

‘realities’ or ‘truths’ exist about Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences—the subject of the present study—depending on their unique life trajectories. Therefore, the

‘knowledge’ of these experiences that the study aims to explore or ‘obtain’ is to be constructed by all stakeholders involved in the research, meaning both participants and the researcher.

According to Yin (2011, pp. 7–8), qualitative research has the following five characteristics, to which the rationale behind this study essentially conforms:

1. Studying the meaning of people’s lives, under real-world conditions;

2. Representing the views and perspectives of the people in a study;

3. Covering the contextual conditions within which people live;

4. Contributing insights into existing or emerging concepts that may help to

explain human social behaviour; and

5. Striving to use multiple sources of evidence rather than relying on a single

source alone.

These characteristics can be highlighted by five keywords: ‘real-world conditions’,

‘views and perspectives’, ‘contextual conditions’, ‘concept-building’ and ‘multiple sources’ of data. The present research relates substantially to all of these characteristics.

First, participants including school leaders, teachers, students and parents are studied in a real-life situation: a Chinese CLS (i.e., TCS), the school where they work or learn. This natural environment provides the study an authentic setting where actual multilingual activities and interactions among local Chinese people occur. In addition, the researcher himself worked as a volunteer school worker in TCS for an extended period.

As a result, the whole ecology of TCS, including the presence of the researcher, is believed to conform to what Yin (2011, p. 7) described as ‘real-world conditions’.

Second, ‘views and perspectives’ on languages are integral parts of people’s multilingual experiences. Representing Chinese Australian families’ language experiences is the purpose of the entire study. In addition, diverse viewpoints create multiple versions of realities that are constructed by participants through interactions with the researcher (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). It is the researcher’s scholarly responsibility to investigate the views and perspectives of participants in their full complexity (Creswell,

2013).

Third, ‘the contextual conditions’ within which Chinese Australian families interact is proved to be not only critical in understanding their multilingual experiences but also have been specified according to a wide range of sociolinguistic domains (see

Figure 2.2). The necessity of examining ‘contextual conditions’ in the present study is theoretically rooted in the sociolinguistic concept of ‘language ecology’ (see Section 2.2); ontologically, this is the ‘context’ that shapes their reality.

Fourth, this study is informed by existing literature and concepts in LPP studies, especially FLP theories (see Chapter 2). More importantly, it aims to contextualise and extend our understanding of the FLP mechanism. By doing so, ‘human social behaviours’, such as language planning activities in Chinese diaspora communities, can be further

‘explained’ (Yin, 2011, p. 8). In a broad sense, the study intends to provide insights into

Chinese Australians’ multilingual encounters.

Fifth, the ecological intricacies of a Chinese community and its languages determined the inclusion of multiple participants (language planners), as mentioned in the first point, and multiple forms of evidence.

Overall, the features of qualitative inquiry and research issues of concern are well matched. In light of this broad commitment to qualitative inquiry, the next section specifies the methodological approaches.

3.2 Ethnographic Multiple-Case Study

Although undertaking generalised qualitative inquiry has become common practice (Yin, 2011, p. 16) in the social sciences, specifying the methodological nature of a qualitative study enables such studies to be conducted more systematically. The present project employs case study (Duff, 2008a; Yin, 2014) and ethnography (McCarty, 2015) as critical research approaches to disentangle Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences. The two approaches to this research are elaborated on below with reference to the study context.

Case study is defined as ‘an in-depth description and analysis of a bounded system’

(Merriam, 2009, p. 40). The ‘case or bounded system’ (Creswell, 2002, p. 61) of the current research is one Chinese community that includes one Chinese CLS and three individual families. Participants’ multilingual experiences are understood through detailed examination of multiple cases—‘units of analysis’ (Merriam, 2009, p. 41), such as family units, parents, children, school leaders and teachers—that are embedded within this one case.

Additionally, a ‘case’ should be a ‘contemporary phenomenon’ (Yin, 2014, p. 16) thoroughly studied in its real-life context, particularly when ‘the boundaries between phenomenon and context’ are blurry. First, as previously pointed out, the current study is not conducted in a ‘controlled’ experimental setting, but rather in a ‘real-world context’

(Yin, 2014, p. 16)—a Chinese CLS in urban Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. Second, the study is framed against the backdrop of waves of Chinese migration in the era of globalisation, their continuous language planning initiatives in the diaspora setting (see

Section 1.2) and new forms of transnational living that arise in multilingual societies.

Issues discussed in the study (e.g., see Section 1.1) are able to reflect new challenges faced by, and opportunities available to, Chinese migrants and their descendants in modern Australia. Therefore, the enquiry is ‘contemporary’ in nature and carries implications in response to ‘contemporary’ issues. Third, the existence and analysis of multilingual experiences cannot be divorced from both its historically situated context

(see Section 1.2.1) and the immediate context of language planning (e.g., see Figure 2.3).

In other words, the phenomenon and the context are tightly integrated.

Ethnography is the principal form of qualitative research methodology and is used to inform the present study. It developed initially from the fieldwork of anthropology

(Agar, 2001; Hymes, 1977), with a particular focus on the culture of the researched society—a ‘field’ (Brewer, 2000, p. 6). Therefore, ethnographic studies require a detailed

investigation of ‘people’s everyday norms, rituals, and routines’ (Yin, 2011, p. 17) and the meanings of these cultural practices which are usually sustained over long periods of time.

According to Merriam (2009, p. 27), culture fundamentally concerns ‘the beliefs, values, and attitudes that structure the behaviour patterns of a specific group of people’.

In this study, the Chinese language maintenance efforts of the community and individual families are well-established cultural practices or patterns of behaviour in the Chinese diaspora context and the efforts are closely related to Chinese immigrants’ language ideologies. The purpose of this study, or FLP research in general, is to understand the meanings of these language maintenance practices by unpacking the ideological factors that shape them, and personal and societal forces that contribute to the formation of the language beliefs and attitudes (see Section 2.4.2).

However, it should be noted that the study is not a full ethnography of language planning in the Chinese Australian community since it is restricted by the overall timeframe of a PhD study and, specifically, the time allocated to data collection. The immersion time in the field is simply not sufficiently long for the researcher to generate a full description of people’s lived experiences. Rather, the study draws on ethnographic research methods to approach the research questions. Merriam (2009, p. 28) describes ethnographic methods as follows:

Immersion in the site as a participant observer is the primary method of data collection. Interviews, formal and informal, and the analysis of documents, records, and artefacts also constitute the data set along with a fieldworker’s diary of each day’s happening, personal feeling, ideas, impressions, or insights with regard to those events.

My 13-month immersion in TCS as a school volunteer prior to data collection equipped me with adequate understanding of the prospective research site and resulted in a research journal and an original research design. The continuing interactions (including a subsequent 15-month on-site data collection period) with participants enhanced the

reliability of qualitative data. Specific data collection techniques that are ethnographic in nature are explained in Section 3.4.

In short, by adopting the ethnographic case study approach this study is expected to generate rich descriptions of Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences, based on which potential theories and concepts in relation to FLP could be constructed (Duff,

2008a, pp. 43–44). The next section details the research context that contains both TCS and participants.

3.3 Research Context

3.3.1 Research site

This ethnographic case study is based on a Chinese CLS in Metropolitan

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia—TCS. TCS was established in the 1990s by a group of parents originally from Mainland China. The researcher’s initial contact with TCS and the reasons for choosing the school for field study are detailed below.

I arrived in Melbourne for my PhD study in May 2013. Because of my abiding interest in language teaching and learning in the diaspora context (see Section 1.4.2), I emailed TCS in November 2013 (using an email address listed on their school website) to express my interest in performing voluntary work in TCS. A school leader responded to me very positively and invited me to visit the school on a weekend. I visited TCS on the morning of Saturday 30 November 2013. The school leader made me feel very welcome and introduced the school to me.

I was advised by the school administration staff to complete the Working with

Children Check as a prerequisite to undertake volunteer work in TCS. I passed the check in 2014, and my subsequent work involved directing traffic around the campus, organising books stored in the staff room, helping teachers print documents and attending to other matters of administration.

In February 2015, I choose TCS as the research site owing to its commonalities with mainlanders’ weekend schools. In a sense, the case selection appears rather ‘random’.

In effect, the sampling was ‘purposive’ (Yin, 2011) or ‘purposeful’ (Duff, 2008a;

Merriam, 2009). My immersion in TCS from November 2013 to February 2015 prior to data collection led to this site and the people who learn and work there becoming part of my social network. More importantly, in the course of my volunteer work I recognised the value of TCS as a rich data source and further refined the research questions based on characteristics of the site. The period before formal data gathering is similar to what Yin

(2011, p. 66) terms ‘fieldwork first’, although it was not technically ‘fieldwork’ because human research ethics approval had not been granted, thus I refrained from any formal data collection.

Consequently, compared with sampling from other schools with which I did not have prior contact, choosing to study TCS enabled me to draw on my emic perspective developed during my volunteer role to perform this research more effectively in terms of identifying potential focal participants within the school, making sense of the potential data and contextualising the entire research.

3.3.2 Participants and sampling process

The key participants of the study can be categorised according to two different language planning domains—the school (TCS) and family (three Chinese Australian families)—which overlap slightly: SL1, School Leader 2 (SL2), seven students/children and their parents (one father and two mothers). We can also identify a category of participants who are not the central part of the research by who nevertheless have an influence on our understanding of the language ecology of the research site and multilingual experiences of the key participants. These peripheral participants were the researcher himself, some TCS teachers (for example, Teacher Hou) and parents whom

the researcher interacted with or observed during his fieldwork. Table 3.1 presents the participants in the present study.

Table 3.1 Research Participants

Domains Main Participants Peripheral Participants

TCS School Leader 1 Teacher Tu School Leader 2 Teacher Hou The researcher Other TCS teachers and parents that may contribute to our understanding of the linguistic ecology of TCS and multilingual experiences of the key participants Family Li Mr Li James David Guo Ms Guo Sophia Henry Evelyn Tan Ms Tan Luke Alex

Note. n = 12 (main participants), comprising two school leaders, three parents and seven children. TCS = The Chinese School.

This subsequent content explains the participant selection process. Compared with focal students/children, the sampling of participants in educational leadership positions of TCS was straightforward. SL1 and SL2 are stakeholders who are in charge of the operations of TCS. They were identified as potential participants once the research site was confirmed. To protect their privacy and maintain confidentiality (Sales & Folkman,

2000), school leaders are not referred to by their titles which could disclose crucial personal information (the pseudonyms SL1 and SL2 are used).

The sampling criteria of focal individual students—‘maximum variation sampling’(Merriam, 2009)—aimed to reflect the diversity of learners within the community language learning context. Therefore, the following criteria were set in the original research design before the researcher actually entered the field in the clearly identified role as data gathering researcher:

• linguistic backgrounds (various home languages)—Mandarin as home language, a non-Mandarin Chinese variety as home language (e.g., Shanghainese and Cantonese) and English as home language • cultural backgrounds (various migration source countries/regions)—a Chinese family from North China and one from South China and an ethnic Chinese family from Southeast Asia • socio-economic status (SES) (various occupations and income and education levels)—high SES, middle SES and low SES. The project mainly focuses on education and occupation aspects of SES • school year levels—Upper Primary (Years 5–6), Junior Secondary (Years 7–10) and Senior Secondary (Years 11–12).

The original ‘ideal’ criteria (i.e., linguistic background, cultural background, SES and grade level) were included as part of the human research ethics application.

According to the proposed methods in the ethics application, focal student participants’ recruitment included a display and distribution of an advertisement, the assistance of a third party (e.g., school leaders, administrators or other staff members of TCS) and participants suggesting other potential participants, commonly known as snowball sampling (Johnson, 2014).

After ethics approval, data collection began. In February 2015, I entered the research site for the first time as a ‘researcher’. I commenced the fieldwork by distributing participant recruitment flyers to those teachers I knew personally who I strongly believed could be parent participants. Some expressed concerns about the potential time commitment or privacy issues (e.g., the study of ‘dinnertime talk’ [e.g., Snow & Beals,

2006]), and others did not express interest in the research in the first place and said they would contact me after discussions with their family. Unfortunately, I never heard from those potential participants.

Under the circumstances, I could not help asking myself what would happen if I distributed the flyers to people to whom I have never talked? I would end up with no research participants. Blommaert and Dong (2010, p. 1) noted that, ‘the “field” is a chaotic, huge complex place’, although the original research plan may be formulated as a ‘perfectly coherent’ one. Although such worries can be unjustified, Duff’s (2008b, p.

116) observation explains potential participants’ worries caused by ethnographic research:

Asking to observe and interview people and follow them ethnographically over long periods of time, with recording devices at home, school, work, community meetings, and so on, and sign formal documents to that effect, only increases the sense of suspicion, imposition, or intrusion.

As a result, I decided to approach parents with whom I was not only more familiar but who also had previously shown interest in my research. As Duff (2008b, p. 116) further suggests:

The advantage of studying people with whom one is already familiar is that access and informed consent are easier to obtain. In addition, it may be possible to observe or interact with familiar participants or sites for a more extended or intensive period, and as a result, the researcher may obtain more useful data about the case. Finally, there is likely to be a greater understanding of the context based on prior knowledge.

Mr Li and Ms Guo were two parents who first came to mind when I started to consider participating families from my own social network. Owing to the restriction of ethics requirements, I never collected data from these parents before obtaining ethics approval; however, my presence in TCS had attracted them to understand my research.

After ethics clearance, I explained the scope of the study to Mr Li and Ms Guo

(individually) with the help of the Plain Language Statement (see Appendix 1).

Subsequently, they agreed to participate in the research by filling out and signing the consent form (see Appendix 2). The change of participant recruitment strategy proved to be correct and effective. Later, through a teacher acquaintance, I was introduced to the

third parent participant, Ms Tan and her family. Sections 3.3.2.1–3.3.2.3 present information on these three participating families and my contact with them.

3.3.2.1 The Li family

I met Mr Li on my first day at TCS in November 2013. His family, originally from

Wuxi City, Jiangsu province, in Southern China, speaks Wuxinese at home. Mr and Mrs

Li arrived in Australia in 1990. They have two sons—James (16 years old) and David (12 years old)—who were born in Australia and were in Grade 11 and Grade 7 of TCS respectively when data collection commenced in 2015. Mr Li has been a non-academic staff member of TCS for more than a decade. Mrs Li is a local shop owner and an occasional TCS volunteer over weekends. After learning that I was a PhD student interested in Chinese community languages education, Mr Li had been supportive and consistently shared his experiences and perspectives with me. He said I could meet with him whenever I was in TCS—something I did frequently.

Mr Li and David are the focal participants of the Li family. Mr Li is in his 50s and his transnational journey may be reflective of experiences of Chinese mainlanders who arrived in Australia in the 1990s. Currently, in the local Chinese community, people who arrived in the 1990s are generally considered or labelled Laoyimin (老移民) (‘old migrants’) in Mandarin. David represents the experiences of Chinese Australian children in Junior Secondary. The Li family is coded as Family 1 (F1) in this study.

3.3.2.2 The Guo family

I met Ms Guo in the first half of 2014. Ms Guo, a mother of three, moved to

Australia from Fuqing City of Fujian province in Southern China in 2005 to join her husband, Mr Cheung. Mr Cheung works for a construction company and Ms Guo is a homemaker. Their eldest daughter, Sophia (11 years old), was born in China and came to

Australia when she was three months old. Henry (10 years old) and Evelyn (4 years old) were born in Australia. Ms Guo’s commitment to her children’s Mandarin learning made

a deep, lasting impression on me. She always waits in the staff room accompanied by

Evelyn when Sophia (Grade 5) and Henry have Mandarin lessons. Evelyn’s distinct multilingual practices drew my attention from a very early stage. Normally, both Ms Guo and Evelyn watch entertainment programmes on their iPads while waiting for Sophia and

Henry. During class breaks, Sophia and Henry would came to the staff room and eat snacks. Through this contact in the staff room, I gradually became familiar with the family.

Ms Guo and her three children always had lunch together in a spare classroom. From time to time, Ms Guo would invite me to share lunch with them and this situation provided me an incredible opportunity to know the family.

Ms Guo and Sophia are focal participants. Ms Guo is able to represent experiences of young parents and more recent Chinese migrants or Xinyimin (新移民) (‘new migrants’) born in the 1980s. Transnational moving and living after 1980s has been in alignment with China’s opening-up policy and economic rise. In addition, as mentioned in Section

1.2.1, people of Fujian origin have had a longstanding presence in the Chinese Australian community even before the Australian Gold Rush, and it is interesting to explore the modern generation’s lived experiences. Sophia and Henry studied in the same class in

TCS. However, because Sophia is far more extroverted than Henry and talked to me much more, I included Sophia as the focal participant. Sophia’s case provides reflections on the perspective and experience of children at Upper Primary school levels. The Guo family is coded as Family 2 (F2) in this study.

3.3.2.3 The Tan family

Ms Tan’s participation in the study was suggested by Teacher Zhao in March 2015.

Teacher Zhao was the Mandarin teacher of Ms Tan’s eldest son, Luke (16 years old), in

TCS. I met Teacher Zhao during my volunteer work; she was teaching a ‘nonbackground’

Grade 11 VCE Chinese class (see Section 1.1 for the explanation of the VCE exam).

‘Nonbackground’ students were defined in TCS as learners who speak languages other

than Mandarin at home. I included this family as participants owing to their ethnic

background and especially Luke’s good work ethic and dedication to Mandarin learning.

Luke was born in Malaysia and arrived in Australia with his family in 2000 when he was

about 18 months old. Luke has a younger brother, Alex (13 years old), who was born in

Australia. Ms Tan’s family is of Malaysian Chinese background and speaks Teochew at

home. Ms Tan is a homemaker and her husband works in a butcher shop.

When I approached Ms Tan, I found that we had already met, having encountered

each other in the TCS staff room multiple times. Compared with Mr Li and Ms Guo, Ms

Tan was a ‘new’ friend, but our previous brief contact made our communication much

easier than I expected and she gave consent for research participation. Ms Tan and Luke

are focal participants and their participation in the research provides voices from the

Southeast Asian Chinese community. Luke also represents students of Senior Secondary

level, at which Mandarin learning is heavily focused on the VCE Chinese exam. The Tan

family is coded as Family 3 (F3) in this study.

Table 3.2 summarises the information on the three families. Note that the

children’s age was recorded in 2015 when data collection commenced. The names of

focal child participants—Sophia (Grade 5), David (Grade 7) and Luke (Grade 11)—are

highlighted in bold in the table.

Table 3.2 Information on the Three Participating Families

Information Family 1/The Li Family 2/The Guo Family 3/The Tan family family family

Linguistic background Wuxinese Fuqingnese Teochew

Dominant home language Wuxinese Mandarin Teochew

Cultural background Wuxi City, Fuqing City, Fujian Kuching, Sarawak, (place of origin) Jiangsu Province, Province, China Malaysia China

Arrival year 1990 2005 2000

Focal Name Mr Li Ms Guo Ms Tan parents Age Early 50s Mid-30s Early 40s

Occupation TCS Homemaker Homemaker administration staff

Children Name James David Sophia Henry Evelyn Luke Alex

Age 16 12 11 10 4 16 13

Grade level 11 7 5 5 N/A 11 8

Note. Names of focal child participants—Sophia (Grade 5), David (Grade 7) and Luke (Grade 11)— highlighted in bold.

Against the ‘ideal’ criteria for participating families’ selection (see Section 3.3.2),

the three families do not seem to fully meet the requirements except for the children’s

various grade levels. First, there is no family of Northern Chinese origin. Second, the SES

status of each family was not considered when inviting them to be part of the research.

This was because in the field I found myself very uncomfortable selecting participants

based on their SES status. In retrospect, the discomfort was derived from a type of

academic and institutional privilege that could potentially produce and reinforce an

unequal relationship between the researcher and participants.

Additionally, the ‘ideal’ criteria were formulated based on my previous

assumptions about Chinese language and people—that is, a Northern Chinese family

speaks Mandarin, a Southern Chinese family speaks a distinctive regional language not

normally intelligible to Northerners, and a Malaysian Chinese family speaks English at

home. This series of assumptions is a simplistic and flawed generalisation about, or

misunderstanding of, the sociolinguistic reality of the Chinese-speaking community.

Moreover, there had been another thought in my mind since fieldwork commenced—to

study a household in which the parents are highly educated.

Gathering general information from the three families (see Table 3.2) enabled me to reflect on the so-called ideal participant sampling requirements and the features of qualitative research. I realised that I needed to minimise my assumptions and fully accept the ecology of TCS and participants. As Yin (2011, p. 75) states:

Distinctive to qualitative research is the potential resistance to doing too much, if any, design work ahead of time – to avoid imposing external criteria or categories, or any fixed regimen on the real-world reality being studied.

Finally, I discarded the rigid sampling criteria, further recognised ‘flexibility’ as ‘a strength of interpretive research’ (Duff, 2008a, p. 113), modified my previous research plan according to the dynamics of the real research context (Blommaert & Dong, 2010) and embraced the idea of the three families (the Li, Guo and Tan families) as the research participants.

The heterogeneity of the three families is well demonstrated in Table 3.2, although the sampling may not be strictly labelled as conforming to the principle of ‘maximum variation’. More importantly, the categories, such as linguistic background, cultural background, arrival time and characteristics of each individual participant, shown in

Table 3.2 are not pre-set or imposed on the sampling process (a top-down process); rather, they are extracted from participants (a bottom-up process).

3.4 Data Collection

The intensive data collection period in TCS lasted from February 2015 to June

2015 on a weekly basis during school terms. Guided by the analytical framework (see

Figure 2.2) and research purpose (Merriam, 2009, p. 86) regarding multilingual experiences, data included selected research participants’—parents’, children’s, school leaders’ and teachers’—language planning experiences, language ideologies and language uses in the dynamic sociopolitical, sociocultural and socio-economic contexts.

Children and parents were the focus because their lived experiences constitute the most crucial part of family multilingual experiences.

Table 3.3 provides an overview of data sources which specifies data collection techniques, forms of data, participants and the quantity of data. In this study, interviewing was the major form of data collection and produced the primary data for the enquiry.

Further, supplementary information was selected from general school and classroom observations and from documents, including the fieldworker’s research journal, to triangulate and complement interview data (Denzin, 2006; Patton, 2015). Note that the different forms of data overlap to a certain extent. For example, observations and note taking are involved when interviewing participants. The remainder of this section explains the data collection strategies in detail.

Table 3.3 Overview of Data Sources

Data sources Description Duration (approx.)/quantity Interviews School One interview with School Leader 1 3 hours 30 minutes (Primary) leaders One interview with School Leader 2 2 hours 40 minutes Parents Three interviews with Mr Li 2 hours 15 minutes Five interviews with Ms Guo 7 hours Three interviews with Ms Tan 2 hours 45 minutes Children Two conversations with David 30 minutes One conversation with Sophia 10 minutes One interview with Luke 1 hour Observations Classroom David’s Visited on 21/02/15, 7 × 45 minutes periods (Supplementary) observations classroom 28/02/15, 18/04/15 and 09/05/15 Sophia & Henry’s Visited on 14/03/15, 11 × 45 minutes classroom 21/03/15, 18/04/15 and periods 23/05/15 Luke’s classroom Visited on 28/03/15, 9 × 45 minutes periods 18/04/15, 25/04/15 and 30/05/15 General TCS Observations were made during my 41 school visits observations between November 2013 and October 2015 in a range of locations and occasions, for example, staff room, school reception, staff meetings, teacher training events and cultural events. Documents David’s writings Essays required by TCS 29 pieces (Supplementary) teachers

Data sources Description Duration (approx.)/quantity Sophia’s & Diary entries required by Ms 42 pieces Henry’s writings Guo Luke’s writings Essays required by TCS 26 pieces teachers The researcher’s The journal records my informal interactions with journal parents, teachers and school leaders in TCS and my reflections on these events

Note. TCS = The Chinese School.

3.4.1 Interviews

In this research, interviews (relatively formal in nature) and my naturally occurring conversations (informal in nature) with research participants are the most important ‘tools of inquiry’ (Curdt-Christiansen, 2003). The use of interviewing as primary data source was fundamentally determined by the research questions and then restricted by the real-life research context in relation to gaining access to private households, which is described later in this section.

This study’s research questions (see Section 1.3) are essentially about journeys of language planning (at both community and home levels), language use at home and language attitudes, affect and experiences. All of these aspects of multilingualism spread across the past to the present. Interviews trigger participants’ multilingual memories and enable them to share their ‘feelings, thoughts and intentions’ that are not observable

(Patton, 2002, pp. 340–341, as cited in Merriam, 2009, p. 88). Additionally, owing to parents’ (Ms Guo and Ms Tan) concern about their privacy I did not gain access to their households to observe their language practices. This actual research situation made technically ‘observable’ activities ‘unobservable’, although I managed to observe their family interactions on the school site. Therefore, interviewing in the present study appears to be particularly important.

As Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2018, p. 506) commented, ‘the interview is a social, interpersonal encounter, not merely a data-collection exercise’. It is true that as an

ethnographer, my interviewing parents and other people in TCS is similar to my holding daily conversations with other Chinese community members. It is the most natural way of interacting with the participants and addressing the research questions. The research participants and I both felt comfortable with this data collection technique, which is crucial for the reliability and validity of the information elicited from participants

(Lincoln, Lynham & Guba, 2011).

Throughout the course of fieldwork, school leaders, focal students, their parents and Mandarin teachers were interviewed at TCS. Most interactions with participants were audio-recorded, whereas spontaneous and brief conversations were recorded in fieldnotes.

Interviews were semi-structured, one-to-one and face-to-face, whereas informal interactions or conversations would include more than one person when they occurred naturally. Notably, casual conversations between the researcher and participants were also guided by the research interests of this study. Importantly, interviews and conversations were undertaken based on an established close rapport between the researcher and participants created during their previous contact, thus, ‘people will be saying what they want to say’, rather than being confined to researchers’ structured questions (Yin, 2011, p. 8).

Guided by the language ecological framework (see Figure 2.2), interview questions (see Appendix 3) varied depending on participants, but these generally covered the following nine aspects: 1) personal information; 2) TCS/school policies/Chinese education in Australia; 3) students/student language/learning; 4) English, Mandarin, regional Chinese varieties and other languages; 5) teachers/teacher language/teaching; 6) relationship with China/other Chinese-speaking regions/other institutions in and outside

Australia; 7) parents/home language practices; 8) Australian language planning context; and 9) mainstream schools.

Table 3.4 shows interview data (including conversations)—primary data— analysed in Chapters 4–6. In the data classification system of the present thesis, the Li,

Guo and Tan families are referred to as F1, F2 and F3 respectively. Mr Li, Ms Guo and

Ms Tan are termed Parent-1, 2 and 3 respectively, and the focal children David, Sophia and Luke are termed Student-1, 2 and 3 respectively. For example, from data labelled

Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15, it should be clear that this label refers to the first interview with Mr Li on 14 February 2015.

Table 3.4 Interviews (including Conversations) with Participants (Primary Data)

Domains Participants/ Date Duration Data Classification Abbreviations (dd/mm/yy) of (participant/data form/date of Interview collection) Recording The Chinese School Leader 1 02/05/15 3:26:56 SL1/INTW/02MAY15 School (TCS) (SL1) School Leader 2 20/05/15 2:39:32 SL2/INTW/20MAY15 (SL2) The Li family Mr Li/Parent-1 14/02/15 0:48:42 Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15 (F1) 19/04/15 0:18:53 Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15 09/05/15 1:08:28 Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15 David/Student-1 21/02/15 0:14:11 Student-1/CONV-1/21FEB15 09/05/15 0:13:23 Student-1/CONV-2/09MAY15 The Guo family Ms Guo/Parent-2 07/03/15 1:08:05 Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15 (F2) 14/03/15 1:12:50 Parent-2/INTW-2/14MAR15 21/03/15 2:22:54 Parent-2/INTW-3/21MAR15 16/05/15 1:04:03 Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15 23/05/15 1:12:08 Parent-2/INTW-5/23MAY15 Sophia/Student-2 30/05/15 0:08:19 Student-2/CONV/30MAY15 The Tan family Tan/Parent-3 28/03/15 1:04:10 Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15 (F3) 18/04/15 0:10:43 Parent-3/INTW-2/18APR15 30/05/15 1:31:59 Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15 Luke/Student-3 14/10/15 0:57:40 Student-3/INTW/14OCT15

Note. INTW = interview; CONV = conversation.

3.4.2 Observations and documents

Observations and documents provided supplementary data for this study. As shown in Table 3.3, observational data included my regular visits to the focal students’

Mandarin classrooms in TCS (observations of 27 periods in total) and general observations in TCS (41 school visits in total). Document data mainly included students’ written products (97 essays in total) and my research journal.

The observations played an important role in introducing me to ‘the context’ of

TCS, students’ and parents’ ‘routine’ multilingual experiences in the community, and even ‘specific incidents’ and ‘behaviours’ (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 139) in classrooms that tremendously informed the fieldwork and research. For example, after I observed that teachers would spend a certain proportion of classroom time managing student behaviour or sometimes answering students’ seemingly ‘disruptive’ questions, my interest in classrooms shifted from ‘what to teach and how to teach’ to teacher–student tensions or ‘classroom power’ (Wajnryb, 1992, p. 119) negotiation and manifestation.

The shift of ‘what to observe’ contributes to a better understanding of children’s experiences in community language classrooms, and the experiences constitute part of the third research question. Eventually, 27 Mandarin sessions across focal students were observed and audiotaped. In addition, fieldnotes were taken to facilitate easy identification of ‘desired information’ during data analysis (Merriam, 2009, p. 130).

Compared with classroom observations, general school observations were conducted more frequently and these occurred immediately after the fieldworker stepped into the ‘field’. From November 2013 to October 2015, which included my volunteer work time and data collection time, I observed and/or participated in many school events, such as staff meetings, staff training sessions, parent–parent informal conversations, teacher–teacher conversations, parent–teacher interactions, students’ playground interactions, TCS Chinese New Year celebrations and TCS teachers’ social events. As an

ethnic Chinese person myself, attending some of these activities was a completely natural practice that served the purpose of socialising with other community members.

Conversely, these experiences must have subconsciously informed the way in which I framed this study, although I am by no means able to include all relevant events either in the form of data or contextual information in the present thesis, constrained by the scope of the study and the need to respond to specific research questions.

Personal documents, such as child participants’ TCS essays and diaries required by parents, and other school work, were also collected. This source of data is completely

‘independent of any research inquiry’ (Yin, 2011, p. 8), that is, not researcher generated.

In the course of observation in TCS, I realised that ‘writing’, as a critical skill, has been paid particular attention in the school. Novice Chinese language writers (i.e., students) are generally encouraged to describe real-life stories, rather than made-up alternatives. It is not uncommon to find student essays entitled, for example, Me (我), My Friend (我的

朋友) or My Family (我的家庭)—in these essays, students introduce themselves and describe events in their lives. In addition, owing to the importance attached to writing in the general community discourse, the parent participant, Ms Guo, specifically asked her children to write diaries during term breaks.

The present study takes the stance that writing is not merely a skill, but a significant social practice through which young Chinese writers create meanings and display identities (Lillis, 2001). Therefore, all of these students’ written products potentially provide the study with insights into their lived experiences. Although the writings may be ‘highly subjective’, they reveal children’s ‘perspective’ (Merriam, 2009, p. 143) which responds to the third research question regarding children’s identities and experiences of Chinese language learning.

Finally, my research journal or fieldnotes is another form of ‘documents’ and, thus, a source of evidence. Influenced by the tradition of ethnographic study, detailed

fieldnotes (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 2011) were sometimes made along with interviewing and field observations. At other times, these were written as self-reflections on the fieldwork after I left the field. Notes were generally jotted down immediately after interactions with people or observations if not taken spontaneously during the event. The habit of keeping a research journal has allowed me to not only become familiar with the potential research context at the very initial stage of the study but provided factual information for data triangulation at the stage of data analysis. It also assisted with the discipline of data gathering by forcing me to be systematic in checking and rechecking facts, events and statements. In retrospect, these notes recorded for the first time were the emergence of a new theme. Figure 3.1 shows a sample of my fieldnotes.

As shown in Figure 3.1, a casual conversation I had with Mr Li’s wife on the reasons for her children’s return trip to China opened an enquiry about the role of regional food in establishing Chinese Australian children’s connection with parental place of origin and the children’s regional Chinese identity (see Section 6.1.2.1). Fieldnote data are labelled according to the format [data form/time]. For example, Figure 3.1 contains a piece of data classified as Fieldnotes/22NOV2014, which indicates that the form of data is ‘fieldnotes’ and was recorded on 22 November 2014.

Saturday, 22 November 2014, Visit 21

[Parent-1’s name] the older son [xxx] new term, Grade 10 Student-1’s older Parent-1 brother the younger son [xxx] new term, Grade 7 (mainstream school) Student -1 Parent-1’s [Parent-1’s wife] narrative: wife

[Student-1’s older brother] plays tennis on Sundays Student-1’s older brother plays badminton at other times

([the coach was] former national team player) Student-1’s older brother [Student-1’s older brother] Likes going back to Wuxi, an

important reason is liking Wuxi’s ‘tasty food’, such as Wuxi steamed buns, it tastes ‘sweet’, very juicy (you northerners) are not used to it.

Bo asked: Is that because you always cook these (kinds of

Parent-1’s Wuxi) food at home (here in Australia), [Student-1’s older wife brother] likes them?

[Parent-1’s wife] Actually I can’t make steamed buns, perhaps because cuisine in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, especially in Wuxi, puts in a lot of sugar; they are used to such taste from a very young age. (Socialisation into taste)

Figure 3.1. Fieldnote sample (original left, translation right). (socialisation into taste)

3.5 Data Analysis

Data analysis proceeded in two stages or phases: ‘initial analysis’ followed by

‘intensive’ analysis. The former began simultaneously with the data collection, whereas

the intensive analysis began upon the completion of the main fieldwork.

During the first phase, audio recordings of interview and classroom interaction

data were transcribed verbatim (Poland, 1995) in the original language (i.e., Chinese) for

more accurate representation of the verbal data (see Appendix 10). The transcribing of

audio files was normally conducted between each site visit. Because TCS opens only on

weekends, the duration between each visit provided an ideal timeframe for transcribing

data. Although the process of data transcription was tremendously time consuming, it

enabled me to gain a thorough understanding of the information that I collected and

informed subsequent observations and interviews (Merriam, 2009).

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Completion of my fieldwork and data transcribing marked the commencement of the intensive data examination. I realised that ‘making sense out of data’, such as through

‘consolidating’, ‘reducing’ and ‘interpreting’ participants’ responses and my observations, was the most challenging part of this study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, pp. 201–202).

Owing to the study’s ethnographic characteristics marked by ‘thick descriptions’ (Geertz,

1973) and a relatively broad research focus in the early phase of fieldwork, the amount of information collected was considerable. For example, 1,215 minutes (27 sessions × 45 minutes) of Mandarin lessons were transcribed and reviewed and 97 pieces of student writing were collected.

Under the circumstances, the first step towards data analysis was to ‘reduce’ the quantity of information to be included in the central analysis. I needed to further classify the information according to its relevance to specific research questions. Therefore, data in the present study were categorised as either a primary (e.g., interviewing) or supplementary (e.g., observations and documents) source of evidence.

Audio recordings of classroom interactions can potentially contribute to answering the third research question from the aspect of students’ classroom experiences; however, focal students are not always involved in the teacher–student or peer interactions. Thus, classroom observations are classified as supplementary data.

Conversely, when focal students’ interactions with teachers are captured in the recording, and the interactions are also relevant to an established theme, this segment of classroom data is then analysed along with primary data. For example, see Section 6.1.2.3.

The analysis of the primary source of data—interviewing—involved transcribing the audio-recording of the interviews as mentioned earlier, translating the transcribed interviews from the original language (Chinese) to English and interpreting the interviews.

Qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2014), specifically a combination of three approaches, ‘conventional’, ‘directed’ and ‘summative’ (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p.

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1277)—which contains various coding schemes—was employed to construct themes or categories responsive to the research questions.

In the present study, first, informed by general LPP and particular FLP theories, there are pre-existing codes or themes—‘a directed approach’ (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p. 1277)—for example, language ideologies, language practices and family language planning activities. Further, the data analysis included ‘a conventional approach’ through which themes emerge directly from the text (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p. 1277).

Examination of these ‘new’ themes would contribute to the body of knowledge in the field of LPP and FLP. Additionally, ‘summative’ content analysis was also applied, focusing on the appearance and meanings of identified keywords (Hsieh & Shannon,

2005, p. 1286). One example involved research participants’ word choice of Zhongguoren

(中国人) (‘Chinese people’) which was marked and analysed to see if it related to deep identity issues.

The content of each interview was individually coded before comparing it with other interviews by the same participant. Once individual analysis was completed for all participants and participating families—within-case analysis—comparative cross-case analysis was conducted to identify shared patterns and categories (Duff, 2008a; Merriam

& Tisdell, 2016). In addition, secondary sources of data, such as observations and documents, were used to supplement or enrich interview data. The thematic analysis of the entire set of data was a recursive and nonlinear process and the analysis was both inductive and deductive in nature (Merriam, 2009; Schutt, 2009).

As a result, common themes were generated: attitudes to Chinese language varieties, Mandarin varieties and Chinese written language varieties, children’s attitudes to learning Mandarin, general and special home language practices, home language

(including MT) attitudes, FLP styles and activities, multilingual and multicultural experiences and regional identity. Table 3.5 illustrates different levels of coding, which

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include original themes (right), merged themes (middle) and presentation of these categories in this thesis (left).

Table 3.5 Theme Levels

Data Presentation in Thesis Integrated Theme Theme

Learning ‘Chinese’ in TCS Attitudes to Attitudes to Chinese language (Chapter 4) Chinese varieties language and learning Attitudes to Mandarin varieties Mandarin Attitudes to Chinese written language varieties

Children’s attitudes to learning Mandarin

Speaking regional languages Home language General home language practices and/or Mandarin at home attitudes and (Chapter 5) practices Special home language practices—strong forceful language use

Home language (including MT) attitudes

FLP and children’s FLP experiences FLP styles multilingual/multicultural experiences (Chapter 6) FLP activities Identity Multilingual and multicultural experiences

Regional identity

Note. TCS = The Chinese School, FLP = family language policy/planning, MT = mother tongue.

3.6 Trustworthiness

Ensuring the rigour of the present qualitative case study was a priority since the initial phase of the research design. The relativist ontological position on which this study is based considers that multiple realities exist. That is, qualitative studies may ‘never capture an objective “truth” or “reality” ’ (Merriam, 2009, p. 215) if one exists. Under the

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influence of this philosophical perspective, a series of strategies were adopted to enhance the study’s internal and external validity (i.e., the trustworthiness of its findings).

Specifically, strategies synthesised by Merriam (2009, p. 229), such as ‘triangulation’,

‘member checks’, ‘adequate engagement in data collection’, researcher’s ‘reflexivity’,

‘peer review’, ‘audit trail’, ‘rich, thick descriptions’ and ‘maximum variation’, were taken into account for the current research.

First, ‘triangulation’ (Denzin, 2006; Patton 1999) in this study is exemplified by the employment of various data sources and data gathering techniques (see Section 3.4), which was also determined by the ecological nature of transnational multilingual family experiences across multiple sociolinguistic domains.

Second, ‘member checks’ (Gall, Gall & Borg, 2005) refers to participants’ feedback on the researcher’s reconstruction or interpretation of the participants’ lived experiences. Informants of the present study, especially school leaders and parents, provided valuable feedback on my interpretations of the data. However, after member checking, some of the information collected was excluded from the final thesis as ‘data’ owing to participants’ reluctance to disclose certain information or opinions.

Third, ‘adequate engagement in data collection’ indicates that the researcher needs to spend a sufficient amount of time gathering data and should include an analysis of ‘discrepant or negative cases’ (Merriam, 2009, p. 229). As mentioned earlier, my contact with the research site and participants before and during my fieldwork (November

2013 to October 2015) equipped me with an emic view of the Chinese Australian community and, more importantly, enabled participants to share their CLP and private family language planning experiences with me. The rapport developed between me and the research participants ensured data quality to a large extent. In addition, ‘negatives cases’ (e.g., cases where parents choose not to maintain their children’s Chinese language competence; see Section 4.4) were purposefully included in this study informed both by

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literature review (e.g., Fogle, 2013a; Pérez Báez, 2013; Seloni & Sarfati, 2013) and by the concern for data validity and reliability.

Fourth, researchers’ reflexivity is their ‘explicit reflective account’ of their ‘own role or history in a project and unanticipated influences over the findings’ (Duff, 2008a, p. 173). This researcher positioning is especially important in ethnographic studies, in which the researcher is the primary instrument of data collection. Section 1.4 detailed my childhood translocal multilingual experiences, education and professional background that may have informed my ‘biases, dispositions, and assumptions’ (Merriam, 2009, p.

219) in relation to the present study. Moreover, I have adopted a reflective writing style throughout this thesis, especially in the findings chapters (Chapters 4–6). My biases and assumptions are explicitly pointed out whenever I am self-aware of these.

Fifth, peer review in the current research is manifested by the continuous discussions about my PhD project between me and my supervisors and other professional colleagues at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education on a wide range of occasions from conference/faculty presentations and meetings of my advisory committee to casual on-campus conversations since the commencement of my research in May 2013. All these presentations, conversations and discussions constitute a comprehensive academic experience that has critically shaped my understanding and conduct of the study. I have specified all of these key people and occasions in the Preface and Acknowledgement sections.

The last three criteria for ensuring trustworthiness involve a detailed description of ‘the methods, procedures, and decision points’ in conducting the research (i.e., ‘audit trail’), ‘rich description’ and ‘maximum variation’ in sampling (as shown in Section 3.3.2)

(Merriam, 2009, p. 229) with which the present study aligns itself. The ethnographic nature of this study naturally produces ‘rich’ data to provide readers adequate contextual information to evaluate the study and make judgements about the findings’ transferability

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(Lincoln & Guba, 1985) in other diaspora communities. Moreover, to ensure ‘richness’ and enhance trustworthiness of data, complete bilingual data sets—original Chinese language data and English translations—are provided for readers to examine (see

Appendices 4–9). By engaging with multiple languages in the data collection and analysis, the value of ‘researching multilingually’ (Holmes, Fay, Andrews & Attia, 2016) is also highlighted.

In addition to the above strategies and techniques (Merriam, 2009), conducting the study in a highly ethical manner, a requirement of PhD research and a personal commitment of my own, substantially contributes to the trustworthiness of the data and the entire research project.

3.7 Ethical Considerations

The present study strictly adheres to the human ethics guidelines outlined in the

University of Melbourne Code of Conduct for Research and the Australian Code for the

Responsible Conduct of Research. The study was granted ethics approval (ethics ID:

1442066) from the Human Research Ethics Committee at The University of Melbourne on 13 February 2015. In the meantime, I participated in research ethics and integrity training within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education to familiarise myself with the entire required code of conduct for research involving human participants. During the period of data gathering, my regular (at least monthly) contact with my supervisory committee ensured timely consultations on ethical issues (Patton, 2002) alongside the evolving and emerging findings of the research. The research process fully complies with the protocols set out in the original ethics application.

Throughout the fieldwork and thesis writing, the following ethical issues are particularly addressed: risk management, informed consent and privacy and confidentiality.

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First, although the project was classified as low risk and participation in the research was not supposed to cause participants to experience any form of negative emotions, I took a cautious approach when interacting with all participants, especially children (Skånfors, 2009). The reason was that in interviews, some participants might become disturbed if particular issues about themselves or experiences related to their personal decisions, whether about learning, profession or immigration experiences, are raised. For example, during my conversation with Ms Guo and her eldest daughter Sophia

(see Excerpt 19-F2, Section 6.2.2.2), Sophia became upset when sharing her classroom experiences with me. In this situation, I finished the conversation quickly despite the likelihood that allowing it to continue would generate information about the complexity of (sometimes racialised) multilingual experiences.

Second, informed consent was obtained from participants before commencement of data collection. All research participants were informed of the purpose of study and details of their research involvement through the bilingual Plain Language Statement (see

Appendix 1), prepared in Chinese and English. The voluntary nature of the research participation was emphasised, as was their ability to withdraw from the study at any time of their choosing. As mentioned in Section 3.4.1, because of the privacy concern raised by Ms Guo and Ms Tan I did not obtain consent to observe their language practices in their homes and I fully respected their decisions and this real-life ecology of fieldwork.

Then, I decided not to visit Mr Li’s house to achieve a balanced data cohort. Throughout the process of fieldwork, I considered the research participants ‘co-researchers’ with whom I was dedicated to building strong mutual trust and support.

Third, to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the participating school to the fullest possible extent, its statistical, geographical and other identifying features are deliberately obscured. That is, although detailed information, such as on demographic structure of student and teacher populations and on school programmes and school history,

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was collected, identifying data related to these characteristics are not disclosed in the thesis. Moreover, pseudonyms were employed for all participants to preserve confidentiality. Additionally, the gender of children other than those of the three focal families, such as school leaders’ and teachers’ children, is not specified.

3.8 Chapter Summary

This chapter has described the research design of the current study—an ethnographic qualitative multiple-case study. Chinese Australian families’ multilingual experiences are approached through investigation of various units of analysis—TCS, a local Chinese CLS in the urban area of Victoria, Australia, and three Chinese Australian families (the Li, Guo and Tan families). The sampling of the families aims to reflect some of the heterogeneity of the Chinese Australian population and their languages.

Interviewing, the primary source of data, was supplemented by observation data (general and classroom observations) and documentation data (students’ written language production and the researcher’s fieldnotes). Guided by LPP and FLP theories and the proposed analytical framework (see Figure 2.2), qualitative content analysis combining three different approaches (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p. 1277)—‘directed’, ‘conventional’ and ‘summative’ coding schemes—was employed to approach concrete data. In the course of the entire study, especially during the fieldwork and intensive data analysis phases, multiple strategies and techniques were utilised to ensure the rigour and trustworthiness of the study. Finally, ethical concerns over research involving human beings were highlighted and three ethical dimensions (risk management, informed consent, and privacy and confidentiality) were identified and discussed.

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Chapter 4: Learning ‘Chinese’ in TCS

This chapter addresses Research Question 1, particularly in the setting of a

Chinese CLS, and the component of Research Question 3 relating to Mandarin-learning experiences. Chinese language planning in the ‘home’ context and other multilingual experiences of the children are presented separately in Chapter 6. It is timely to reiterate the first and the third research questions as a backdrop to the presentation of data answering them:

• Research Question 1: How do transnational Chinese families engage in Chinese language planning in the community school and in the home? • Research Question 3: What are the perceptions and experiences of the children (from their own perspective as well as that of their parents) in relation to Chinese language learning and their identities?

In this chapter, findings are categorised thematically under the following leading questions which include perspectives and experiences of school leaders, parents and children. These themes are outcomes of the organisation and analysis of the observational and interview data. The chapter concludes with a summary section containing statements of preliminary findings.

4.1 Why was TCS Established?

This section focuses on the reasons behind the establishment of TCS and its early developments. Major units of analysis are illustrated in Table 4.1. The voice of SL1, a key founding member of TCS, is represented.

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Table 4.1 Early History of The Chinese School

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description 1-SL1 Language planning: sociopolitical ‘Our future was left hanging in contexts the balance’ 2-SL1 Language planning: existing ecology ‘Going to their (early migrants’ of ethnic language education or Taiwanese) schools is not suitable for our children’

As mentioned in Chapter 3, parents established TCS in the 1990s to cater to children from mainland Chinese backgrounds. At the very beginning, teachers were the students’ own parents. Thus, we can say that the CLP was initially an extended and merged form of family language planning.

The original intention of establishing TCS was closely linked to the following factors: 1) the precarious situation of the 1980s sociopolitical context of China, 2) Chinese nationals’ Australian visa status and citizenship struggles and 3) the existing ecology of ethnic language education within Australia’s Chinese community at the time. As SL1 said:

Because that was a very special history. We came here after ‘June Fourth’; the people who came here around the time of ‘June Fourth’, at that time, our future was left hanging in the balance—we didn’t know whether we would stay in Australia or go back to China. (Excerpt 1-SL1, Appendix 4) China’s sociopolitical situation in the late 1980s (see Section 1.2) created a large and sudden wave of Chinese student and professional immigrants to Australia.

Specifically, following the Tiananmen Square events, the so-called June Fourth, then–

Prime Minister Bob Hawke took the unilateral step of allowing 42,000 Chinese students to remain in Australia (Australia-Chinese Relations Institute, 2015)—sometimes called the ‘Chinese student visa vow’, which massively increased the number of Chinese in

Australia. Meanwhile, the possibility of the immigrants’ return to China had always existed, owing to their temporary residence status that established residence period bonds in the visa conditions. This meant that children of migrant parents would need to be able

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to fit back into the Chinese educational system after a period that was conceived as a temporary stay in Australia.

Therefore, the primary motivation for establishing TCS was pragmatic—serving the purpose of probable reintegration into Chinese society, which is competitive in nature.

As SL1 stated, ‘being able to keep up with the teaching without repeating years if they

[children] go back!’ (‘ 将来回去以后他能跟上班啊, 别蹲班啊’)

(SL1/INTW/02MAY15). Gallo and Hornberger (2017) put forward ‘immigration policy as family language policy’ after an analysis of Mexican immigrants’ US experiences (see

Section 2.4.21). The establishment of TCS further shows that immigrant policy directly affected and constituted a form of community language policy, although at the initial stage of TCS the specific form that CLP had assumed was simply a collective form of

FLP in the pragmatic interests of preparation for Chinese school integration in the home country. In addition, this pragmatic objective also demonstrates that CLSs are not necessarily linked to the maintenance of heritage languages or ethnic roots in the first place.

Later, on 1 November 1993, the Australian Government announced that Chinese nationals holding a four-year temporary visa were entitled to be granted permanent residence—‘the 1 November decision’ (Department of Immigration and Multicultural

Affairs, 2001). This change of mainlanders’ residential status in Australia led to a clear life goal: ‘putting down roots in the land of Australia’ (‘在澳大利亚这块土地上扎下根

来’) and ‘living and working in peace and contentment’ (‘安居乐业’), as opposed to the previously stated ‘hanging in the balance’ (SL1/INTW/02MAY15). Since then, the aim of operating TCS, or even the parents’ life goals, as indicated by ‘the focus of focus’ (‘焦

点的焦点’), have changed to ‘enabling our children to receive better education here [in

Australia]’ (‘让我们的孩子在这里受到更好的教育’) (SL1/INTW/02MAY15).

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The changing legal citizenship arrangements significantly influenced TCS’s objective. Changed residential status settled Chinese nationals’ identity struggles related to the country’s political movements. It also transformed the nature of the understanding of future language needs of their children and the roles of English and Chinese.

The Chinese language was no longer considered the language that their children must acquire, and mainland China was no longer the place that their children would have to reintegrate into for education purposes. Instead, English became the language into which Chinese children and their parents, as settlers, need to heavily invest on a permanent basis. Meanwhile, Chinese language is a minority language and heritage construction in nature in English-speaking Australia. That is, the entire push will be towards English in the wider society, while Chinese becomes the language that people might protect as their heritage. Therefore, under this circumstance, the heritage dimension was added to, or highlighted in, the practices of TCS.

Another important reason for planning TCS was the incompatibility of the language ideologies and pedagogical practices of the then newly arrived mainland

Chinese immigrants with those of the early immigrants, as shown in the following:

There were some local weekend Chinese schools when we arrived. They were founded by local early mainland Chinese or Taiwanese migrants. The schools were, first, the level was very low…some of them taught traditional characters, even Cantonese…Going to their schools is not suitable for our children. [Bo: Ah, I see.] Not suitable, so we taught them…what set our school apart were Putonghua, simplified characters and Hanyu Pinyin…Because we were in line with the teaching of mainland China…once we started to teach in this way…Singaporean and Malaysian parents wanted to send their children to learn with us…Parents said that the teachers were scholars from the mainland and that their Chinese is very authentic. (Excerpt 2-SL1, Appendix 4) The general quality of teaching among existing Chinese schools was described as unsatisfactory. SL1’s word choices of ‘their’ and ‘our’ indicate a clear division between the mainland Chinese community and the old-timers (‘老华人’) and/or Taiwanese (‘台

湾人’). This membership distinction constantly recurred throughout the interview.

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Putonghua, together with its simplified characters and Pinyin systems, is assigned official status in TCS. It is both the medium of instruction and the learning objective. It is believed that other Chinese varieties (e.g., Cantonese) and Mandarin varieties (e.g.,

Taiwanese Guoyu) and their associated written system (e.g., traditional characters) do not meet the literacy learning needs of children from mainland backgrounds.

Interestingly, although ideologically started as a school for mainland Chinese, in practice, TCS turned into an educational site for local ethnic Chinese descendants from diverse backgrounds. This resulted from the perceived prestigious status of Putonghua.

Specifically, the authenticity of Putonghua is considered linked with the legitimate origin of the Chinese language in general—that of mainland China. In addition, the parents who established TCS were educated and skilled professionals which enhanced the school’s prestige. Eventually, TCS began to function as a site for regular interactions (at least weekly) among local Chinese people across boundaries of subcommunities marked by countries of origin, Chinese language variations and time of Australian settlement.

In summary, Chinese CLP and family language planning in the diaspora context is historically situated in Chinese transnationals’ immigration trajectory. Its purpose evolves along changing sociopolitical situations and legal citizenship arrangements in both host country and home country. Immigration policy can be enacted as community language policy or assumes characteristics deriving from legal and political environmental factors. A critical historical moment in Chinese transnationals’ life history

(i.e., the decision to return to China or remain in Australia) can determine the nature of their ‘Chinese’ being either the official and sole language (e.g., that used in China) or a heritage construction (as in Australia), and the corresponding CLP.

In addition, the data provided evidence of the Chinese diasporic community’s heterogeneity. Membership distinctions associated with countries of origin, Chinese language variations, professions and settlement time resulted in the particular planning to

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adopt Putonghua¾the most prestigious Chinese variety in China¾among Chinese mainlander subcommunities. However, the dynamics produced by language ecology has turned the community-based school into a social site for all transnational Chinese families beyond their specific subcommunity boundaries.

4.2 Which Chinese Language Should Your Children Learn?

The fact that ‘Chinese language’ is not unitary and singular, but rather, contains several language groups and varieties that are not all mutually intelligible and are marked by political and jurisdictional boundaries (Lo Bianco, 2007) suggests that Mandarin variations exist across various geopolitical centres (see Section 2.3.2). The literature review in Chapter 2 showed that Mandarin, and not any other regional language, is the most popular Chinese variety being taught and learned worldwide (e.g., Ren & Hu, 2013;

Zhu Hua & Li Wei, 2016a). This section examines the nuances of this Chinese language hierarchy. Table 4.2 summarises the excerpts analysed in this section.

Table 4.2 Chinese Language Hierarchy

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description 1-F1 Attitudes to Chinese language ‘Mandarin is serious and formal’ varieties, attitudes to Mandarin varieties 2-F1 Attitudes to Chinese written language ‘I don’t allow them to read those varieties [books] written in traditional characters’ 1-F2 Attitudes to Chinese language Mandarin is Chinese language varieties 2-F2 Attitudes to Chinese language Chinese language is Mandarin varieties 3-F2 Attitudes to Mandarin varieties ‘the authentic…the Putonghua that Beijing people speak’ 4-F2 Attitudes to Chinese written language ‘There’s no need to learn, to learn varieties traditional characters’ 1-F3 Attitudes to Mandarin varieties and ‘China’s Chinese is relatively Chinese written language varieties standard’

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Mr Li thinks Putonghua is the ‘serious and formal’ (‘正儿八经的’) Chinese language compared to other Chinese varieties. Moreover, he expanded his attitude towards Putonghua by adding his belief about norms and officialised functions of the variety, thus demonstrating a strong mainland Chinese ideology that is associated with national media (i.e., China Central Television and People’s Daily):

I believe that Chinese language, the most, most standard, the norms, in terms of speaking, should follow that of news presenters of China Central Television, that’s the most standard and the best. In terms of writing, People’s Daily is the most standard, the best, and its use of words is the most standard…also, sentences are the most standard. Because People’s Daily represents a country, it’s a national media and its use of language is tasteful. (Excerpt 1-F1, Appendix 6) During this interview, the importance attached to mainland Chinese language ideology was prominently displayed to me owing to my previous professional experiences as a television news presenter (see Section 1.4.2). Mr Li’s repetitive use of descriptive and complimentary terms, such as ‘the most, most standard’, ‘the best’ and

‘tasteful’, showed the internalisation by an Australian Chinese parent of official discourses about the prestige of standard Putonghua that is modelled by the Chinese national media.

In relation to Mr Li’s attitudes towards ‘traditional characters’, he said, ‘I don’t allow them to read those [books] written in traditional characters’ (see Excerpt 2-F1,

Appendix 6). Mr Li’s language planning behaviour was influenced by at least two factors that can reflect societal discourses about Putonghua and its use.

First, one of the marking criteria of VCE (Turn 10, Excerpt 2-F1)¾a state-level high school exam¾is that students should not mix different types of scripts. Mixing simplified and traditional Chinese scripts can be considered ‘hybrid language use’ (Curdt-

Christiansen, 2015, p. 273) within the Chinese language. Apparently, this practice is discouraged. The second factor should be examined closely, as shown in Turn 16:

‘because they were born here, I don’t want traditional characters to get into their heads and confuse them’. Mr Li’s two children were born ‘here’, in Australia, and from his

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perspective, using traditional, as opposed to simplified, characters in this country would be considered non-mainstream. This perspective shows the dominant status of the simplified script within the local Chinese community.

However, this does not mean that Mr Li devalues traditional characters; instead, he thinks they are ‘somewhat important’ in delivering a message about character formation of Chinese language (‘造字法’) (Turn 14, Excerpt 2-F1). That is, the privileged status of the simplified character outweighs that of its traditional counterpart in influencing his planning decision.

Ms Guo uses the terms Guoyu, Chinese, Putonghua and the English word

‘Mandarin’ interchangeably (see Excerpt 1-F2 and Excerpt 2-F2 in Appendix 7). Per Ms

Guo’s language use, Guoyu has lost its original Taiwanese Mandarin reference. The type of Mandarin that she values is exclusively the mainland Chinese variety. To be precise, when asked about the type of Chinese that she would like her children to learn, she stated:

I think the ‘authentic’, the correct pronunciation, like the Putonghua that Beijing people speak...the kind with clear and accurate articulation... [Bo: By the mainland Chinese standards?] Yes...because Southeast Asian Chinese people are the early immigrants, I think that their Chinese language might have been changed and integrated into their local environment...and hence, it may not be suitable for education. (Excerpt 3-F2, Appendix 7) The people of Beijing, China’s political and cultural centre, are believed to embody the ideal language model, despite the fact that modern Beijing has become a linguistically diversified metropolitan city where many transnational and translocal individuals reside. Conversely, although Ms Guo acknowledged how language can evolve in its ecological system, she thinks that the kind of Mandarin that Southeast Asian Chinese speak is unsuitable in the educational setting. In addition, similar to SL1, Ms Guo also used ‘their’ (i.e., Southeast Asian Chinese) to mark a clear membership boundary.

Regarding her attitudes to written Chinese varieties, Ms Guo thinks it is ‘very unnecessary’ to learn traditional characters (see Excerpt 4-F2, Appendix 7). This attitude is partially influenced by her personal literacy learning experience in China, and also

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because she can ‘automatically’ convert traditional characters into simplified ones during reading—a passive recognition without active writing skills (Turn 2, Excerpt 4-F2). She believes in the legitimacy of national character simplification reform: ‘having been able to be simplified, which means it works, why do we need to go back and learn traditional forms?’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 4-F2). The wording of ‘go back’ indexes that learning traditional characters is considered an ‘old-fashioned’ educational practice and possibly even a culturally superseded practice.

According to Ms Tan, ‘China’s Chinese’ is the ‘standard’ variety because she believes that the authenticity of Mandarin is associated with the language’s perceived legitimate origin:

[Bo: What kind of Chinese you think is the standard one?] Of course, China’s Chinese is relatively standard...The Chinese language is originally from China. (Excerpt 1-F3, Appendix 8) This language ideology is identical to that expressed in SL1’s comments (Excerpt

2-SL1, Appendix 4) on the reasons that Southeast Asian Chinese parents sent their children to TCS.

To ‘push’ Ms Tan further to think of a Mandarin variety other than mainland

Chinese Putonghua, various types of Australia’s Chinese schools related to the Chinese population of different origins were explained explicitly (Turn 3, Excerpt 1-F3). However, this moved the conversation on to a comparison between the Malaysian Chinese textbooks and the Chinese textbooks used in TCS (Turn 4, Excerpt 1-F3). Specifically,

Malaysian Chinese textbooks were considered ‘boring’ and ‘not very lively’, which made the process of language learning more difficult, while TCS textbooks were ‘more interesting’, although Ms Tan was unable to expand on the details. The ‘more interesting’ textbooks used in TCS were written by mainland Chinese scholars commissioned by the

Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the Chinese Government, as a language maintenance initiative targeting overseas-born Chinese descendants. Ms Tan’s preference with regard

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to the semiotic resources had indirectly recognised the higher status of mainland Chinese

Mandarin in the educational context.

In regard to varieties of written Chinese language (Turns 5–8, Excerpt 1-F3), similar to Ms Guo, Ms Tan believes that it is not necessary to learn traditional characters because of their limited usage outside Taiwan. Moreover, by learning simplified characters, learners are assumed to acquire the capacity to passively recognise the traditional equivalents, which is ‘enough’.

To ‘keep pace with the times’ (Turn 7, Excerpt 1-F3), Ms Tan taught herself simplified characters after initially being taught traditional characters at school. Notably, the simplified Chinese characters used in Malaysia and Singapore are not entirely identical to the ones used in China, as also noticed by Ms Tan through her written language practices (Turns 6 and 8, Excerpt 1-F3), despite the fact that both countries’ character simplification movements are predominantly based on their mainland Chinese counterparts.

The Malaysian Simplified Chinese Character Committee was established in 1972 when China had already finished a series of character simplification reforms started in the 1950s. According to the journal article ‘Malaysia publishes “The List of Simplified

Chinese Characters” ’ (马来西亚出版发行《简化汉字总表》) published in 文字改革

(Writing System Reform, now called 语文建设, Language Planning) in 1982, the Chair of Malaysia Chinese Character-Simplifying Committee (马来西亚简化汉字委员会),

Michael C. W. Sum (曾永森) stated that the purpose of the committee was:

看到中国已经颁布和实行了几批简化字,为了使在马来西亚的华人能跟上潮流, 免得将来看不懂中国书籍. (马来西亚出版发行《简化汉字总表》， 1982, p. 38) Translation: It had witnessed China’s issue and implementation of a few rounds of simplified characters, in order to enable Malaysian Chinese to keep up with the trend, to avoid not understanding China’s books in the future. (‘Malaysia publishes “The List of Simplified Chinese Characters” ’, 1982, p. 38)

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Interestingly, Ms Tan and Mr Sum used similar phrases, namely, ‘keep pace with the times’ (‘跟进时代’) and ‘keep up with the trend’(‘跟上潮流’) respectively, to describe the need to learn and use simplified Chinese characters. By contrast, Ms Tan’s statement was made in 2015 and Mr Sum’s in the 1970s. The same language ideology regarding the legitimacy and authenticity of China’s language norms is reflected clearly.

Although Malaysia’s Chinese LPP is in the sphere of its own jurisdiction (Lo Bianco,

2007), the country’s connection with China through culture-based ‘Great Traditions’

(Fishman, 1969, 1973) has determined both their national and individual Chinese planning choices.

In summary, ‘Mandarin’ (i.e., mainland Chinese Putonghua, Taiwanese Guoyu and Southeast Asian Huayu) is extensively used as the only synonym for the Chinese language, whereas Fangyan is used to refer to other Chinese varieties. During all the interviews, I used the term Zhongwen ( 中文) (‘Chinese language’) naturally and extensively to refer to Mandarin in conversing with research participants, although I have always been aware of the all-inclusive nature of the term which should include a wide range of Mandarin and Fangyan varieties. That is, it would be very unnatural for me to use Putonghua, Huayu or Guoyu or the English term ‘Mandarin’ deliberately and constantly in referring to the Modern Standard Mandarin. This language use is another manifestation of the power of Mandarin in relation to other Chinese varieties, which is in effect to ‘naturalise’ itself as the unmarked lexical form of the name of the language.

In language planning contexts of participating families and TCS, mainland

Chinese Mandarin (i.e., Putonghua together with its simplified Chinese characters and the Pinyin system) is the most valued Mandarin variety and Chinese language variety.

Taiwanese Mandarin and Southeast Asian Mandarin have been completely absent from the researched educational context. Even the use of the term Guoyu or Huayu has lost its original reference to a specific Mandarin variety which is bonded with particular norms.

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This finding is in line with Li Wei and Zhu Hua’s (2010) study regarding the

‘changing hierarchies’ among Chinese varieties. The ‘standard language ideology’ of parents that ‘there is a standard Chinese language and it is represented by Putonghua’ (Li

Wei & Zhu Hua, 2010, p. 170) is shown to be prevalent in the current research context as well. However, the three focal families provide more detailed accounts of the power representations of Putonghua.

Individuals, institutions and nation-states capable of representing or demonstrating norms of Modern Standard Chinese are believed to be Beijing people (as in the Guo family’s case), China Central Television and People’s Daily (as in the Li family’s case) and China (as in the Tan family’s case) respectively. The power centre of the Chinese language and of Mandarin is placed accurately at the political centre of China.

Locally, the power of Putonghua has transcended the boundaries between various

Chinese communities, at least at the community-based school level. These language planning situations are a graphic illustration of the fact that the ‘politically and economically more powerful’ centre of LPP (Clyne, 1991b, p. 1), in the present case,

China, exerts a profound influence on individual Chinese families’ language planning and

Chinese diasporic communities’ LPP.

4.3 Do You Like Learning Chinese?

The previous sections presented the underlying reality behind TCS’s establishment from the school leaders’ perspective and parental choices of the specific

Chinese variety that needs to be formally planned for their children through community schooling. This section presents children’s experiences of learning Putonghua at TCS from their own point of view and that of their parents and how parents respond to children’s attitudes to language learning. Focal children’s experiences are organised according to their different family units. Section 4.3.1 examines David’s and James’s experiences (the Li family), Section 4.3.2 considers Sophia’s and Henry’s experiences

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(the Guo family), and Section 4.3.3 focuses on Alex’s and Luke’s experiences (the Tan family).

4.3.1 The Li family: David and James

Generally speaking, David and James do not enjoy learning Chinese which can be predicted based on relevant literature (e.g., Li Wei, 2011) and my own fieldwork observations. There is no simple answer to this question. Table 4.3 shows the excerpts included in the following analysis.

Table 4.3 The Li Family Children’s Mandarin-Learning Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description

3-F1 Children’s Mandarin-learning ‘They actually did want to go the attitudes [Chinese] school, but not to come here to learn, but to play’

4-F1 Children’s Mandarin-learning ‘They don’t like it when you ask them attitudes to go to [Mandarin] class’

5-F1 Children’s Mandarin-learning Chinese school is ‘boring’ attitudes

6-F1 Parental management of ‘ “Chinese have Chinese traditions”, I children’s language attitudes said, “if you want to learn the good stuff of the Chinese, you must understand this language” ’

7-F1 Parental management of Chinese philosophical thoughts are children’s language attitudes employed to change learning attitudes

Mr Li (Excerpts 3-F1 and 4-F1) and David (Excerpt 5-F1) shared their experiences and attitudes to language learning.

Excerpt 3-F1: Mandarin-learning attitudes

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Looking through this journey of learning Chinese, do you think they’ve been forced to learn, or themselves have some interest in learning... Li 2 ...they didn’t know whether they were forced or something; once they turned school age, they were sent here and teachers started to teach them. At the

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very beginning, they just came here for fun...like, a Kinder... [Bo: ...they actually had no idea.] They had no idea. Bo 3 Right. Have they had a stage that they didn’t want to learn or didn’t want to go to the Chinese school? Li 4 They didn’t say that they didn’t want; they actually did want to go to the school, but not to come here to learn but to play...once they’re here in this environment, they’ll learn something more or less, that’s it.

Excerpt 3-F1 starts with my assumption that background language learners are generally ‘forced’ by their parents to learn Chinese (Turn 1, Excerpt 3-F1). However, the immediate response by Mr Li just reminded me ‘don’t jump to conclusions’: very young children lack a clear awareness of whether they are being forced to learn Mandarin, and going to TCS only means a change of their ‘playground’ from home to TCS. They go to

TCS simply for ‘fun’, and it has become a routine just like going to kindergarten (Turn 2,

Excerpt 3-F1). This finding was also shown in Li Wei’s (2011, p. 1227) study on older children, as British-born Chinese Lawson commented on his previous experience of going to weekend school: ‘It wasn’t very interesting…Actually, it was fun to be with my friends’

(see Section 2.4.2.3).

We can note that the seemingly one coherent act of ‘going to Chinese weekend school and learning Mandarin’ can be considered as two individual events. To put it simply, going to TCS does not always mean learning Chinese. TCS is also a place for children from similar backgrounds to socialise with each other. That is, the journey of attending weekend school is also a journey of making friends with whom children share similar community language–learning experiences. Realistically, this journey can last for a decade. Therefore, it should be legitimate to assume that a sense of ‘community’ or relatedness among Chinese-background children¾as a collective ‘identity consequence’ of a form of language planning (Lo Bianco, 2007, p. 9)¾can be formed through the shared experiences, although the learning experiences per se may not be considered desirable by children.

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Driven by my assumption, I again asked whether Mr Li’s children had ever refused to attend TCS (Turn 3, Excerpt 3-F1). Mr Li confirmed his children’s willingness to attend the school, but noted that their purpose is to ‘play’ rather than to ‘learn’ and that they happen to learn something out of the immersion in the school environment (Turn 4,

Excerpt 3-F1). Parents are fully aware of a possible fact that ‘learning’ is a by-product of the act of ‘going to Chinese school’. Because ‘going to Chinese school’ has become a highly routine activity in children’s life as an integral part of the Li family language policy, the actual form of ‘learning’¾‘by-product’ or otherwise¾does not seem to matter to the parent.

Excerpt 4-F1: Mandarin-learning attitudes

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you think that your children like Chinese lessons? Li 2 In principle, they don’t like it when you ask them to go to class...But through these two, two Seeking Roots Trips, they think that it’s worth learning Chinese...Because once they’re in China, they can communicate with people in Chinese... Li 3 This is the fun part, but they, themselves, also think that learning Chinese is quite painful...

Excerpt 4-F1 clearly shows children’s attitudes to ‘Chinese lessons’: ‘they don’t like’ the Chinese lessons (Turn 2, Excerpt 4-F1). Although taking a trip to China would prove the usefulness of learning the language (Turn 2, Excerpt 4-F1), children find the learning process ‘quite painful’ (Turn 3, Excerpt 4-F1). Here, we can observe a general negative attitude towards Mandarin learning. Thus, the question is raised, what do the children themselves think?

Excerpt 5-F1: Mandarin-learning attitudes

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV-1/21FEB15], English Bo 1 Do you like Chinese school? {David shaking head.} No. Why not? {no response} It’s too difficult?

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David 2 Boring. Bo 3 It’s boring. In your day school, your English class, is it more interesting? {David nodding.} Why it’s more interesting then? David 4 More fun. [Bo: More fun?] Yeah. [Bo: In terms of?] In class, and breaks. Bo 5 Yeah. Why is your English class more fun? {no response} Because of your classmates? {no response} Teachers? {David nodding.} Your teachers? [David: Yeah.] What do they do in the class? David 6 They are funny. [Bo: They are funny? Do you learn other languages in your school?] Yeah. [Bo: Which language?] I just started; I’m learning French. Bo 7 How about your French class? Is it interesting? {David nodding.} It’s interesting. That’s good.

Excerpt 5-F1 is a brief interaction between David and me. Although David was not very talkative, he frequently responded through body language such as nodding or shaking his head. Turns 1 and 2 (Excerpt 5-F1) clearly confirm that David does not like

TCS. Moreover, he attributed his dislike to the ‘boring-ness’ of lessons, in other words, how unengaging he considers class and lessons.

Next, to determine factors that might make language classes more engaging, I asked David to compare Chinese class with language classes of his mainstream school.

English class is considered ‘more fun’ because ‘teachers’ are funny (Turns 5 and 6,

Excerpt 5-F1). In Li Wei’s study (2011, p. 1227), a British-born Chinese young adult,

Chris, said, ‘the teachers were dead serious’ (see Section 2.4.2.3) when describing his previous learning experience in Chinese complementary school. Together with David’s attitudes, ‘teachers’ are indicated to be one of the factors related to children’s negative learning experiences in CLSs.

However, ‘teachers’ should not take full responsibility for children’s dislike of

Chinese lessons. This is because, first, learning is a dynamic and complex activity that involves diverse elements that are not entirely introduced by teachers, for example, textbook-based course content, exams, a competitive learning environment and the simple but non-negotiable fact that ‘weekend schools operate on the weekend’—when children

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without Chinese learning commitment would engage with non-school social activities

(see also Turn 1, Excerpt 6-F1). Second, there existed incoherence in my conversation with David (a data collection process), for example, in Turns 4 and 5 (Excerpt 5-F1) when

I tried to elicit the reasons that English lessons are more interesting. The difficulty of obtaining in-depth information from children is shown explicitly. As a result, the informant’s responses were limited.

Children’s negative Chinese learning attitudes have led to parents’ efforts to change these learning attitudes (see Excerpts 6-F1 and 7-F1).

Excerpt 6-F1: The management of children’s language attitudes

Context: Triggered by the researcher’s question about the challenges Australian-born

Chinese children face in learning Mandarin, Mr Li first commented on David’s inadequate Chinese character writing and his short attention span issue and then described

David’s reaction when Mr Li kept asking him to be patient and write Chinese characters

‘stroke by stroke’.

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Li 1 If you keep nagging, he would tell you what his day school classmates do when they reach home; they don’t even learn this language. Bo 2 Yeah, and how did you respond? Li 3 I said, ‘We are Chinese; Chinese have Chinese traditions’. I said, ‘If you want to learn the good stuff of the Chinese, you must understand this language; this language is just a tool, but it helps you to understand, or to find some good stuff about Chinese people, some cultural stuff, throughout history. Without the help of characters, you won’t be able to learn the good stuff of China, Chinese culture or Chinese civilisation’. [Bo: Right.] If you use English to express all of these, you possibly couldn’t explain them clearly. I told him that although my English is not good, he must learn Chinese well. Bo 4 Did this work?

Li 5 It doesn’t, it doesn’t actually work, but I still hope that when time goes by, they could keep learning Chinese on a long-term basis, just like the persistent stream of water. For overseas Chinese kids, I think we shouldn’t be too demanding; if too demanding, they might decide not to learn Chinese any more. Does it make sense? [Bo: Right.]

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Li 6 So, I, I always hope to bring some fun stuff to their learning, including Chinese literature and art, something like that, Chinese crosstalk and sketch comedy. I ask them to watch, to entertain them; they might pick up something from their laughter, that’s it.

David responded to his father’s ‘nagging’ by comparing himself with his ‘day school’ (i.e., mainstream school) classmates who have no community language–learning obligation (Turn 1, Excerpt 6-F1). Mr Li tried to change his son’s negative language attitude by explaining the important role of Chinese language and characters—a Chinese identity–driven practice.

In particular, the connection between Chinese ethnicity as an origin, Chinese language and characters as tools and the understanding of people, country, culture and civilisation as an aim has been clearly established (Turn 3, Excerpt 6-F1). It is believed that replacing Chinese language with English could lead to a lack of clarity of expression when conveying those meanings.

Further, the learning is expected to be Xishuichangliu (细水长流) (Turn 5,

Excerpt 6-F1). Xishuichangliu in this context means the learning process should be similar to ‘a stream of water’ (Xishui) which is always persistent and flowing (Changliu), although it is only a small volume of water. That is, learning Chinese should be a lifelong journey. Originated from Sutra on the Buddha’s Bequeathed Teaching (佛遗教经), this commonly used term is actually a reflection of Buddhist philosophy. In the literature review, we observed that Confucianism is used to explain parents’ high aspirations for their children (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009); in the current case, Buddhist thinking plays a role in the father’s parenting practice.

Unfortunately, but perhaps unsurprisingly, this type of parental attempt to modify children’s attitudes had no effect (Turn 5, Excerpt 6-F1). In turn, children’s neglect of parents’ attempts results in parents’ adjustment of their expectations—‘we shouldn’t be too demanding’—owing to the fear that children may stop learning the language (Turn 5,

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Excerpt 6-F1). Following the change of parental expectations, language planning activities, for example, watching culturally entertaining Chinese programmes, are highlighted in the Li family (Turn 6, Excerpt 6-F1). The significant role of watching television in the Li family life is discussed in detail in Section 6.1, and it could be a major reason for David’s current high proficiency in Mandarin.

Excerpt 7-F1: The management of children’s language attitudes

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Li 1 [Children] themselves, also think learning Chinese is quite painful. Li 2 ...I said that Chinese couldn’t be learned overnight; the process of learning should be just like the stream flowing slowly in the mountains—a small stream of water, not much water, but it is always there, always flowing continuously... Bo 3 ...how did they react to this? Li 4 They didn’t say anything...anyway, this was how I learned Chinese.

Excerpt 7-F1 also illustrates how parents tried to influence children’s learning attitudes by employing Chinese philosophical thoughts. The idiom Xishuichangliu appeared for the second time (Turn 2, Excerpt 7-F1). Educating young people through idioms or fable stories with moral lessons is a common practice in the Chinese culture.

Moreover, Mr Li’s attitude management practice is influenced by his own learning experience, despite the fact that such practice does not normally have a direct impact on children (Turn 4, Excerpt 7-F1). Conversely, it might exert an ‘imperceptible influence’

(Curdt-Christiansen, 2013b) on children in how they view learning in the long run.

In summary, children’s attitudes towards learning Mandarin in TCS are changing over time. Young Chinese-background children treat going to weekend school as a crucial social event, in which the learning occurs by immersion in the Mandarin-speaking classroom and not always by a deliberate active effort to acquire knowledge. Then, children may develop conscious negative attitudes to Chinese learning and Chinese

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weekend schools. The teacher’s role in relation to these attitudes of children should not be neglected; however, it should not be considered the only reason behind these attitudes.

Parents’ regulation of children’s negative attitudes to language learning constitutes part of their family language policy and represents an explicit role for the parents in the ecology of activities that manage children’s views and attitudes towards

Chinese. This attitude management can be viewed as a Chinese identity–driven practice, which is a reflection and utilisation of the Chinese diaspora community’s discourse of

‘keeping roots’ (see Section 4.4). Moreover, philosophical thoughts embedded in idioms can be used as an attitude management tool. Particularly since Buddhism, as a system of thought, has informed Chinese culture, it has a profound impact on parents’ ways of thinking. This application of philosophical thoughts in FLP echoes the practice of

Sayang’s grandmother (see Section 2.4.2.2), who utilised traditional Chinese thinking to justify her beliefs in education (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009). However, under such circumstances, children may choose not to interact with these Chinese ideological discourses and, consequently, parents tend to adjust their expectations and FLP style. This dynamic of influencing, shaping and directing is seamlessly integrated into daily family life in which FLP is an embedded activity of socialisation and regular living.

Although children do not demonstrate a positive attitude to learning the community language, long-time engagement with the language, the school and peers tends to inculcate a sense of ‘self’ related to their learning experiences and the settings in which they occur. Collectively, these ‘selves’ constitute a sense of ‘community’ that fit into the general discourse of ‘Great Traditions’ (Fishman, 1969, 1973), regardless of whether they are explicitly identified and named as such.

4.3.2 The Guo family: Sophia and Henry

Sophia’s and Henry’s Mandarin-learning experiences are analysed in this section.

Table 4.4 shows the focal excerpts.

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Table 4.4 The Guo Family Children’s Mandarin-Learning Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description

5-F2 Children’s Mandarin-learning ‘Why do we always have so much attitudes and corresponding homework?’; ‘For whom Daddy makes parental management money? For whom Daddy bought the house in such a nice area?’

6-F2 Children’s Mandarin-learning ‘Mum, can I not come to the school attitudes and corresponding next year?’; ‘If you want a better life, parental management you need to make the effort’

7-F2 Teaching practices in The The Chinese School is ‘boring’ Chinese School

Mandarin-learning attitudes of children and, accordingly, parents’ management of their attitudes are explored through Excerpts 5-F2 and 6-F2. According to Ms Guo, similar to David in the Li family, her children, especially Henry, have demonstrated a negative feeling towards learning Mandarin: ‘not very happy’, ‘they would complain…’ and ‘don’t like it’ (Turns 2 and 4, Excerpt 5-F2; Turn 2, Excerpt 6-F2).

Excerpt 5-F2: Mandarin-learning attitudes and attitude management

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Your two kids come and study in the Chinese school. Do you think they are happy? Do they want to go? Guo 2 Not very happy...‘Why do we always have so much homework?’; even, even during the holidays, Mum would ask them to…like, during the holidays of the first term, I would say ‘Memorise all the four texts that you’ve been taught in the first term, dictation and making sentences’. Sometimes, they’ll have to write a diary [in Chinese] every day. Bo 3 Oh, a diary every day? Guo 4 Yes, that’s why they would complain during the holidays, but they know, I would talk to them through reason and empathy: ‘For whom does Daddy make money? For whom did Daddy buy the house in such a nice area?’ [Bo: Right.] ‘For your school and for your study, why would Mum chase after you every day? Driving you here and there?’ They fully understood that, saying, ‘Okay, okay, stop nagging, I’ll do it’... Bo 5 Oh, really? Have they ever reacted against you…like very strongly?

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Guo 6 The oldest one wouldn’t, she could only quietly…[Bo: Be very upset?] sadness in her eyes [Bo: Sadness]; my son would sometimes break things, like, make a big noise when moving a chair; then, I would say, ‘Zhang [xx], whom you are throwing a temper tantrum to! Pulling a long face in front of me!’ [Bo: Did he, did he talk back?] He said, ‘I’m not allowed to have a break even during the holidays, keep asking me to do this and that’. ‘Am I not doing this for you?’, I said; then, he said, ‘Stop nagging, stop nagging, I got it!’

Excerpt 6-F2: Mandarin-learning attitudes and attitude management

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Do you think the kids like to go to the Chinese school? Guo 2 Honestly, they don’t like it...They even asked me today, ‘Mum, can I not come to the school next year?’...‘Can I not go to the Chinese school next year?’ ‘No, you can’t’, I said...Because while other kids are playing he has to study... Guo 3 He thinks that’s not fair, then I’d say, ‘When you grow up, what kind of car do you want to drive? What kind of house do you want to buy? So, you must make the effort right now, no pain, no gain’. [Bo: Did he say anything?] He said, ‘Okay’. Because I have been saying this since they’re little; I would compare, I would compare family members. I said okay someone’s life is like this, another one’s life is like that, and asked, ‘What kind of life do you want in the future?’...He would say, ‘I want this one’...I told him if he wants that person’s kind of life, that person was actually like this when little... Bo 4 Okay, this is the second one. How about the oldest kid?... Guo 5 She doesn’t like it either... [Bo: But they know they have no other option?] No other option. I told her, ‘If you want a better life, you need to make the effort’...I told her, ‘Mum believes you would know more things than Mark and Rose [Johnson family cousins] in the future’.

The reasons behind Sophia and Henry’s attitudes are, first, learning Mandarin does not only mean studying the language at TCS but a series of extra work given by their mother as part of the Guo family language policy (Turn 2, Excerpt 5-F2) (see Section

6.2.1 for details on the family’s systematic FLP). Second, learning Mandarin is considered ‘not fair’ to them because their friends at the mainstream school do not have the additional burden of having to learn the language (Turns 2 and 3, Excerpt 6-F2).

The children’s reluctance to learn Mandarin leads to the parent’s attempt to influence their attitudes in a style of ‘Xiaozhiyili-Dongzhiyiqing’ (晓之以理, 动之以情)

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(Turn 4, Excerpt 5-F2). The idiom Xiaozhiyili-Dongzhiyiqing literally means

‘understand-it-with-reason, move-it-with-emotion’. It means convincing people with reason and moving people with emotions. This saying originates in The Analects of

Confucius (论语). In the present situation, it means Ms Guo tried to convince her children of the need of learning Mandarin with legitimate reasons and in a gentle and sentimental manner.

Specifically, Ms Guo’s first justification is as follows. Parents have been performing all the things that they could possibly do to support the children (e.g., making money, buying a property in a new suburb and looking after them), therefore, the children are expected to study really hard to not let parents down (Turn 4, Excerpt 5-F2). This is a reflection of a Chinese family value—children’s high academic achievement is a way to ‘express filial piety and to repay the many sacrifices of parents in providing for their education’ (Mak & Chan, 1995, p. 86).

The second set of justifications is, ‘If you want a better life, you need to make the effort’, and ‘no pain, no gain’ (Turns 3 and 5, Excerpt 6-F2). Specifically, ‘better life’ is reified into a better ‘car’ or a better ‘house’ (Turn 3, Excerpt 6-F2). Ms Guo used family members, including cousins of the Johnsons, as references for Sophia and Henry to compare (Turns 3 and 5, Excerpt 6-F2). Through comparison, Ms Guo expects her children to understand their future materialistic goals and the role of Mandarin in this process. The cultural message delivered here is a portrayal of the desire for material prosperity in current China, and it is forced by its ‘contemporary social ethos’ (Leung,

2008, p. 186).

The language attitude management behaviour shows an ideological combination of traditional Chinese family values towards education and the utilitarianism prevalent in contemporary China. Although Henry had strong negative responses to the attitude reversal practice (Turn 6, Excerpt 5-F2), he abided by Ms Guo’s language planning

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decision—not learning Mandarin is not an option. Chinese paternalism appears prominent in child–parent interaction.

Excerpts 5-F2 and 6-F2 were generated directly by the researcher’s questions on attitude to language learning, while Excerpt 7-F2 shows children’s attitudes to Mandarin learning triggered by a comparison between TCS and mainstream school.

Excerpt 7-F2: Teaching practices in The Chinese School (see Appendix 7)

When asked to compare the similarities and differences between day school and community-based school, Ms Guo somewhat surprised me with the answer that there are literally no similarities (Turns 1 and 2, Excerpt 7-F2). To present data more clearly, key content of Excerpt 7-F2 (from Turn 1 to Turn 14) is presented in Table 4.5, whereas Turns

15 and 16 are presented in the form of an excerpt.

Table 4.5 Key Content of Excerpt 7-F2 (Turns 1–14)

Turn Attitude Day school Chinese school

10 and 6 General attitude ‘Fun’; ‘very interesting’; ‘boring’ ‘can’t wait for school to start back’

4 Specific attitude ‘home field’; ‘Alma Informal, ‘a coaching mater’; ‘a more emotional school’; ‘come to learn connection’; ‘closer’ and leave’; ‘completely no sense of belonging’

6 Teaching and Different rooms for One room for learning styles different subjects Mandarin for the whole Saturday morning

12 Teaching and Excursions No excursions; ‘have learning styles to stay in the room and listen to the teacher’

‘very interactive, hands on [implied] Traditional and exploratory’ teacher-centred Chinese teaching style More supportive of ‘crazy ideas’

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Turn Attitude Day school Chinese school

‘not lock you in a cage’ and ‘restrict your imagination’

14 Teaching and No textbooks Textbooks learning styles

8 Difficulty degree [implied] Not as Lessons more difficult of learning challenging as learning Mandarin

14 Contents/weight of Lunch box, water, fruit ‘so heavy’; workbooks, school bags and snacks textbooks and dictionaries

Turns 15 and 16, Excerpt 7-F2

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-5/23MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 15 Is it possible to change teaching methods of the Chinese school to the Western style? Guo 16 ...I don’t think so. First, teaching time is limited; a teacher has to deliver the knowledge in a very short time. There’s a time restriction as well as a space restriction. People come from different areas, like, I drove more than 30 km to come here...Also, you can’t teach for a really long time; here is still the Western culture, the place of Westerners...it’s not possible to be like the day school.

The contrast in various aspects as shown above (Table 4.5 and Excerpt 7-F2) between TCS and mainstream school is striking. Children reportedly have no sense of belonging at the former (Turn 4, Excerpt 7-F2). By contrast, they just ‘can’t wait for [their day] school to start back’ during the holidays (Turn 10, Excerpt 7-F2), and emotionally, they feel much closer to the mainstream school (Turn 4, Excerpt 7-F2).

Although Ms Guo attributed the difficulty degree of learning Mandarin to the lack of interest and attractiveness of TCS (Turn 8, Excerpt 7-F2), the different teaching and learning styles of the two types of schooling (Turns 6, 12 and14, Excerpt 7-F2) should be largely responsible for children’s school preferences. That is, traditional Chinese teaching and learning styles make Chinese lessons and their weekend school experiences ‘boring’.

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As indicated in Table 4.5 (Turns 6, 12 and 14, Excerpt 7-F2), the Chinese style could be described as a teacher-centred, textbook-based and classroom-based style, while the day school style could be depicted as both classroom and non-classroom-based learning (i.e., excursions, activities and more interactive and communicative pedagogies) that occurs in a more relaxing and less restrictive environment than that of TCS. Further, the contents and weight of school bags (Turn 14, Excerpt 7-F2) that children carry to the two different types of schools can be regarded as outward symbols of two distinctly different school experiences. It also seemed that Ms Guo has fully acknowledged the reasons that her children do not have a positive attitude to TCS.

However, Ms Guo did not imply that Chinese teaching style could be changed to the Western style. She believes that the restrictions on TCS’s teaching time and space have resulted in the traditional Chinese way of teaching being acceptable (Turn 16,

Excerpt 7-F2). During the fieldwork in TCS, the long-lasting paradox between limited teaching time (i.e., four-and-a-half hours a week) and high expectations of children’s

Mandarin competence was pointed out by several teachers and parents. The paradox is assumed to be among the most prominent features that characterise CLSs.

As Ms Guo noticed, the paradox cannot be resolved because ‘here [in Australia] is still the Western culture’ and it is ‘the place of Westerners’ (Turn 16, Excerpt 7-F2)—

CLSs are complementary as opposed to mainstream in nature in the entire education ecology. Conversely, in the mainstream society, it is the weekend schools, that is, the weekly ‘four-and-a-half hours’ of teaching and learning Mandarin, that places non-

Chinese-background students learning Mandarin at a disadvantage, apart from the fact that Chinese Australian children speak ‘Chinese’ at home.

In summary, although attending a CLS seems to be the norm for Australian

Chinese children as observed in the current research, those children grow up in the mainstream English-medium education system, which has strongly influenced their

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perspectives on what should be considered the normative school experience. Therefore, learning a challenging subject (i.e., Mandarin) in another location (i.e., Chinese community school) especially after-hours learning (i.e., during the weekend) and taking pedagogical approaches (i.e., the conventional Chinese style) other than that of the mainstream system create considerable difficulties for children.

Moreover, corresponding family language policy initiated by parents (i.e., extra homework set by parents) and a likely long-term commitment (i.e., Preparatory to Year

12) have considerably added to the children’s difficulties. As a consequence, children’s negative Mandarin-learning attitudes prevail—they do not enjoy community language learning, and they do not have a sense of belonging at TCS. In this situation, parents are in an authoritative language planner position to regulate children’s learning attitudes and behaviour. During this process, Chinese culture-laden messages that reflect traditional family values regarding education and materialism and utilitarianism in contemporary

China are displayed. In addition, the Confucianism that underlines this particular style of parenting (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009) is identified.

4.3.3 The Tan family: Alex and Luke

This section examines Alex’s and Luke’s Mandarin-learning experiences. The units of analysis are shown in Table 4.6.

Table 4.6 The Tan Family Children’s Mandarin-Learning Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description

2-F3 Children’s Mandarin-learning Negative attitudes attitudes and corresponding parental management

3-F3 Children’s Mandarin-learning ‘Why do my classmates get to have attitudes and corresponding fun on Saturdays when I have to have parental management classes?’

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Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description

4-F3 Children’s Mandarin-learning ‘When I was little, I often told Mum attitudes and corresponding that I did not want to learn parental management Chinese…but Mum said because I was Chinese, I must learn Chinese’ [Essay]

5-F3 Mandarin-learning challenges Lack of Mandarin-speaking environment

6-F3 Mandarin-learning challenges Lack of Mandarin-speaking environment

In the Tan family, data about children’s Mandarin-learning attitudes occurred naturally when I first met Ms Tan’s youngest son, Alex. Excerpt 2-F3 captures my initial interaction with Alex and Ms Tan in relation to this matter. Alex’s negative Mandarin- learning attitude (Turns 9 and 11, Excerpt 2-F3) was actually the very first piece of information about him that Ms Tan disclosed after our greetings. Alex’s reluctance to learn Chinese was later confirmed by his ‘headshake’ body language with natural shyness

(Turn 12, Excerpt 2-F3).

Excerpt 2-F3: Mandarin-learning attitudes and attitude management

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Tan 1 We often have lunch here in this classroom. {To Alex} This is Teacher Hu. Bo 2 Hello. Tan 3 Please call ‘Teacher Hu’. Alex 4 Teacher Hu. Bo 5 Hello. Tan 6 Tell Teacher Hu what your name is. Bo 7 What’s your name? Alex 8 Oh, my name is Alex. Tan 9 He doesn’t like learning Mandarin. Bo 10 It’s not easy for them. Tan 11 He starts to yawn as soon as I ask him to learn Chinese. Bo 12 Do you like learning Chinese? {shaking head} You don’t like it, hang in there. Tan 13 That environment is not there. No environment.

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Bo 14 Right, it’s not easy for them, having to come to the school every week, is it? Tan 15 When they were little, they always protested. I said, ‘Objection, objection overruled!’...I said to them, ‘You are Chinese, you must, you must learn it, at least you can read something, you can’t be completely ignorant’...So, you are not allowed to protest, ‘objection overruled’; after a few years, they gave up. [Bo: They obeyed.] They obeyed.

My encounter with Alex was mediated by Ms Tan, and I was addressed as

‘Teacher Hu’ (Turns 1 to 8, Excerpt 2-F3). Although this was a typical Chinese cultural practice which also served the purpose of etiquette socialisation, this kind of ‘formal’ introduction instantly created a barrier or an unequal power relationship between the researcher and the participant. Throughout the conversation, I had been acknowledging the long-term constant effort that Alex had put in on the journey of learning Mandarin

(Turns 10, 12 and 14, Excerpt 2-F3). This was a natural individual language practice in the first place, and it was also hoped to somehow narrow the social distance between the researcher and the child.

Likewise, Alex’s older brother Luke expressed his unwillingness to learn

Mandarin in his writing as shown in Excerpt 4-F3, which contains two subexcerpts of his essays (Excerpts 4.1-F3 and 4.2-F3, Appendix 8). Specifically, the struggle is reflected through his expression, ‘I am still hanging there today’ (‘就撑到了今天了’)—the tough but consistent journey of learning the language is vividly described (Excerpt 4.1-F3).

Excerpt 3-F3: Mandarin-learning attitudes and attitude management

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 When he just started at the Chinese school, was he reluctant to learn or willing to learn? Or? Tan 2 I can’t remember from what time, when he was little, he always said, ‘Why do my classmates get to have fun on Saturdays when I have to have classes?’....Also, he found Chinese difficult...[he] didn’t want to learn. Bo 3 But you said they had to learn. [Tan: Yeah, that was non-negotiable.]

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Excerpt 4.1-F3: Year 9 essay ‘Me’ (para. 3) (original left, English translation right)

I found learning Chinese very difficult. When I was little, I often told Mum that I did not want to learn Chinese, I did not want to go to Chinese school, but Mum said because I was Chinese, I must learn Chinese, so I am still hanging there today.

This is me – (name)

According to Ms Tan, the children’s negative learning attitudes were stronger when they were little by a manifestation of ‘protesting’ against going to TCS (Turn 15,

Excerpt 2-F3; Turn 2, Excerpt 3-F3; see also children’s responses in Excerpt 4.1-F3). The children’s justifications were that, first, their school friends did not go to school on the weekend (Turn 2, Excerpt 3-F3), and, second, it is difficult to learn Mandarin (Excerpt

4.1-F3).

Ms Tan attributed this unwillingness to the lack of a Mandarin-speaking environment (Turn 13, Excerpt 2-F3) which links to the difficulty of acquiring the language. Excerpt 5-F3 and Excerpt 6-F3 illustrate the correlation between the lack of a

Mandarin-speaking environment and the difficulty of learning the language from Ms Tan and Luke’s perspectives respectively.

Excerpt 5-F3: Learning Mandarin—lack of ‘environment’

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Tan 1 For children growing up here, the most important fact is that they only go to the Chinese school once a week; there’s no Mandarin-speaking environment outside of the school. Bo 2 Your two kids only have contact with Mandarin in this school on the weekend? Tan 3 Correct; you see, they still speak English between classmates...in the oral exam, there’s a question about ‘Is Mandarin hard to learn?’; he said that Mandarin was hard to learn because he did not have such an environment to learn the language.

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Excerpt 6-F3: Learning Mandarin—lack of ‘environment’

S T Utterances [Student-3/INTW/14OCT15], Mandarin Bo 1 What subjects have you been learning this year? Luke 2 I’ve been learning Mandarin, English, two types of Mathematics, Design and Physics...I’m more interested in Design and Mathematics, because I think these two subjects can be challenging and creative; you don’t have to memorise a lot of stuff. Bo 3 ...What’s your hardest school subject? And why? Luke 4 I think Mandarin is the hardest, because I always speak dialect at home, rarely watch Chinese TV and only go to the Chinese school on Saturday; that’s the only time I can have contact with Mandarin. But also, in the Chinese school, we speak English with friends, so I don’t have that environment to learn Mandarin...

From a background of speaking a regional Chinese variety other than Mandarin at home, Luke’s exposure to Mandarin is confined to a weekly 4.5 hours of classroom learning in the CLS. This poses a significant challenge of acquiring Mandarin according to participants (Turn 1, Excerpt 5-F3; Turn 4, Excerpt 6-F3; see also Excerpt 8-F3). Even in TCS, English is widely used between students (Turn 3, Excerpt 5-F3; Turn 4, Excerpt

6-F3).

Further, Luke indirectly revealed his attitude to Mandarin lessons through the comparison with other subject matters in his mainstream school (Turn 2, Excerpt 6-F3).

He prefers subjects that are full of challenges and creativity and do not require rote memorisation, such as Design and Mathematics (Turn 2, Excerpt 6-F3). Mandarin was implicitly assumed to be a subject that lacks creativity and requires rote learning. The researcher’s field observation of Luke’s VCE learning confirms this assumption.

Under the circumstances, parental management of children’s negative learning attitudes becomes an act of instilling an essentialist language ideology in children: being

Chinese and learning Chinese (Excerpt 4-F3, see also Excerpt 7-F3). This ideology is firmly held by the parent and passed on to her children (Turn 15, Excerpt 2-F3; see also

Excerpt 4.1-F3 and Turn 2, Excerpt 22.6-F3). Therefore, any attempt to interfere with the

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family language policy—learning Mandarin—leads to a direct consequence: ‘objection overruled’ (Turn 15, Excerpt 2-F3) or ‘that was non-negotiable’ (Turn 3, Excerpt 3-F3).

This is probably the principal reason for Luke’s consistent learning over around 10 years.

In summary, children in the Tan family have a negative attitude towards learning

Mandarin. The attitude could be caused by the following factors: 1) TCS occupies excessive weekend time of the children, 2) Chinese literacy acquisition is genuinely challenging, 3) the non-Mandarin-speaking environment outside the weekend classroom makes learning Mandarin more burdensome and 4) the teaching and learning styles make the subject uninteresting. However, this negative attitude does not affect parents’ decision on language maintenance, which is determined by a strong essentialist ideology around ethnic language competence and associated ethnic authenticity. This ideology is further investigated in Section 4.4.

4.3.4 Summary

Attending Chinese school on the weekend is a normalised educational and a social event for those families who have decided to maintain Chinese in Australia. Chinese- background children have gradually exhibited a negative attitude to community-based learning once their mainstream schooling is initiated and developed.

Their negative attitudes are associated with the innate challenge of Chinese literacy acquisition, accompanying extracurricular activities and teaching and learning styles, including after-hours learning routine, all of which question their implicit beliefs about school experiences largely shaped by mainstream schools. In addition, for ethnic

Chinese children who do not use Mandarin at home, the difficulty of learning Mandarin is tremendous. Therefore, it becomes necessary to reconsider the nature of ‘Mandarin’ for the group of Chinese regional language users. Mandarin is taught as community language in weekend schools, but in practice, it is situated somewhere between ‘community’ language and ‘foreign’ language.

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Conversely, parents and community educators are struggling with an unresolved paradox between the limited teaching time, the lack of a readily accessible Mandarin- speaking environment and high expectations for children’s Mandarin competence.

Meanwhile, mainstream society firmly believes that for Chinese-background children, learning Chinese is easy because they already speak Chinese.

When children’s experiences clash with parents’ expectations, the former have limited power over language planning decisions that are made by their parents and further enhanced by community educators. Specifically, children’s experiences are regulated by parents’ ideological management practices that are directed by syncretic traditional and modern Chinese values and ways of thinking. Confucianism, Buddhism, beliefs about ethnic authenticity, materialism and utilitarianism that are closed linked with normatively constructed ideas about Chinese culture and the social and ideological impact of China’s economic rise and current prominence in world affairs have emerged from the data.

Although children may not have the authority to overrule parental language maintenance decisions, they can choose to display acts of rebellion and choose not to interact, or at least not to entirely interact, with Chinese ideological discourses. Children can be ‘half- hearted’ or passive in various forms of responses. In turn, parents may adjust their FLP style to a certain extent.

It may also be true that children’s long-term engagement with the language, community school, peers with similar learning experiences and parents’ FLP regarding language maintenance could equip them with high-level literacy skills in Chinese, and perhaps, more importantly, produce a sense of ‘self’ as a personal identity consequence of the language planning (Lo Bianco, 2007). Collectively, these ‘selves’ constitute a sense of ‘community’ that fit into the general discourse of ‘Great Traditions’ (Fishman, 1969,

1973), regardless of whether they would identify with it or not.

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4.4 To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese

One generalisation that emerges from this research is that we should not take for granted or ‘naturalise’ the idea that children of Chinese heritage learn Chinese. As will be seen later, many families choose not to maintain the language. Further, as discussed in

Section 2.4.2.1, Seloni and Sarfati (2013) and Pérez Báez (2013) reveal how parents’ negative attitudes to ancestral languages produced language loss. Therefore, it is crucial to examine specific language ideologies—positive and negative ones about community languages and ordinary family practices—that influence diverse FLP decisions. Table 4.7 shows the units of analysis discussed in this section. These data not only serve to complicate taken-for-granted connections between ethnic origins and language practices but problematise many of the assumptions that lead to these connections.

Table 4.7 To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description 8-F1 Language ideology: being ‘Learning Chinese is about Chinese and learning Chinese maintaining the roots of oneself, (Mandarin) that’s it’ 9-F1 Language ideology: being ‘As Chinese, you should Chinese and learning Chinese understand Chinese, whatsoever, (Mandarin) this is a must’ 10-F1 The role of parents in family ‘Whether parents would like their language policy/planning children to learn Chinese is the most important’ 8-F2 Language ideology: being ‘because we are Chinese’ Chinese and learning Chinese (Mandarin) 7-F3 Language ideology: being ‘The most important reason is you Chinese and learning Chinese are Chinese, you must learn, must (Mandarin) learn Chinese’ 3-SL1 Parents’ educational background ‘The more education that parents and family language receive, the more challenging policy/planning children find it to learn the native ethnic language’

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Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description 1-SL2 Generation 1’s experiences ‘You can hardly have deep and regarding the use of English and substantial conversations’ Chinese 2-SL2 Generation 1’s experiences ‘The language that can fully regarding the use of English and express myself is still Chinese’ Chinese Instance 1 Diverse language maintenance The Zhao Family—Mr Li’s decisions Wuxinese friends; home language: English Instance 2 Diverse language maintenance The Ye Family—Mr Li’s decisions Wuxinese friends; home language: English Instance 3 Diverse language maintenance Another Family decisions (Fieldnotes/24MAY2014) Instance 4 Diverse language maintenance Teacher Yan’s family decisions (Fieldnotes/25OCT2014)

In the Li family, the connection between ‘learning Chinese’ and ‘keeping roots’ appeared spontaneously when I was about to finish the first interview with Mr Li:

Actually, learning Chinese is about maintaining the roots of oneself, that’s it. [Bo: You think the roots…] Because the culture is our ‘roots’; language is simply a ‘tool’, but you’ll have to make sure this ‘keeping roots project’ runs well, right? You’ll have to keep the language; without language, everything is just castles in the air. (Excerpt 8-F1, Appendix 6)

In addition, during the same interview, Mr Li said:

[W]e had a guiding thought: As Chinese, you should understand Chinese, whatsoever, this is a must. I hope my children don’t become real ‘Bananas’. [Bo: Bananas?] It means following White people and their culture and loses our ‘roots’. (Excerpt 9-F1, Appendix 6) Excerpts 8-F1 and 9-F1 convey a strongly held belief behind choosing to learn an ancestral language. Chinese language planning is depicted as a ‘keeping roots project’ (留根工程) in which language is considered a practical tool to achieve this goal of ‘keeping roots’. The primary ‘reason’—‘the guiding thought’ (指导思

想)—for learning is the assumed and unproblematised connection between being

Chinese and learning Chinese, a connection that reflects an essentialist ideology that

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views the relationship between ethnic language competence and the associated ethnic authenticity as uncontested and natural.

Both of these terms, ‘keeping roots project’ and ‘the guiding thought’, are very much mainland Chinese oriented. The use of ‘whatsoever’ and ‘must’ have demonstrated the non-negotiable nature of this objective for language planning activity. Ms Guo also gives a similar answer for the question of ‘why learn Chinese’:

I still don’t want them to forget, because we are Chinese, don’t forget about characters and also don’t forget that this is a country with a long history. (Excerpt 8-F2, Appendix 7) In addition to the essentialist ideology inherent in the formulation (being Chinese requires learning Chinese), the importance of learning a semiotic resource in the form of

Chinese characters, and the connection between Chinese transnationals and the home country, are also raised. Although Ms Guo never mentioned the term ‘roots’, ‘Chinese characters’ and China’s long historical traditions can be legitimately considered key elements that form the foundation of this concept of Chinese ‘roots’.

Identically, Ms Tan stated firmly, ‘The most important reason is you are Chinese, you must learn, must learn Chinese, Mandarin’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 7-F3, Appendix 8). The correlation between being Chinese and learning Chinese is shown, specifically, being

Chinese is associated with learning and speaking Mandarin. Moreover, this language ideology is employed as a parental strategy to manage Luke’s negative attitudes to

Mandarin learning (see Excerpt 4.1-F3), as discussed in Section 4.3.3. This excerpt is repeated here for convenient reference.

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Extract (para. 3) from Luke’s writing entitled ‘Me’ (original left, English translation right)

This is me – (name)

Another reason for learning Mandarin, according to Ms Tan, is the current popularity of the language and its official status in China. She realised that the status of

Cantonese in Australia is declining dramatically compared to a decade ago as a result of the rise of Mandarin:

[N]owadays, Chinese is becoming prevalent...Ten years ago, Cantonese was… [Bo: Cantonese was popular] but currently, people who speak Cantonese are gradually switching to Mandarin...because Mandarin is also the official language...Cantonese is only spoken among Cantonese people, but as for Mandarin, people who speak other dialects have to learn Mandarin. (Excerpt 7-F3, Appendix 8) This change indicates that regardless of the types of Chinese background that people are from, Mandarin has become symbolic of ‘Chineseness’ and an expectation from the wider society for what it means to be Chinese.

Given the fact that Putonghua is used as a synonym for Chinese identity in general owing to its prestigious social status, as discussed in Section 4.2, the correlation between being Chinese and speaking Chinese may be better represented by the correlation between being Chinese and speaking Putonghua. In addition, two out of three parents used the modal verb ‘must’ to express the necessity and non-negotiable nature of learning the community language, which would otherwise lead to negative identity consequences.

For Mr Li, the assumed consequence of not learning Chinese is represented by his term Xiangjiaoren (香蕉人) (‘Bananas’), a term generally used to describe people who are ethnically Asian but culturally Caucasian, effectively referring to a white core and a

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yellow surface or cover. Although there are various indicators of being a Banana, Mr Li prioritises language as the key signifier. To learn or not to learn is not a binary question when, in fact, there exists a spectrum between these two extremes as concluded in Section

2.4.2.3, per Fogle (2013a) and Li Wei (2011).

In the fieldwork, I uncovered a similarly wide spectrum of language planning instances. For example, some families chose not to maintain their children’s Chinese consistently, some families chose initially not to teach Chinese but changed their minds after a few years; some families chose to teach Chinese but later stopped, some returned to TCS after years of not learning, and other parents decided to send their younger child to the school despite not having wanted their older child to learn. Some of these instances are examined below to explore the language ideologies they reveal.

Instance 1: The Zhao Family (Mr Li’s Wuxinese friends; home language: English)

The mother in this family thought that her child should learn Chinese, while the father decided against this choice. At present, the child is a monolingual English speaker and intergenerational communication with grandparents is impeded. The father’s saying illustrates his decision: ‘We are destined to drink coffee, not tea’ and ‘My child would not go to China in the future’.

Food terms are used metaphorically to represent values and lifestyles of the West and the East. Specifically, ‘coffee’ refers to Western culture, while ‘tea’ refers to Chinese culture. Although this polarised stereotypical generalisation of cultural differences does not capture the reality (i.e., England is a Western but tea-drinking country; Australia used to be a traditionally tea-drinking country, brought about by its British colonisation, but is now considered a coffee-drinking country, an image created by European, especially

Italian migrants), it demonstrates the father’s ideological alignment with Western culture.

As a result, learning Chinese has become unnecessary for his child. Mr Li’s description of this father reminds me of a conversation that I had with SL2.

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In this conversation with SL2, he described a specific kind of Chinese parent who speaks good English, works for Australian companies and does not think children learning Chinese is necessary: ‘They think they are not Chinese’; ‘Chinese people might call them pseudo-foreigner’ (‘中国人要称他们 “假洋鬼子”, 他们英语也好, 工作就是

在洋人公司, 所以他就会觉得我们不是华人一样’). The common derogatory term Jia- yangguizi (假洋鬼子) (‘pseudo-foreigner’) describes an ethnic Chinese person who tries to behave like a Westerner, especially a white person. This labelling is a consequence of challenging the essentialist discourse about ethnic language and about an underlying notion of ethnic authenticity. Chinese parents who choose English as their home language and choose not to maintain their children’s Chinese are at the risk of being placed into this category.

As his friend, Mr Li thinks the father’s attitude to language maintenance is related to the father’s tertiary educational background: ‘He graduated from one of the best

Chinese universities, in Shanghai’ (‘他是从中国特别特别好的一个大学毕业的，在上

海的’). SL1 also expressed the positive relationship between parents’ high level of educational attainment and the increased likelihood of speaking English at home (see also

Curdt-Christiansen, 2015):

The more education parents receive, the more challenging children find it to learn the native ethnic language. Why? Because at home you speak English with each other, native ethnic language isn’t passed down. (Excerpt 3-SL1, Appendix 4)

Instance 2: The Ye Family (Mr Li’s Wuxinese friends; home language: English)

Similar to the father in Instance 1, Mr Ye graduated from a prestigious university in China which specialises in foreign language studies. He became an English lecturer in a Chinese university following his graduation prior to immigrating to Australia. When

Mr Ye’s child was little, he stuck labels of English words on furniture in their house to help the child learn English. Mr Li did not understand the father’s reason for not

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maintaining his child’s Chinese. The father said his child would never go to China. Mr Li tried to convince this father not to worry overly about the children’s English, but the father ignored this advice. A few years later, when the child turned eight years old, the father decided to send the child to a Chinese CLS. This was because the father realised the important role of China and Mandarin in international political, economic and cultural exchange.

SL2 also mentioned the possible reasons that parents reconsidered their English- only family language policy and started to plan for children’s Chinese literacy. In addition to the role of Chinese language in the current globalised trade and business context, he highlights identity issues among first-generation immigrants who are professionals and intellectuals:

Although they think that they are foreigners [i.e., Australians] or even Bananas, they don’t have real foreign [i.e., Australian] friends. You can ask them [i.e., Australians] to come out for dinner, but you can hardly have deep and substantial conversations. Can you talk about AFL players, and something like, their affairs? No, you can’t. Do you think you will become friends if you watch a few Hollywood blockbusters with Australians? Not really. [Bo: What do you think the problem is?] Only the second or third generation would be able to do it. (Excerpt 1-SL2, Appendix 5) Here, SL2 uses ‘foreigners’ to indicate local Australians, from which we can note the subconscious clear division of ethnic membership, although SL2 himself is an

Australian citizen. What SL2 mentioned is the struggles that many first-generation immigrants encounter: an adoption of a new identity and integrating into mainstream society.

A good command of English as powerful capital has successfully enabled these parents to socially engage with local Australians, compared with others who do not have adequate command. However, deep social integration into the host society involves more than just English competence, it requires deep understanding of, and emotional

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attachment to, prominent Australian cultural elements (e.g., AFL1). Curdt-Christiansen

(2009) also explores this aspect of life among Generation 1 Chinese Canadian transnationals who have a good command of, but not native-like, English proficiency.

Thorough understanding and close attachment to the language and culture of the host country cannot be easily and fully developed among first-generation migrants, while they can be developed naturally among the second and third generations. The struggle to fit in pushes the first generation to reflect on their ethnic and cultural heritage and identity, and it may result in their initiation or re-initiation of their children’s Chinese language planning.

SL2 stated the reason that he wants his child to learn Chinese: it shows the emotional dimension of Mandarin in connecting the first generation and their Australian- born children and also an explicit anti-utilitarian kind of reasoning:

SL2: As a parent myself, I didn’t think about any profound reasons...people like me, the language that can fully express myself is still Chinese...which means no matter how good your English is, it fails to convey the meaning...or you just copy the way how they [native speakers] use English...unless you were born here [in Australia], and went to school here...unless you don’t think in Chinese...like, if they [Australians] read some funny things in the newspaper, they’ll giggle...Tell you straight out I wouldn’t find it that funny...but when I hear a Chinese joke, I’ll burst into laughter, that’s the difference. Bo: Right, you think that Chinese is the language that can help you most fully express your feelings? SL2: Yes, and that’s why I hope my children can still communicate with me in the future; [identifying information deleted] of course, we have a lot of relatives in China, and I hope that they can communicate with each other, right?...They can speak to their grandparents only in Chinese; otherwise, they won’t have any communication. Bo: Right; by ‘Chinese’, you mean Mandarin? SL2: Right, we only speak Mandarin to the kids...I don’t agree with the idea of ‘learning Chinese can help you find a good job in the future’, and we shouldn’t push this sort of big idea...we can’t say that...When you are too utilitarian, you are setting up a barrier against yourself...You tell them that learning Chinese is for future employment, so you mean if their Chinese is not good, they won’t find a job? This is not logical...Learning Chinese just means it opens a door for you; it just gives you another option. (Excerpt 2-SL2, Appendix 5)

1 AFL is the abbreviation for the Australian Football League, a professional competition in Australian rules football. In Chinese, it is often translated as Aoshizuqiu (澳式足球), which literally means ‘Australian Style Football’.

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SL2 did not mention ‘being Chinese and learning Chinese’; instead, he simply wanted to maintain communication with his child using the language that he can use competently (i.e., Mandarin). This seemingly practical reason for language maintenance indexes the emotional closeness between the first-generation transnationals and their dominant languages, and their distance from the additional language (English). SL2 has been living in Australia for almost three decades and speaks fairly good English. Still, the role of Mandarin fulfils more social purposes—for example, humour and family cohesion.

In addition, the popular public instrumental motivation in Australia’s foreign language planning and CLP (see Lo Bianco & Slaughter, 2009), such as learning Chinese and finding a good job, is disapproved of.

Instance 3: Another Family (Fieldnotes/24MAY2014)

At a reception at TCS, parents (Mandarin speaking) and their child were enquiring about the school. The boy, Grade 7, came to Australia when he was in Grade 4. I could tell that the boy did not want to come to the school as he was throwing a tantrum in front of his parents. His father told the receptionist that because his son’s English was not good enough, he and his wife did not consider asking him to learn Chinese in the past three years. The father was still of the same opinion. However, this time, since the mother insisted, the boy was finally enrolled in the school.

Instance 4: Teacher Yan’s family (Fieldnotes/25OCT2014)

Ben came to Australia when he was five years old with Teacher Yan and her husband. The parents were worried about their son’s English, thus they did not send him to Chinese weekend school until he was in Grade 9 when Mrs Yan started to teach in the school. Conversely, Jade (Ben’s younger sister) had been learning Chinese in the school since Grade 1.

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Clearly, choosing to maintain or not maintain Chinese is equally common in the diaspora community. From the above cases, we can observe that sending or not sending preschool-aged Chinese-background children to weekend school is, first, a family decision resulting from negotiation between the father and mother, in which the voice of the children is missing, as also described by Mr Li:

[F]irst of all, learning Chinese is about parents; whether or not parents would like their children to learn Chinese is the most important...a parent, a family, really values the language of Chinese culture, which is the most important. (Excerpt 10- F1, Appendix 6) However, parents may not always reach an agreement on their FLP, and the final decision is made by the parent who holds ‘more’ power in a household or over this particular language planning matter. In Instance 3, the boy’s observed reluctance towards attending TCS had no effect on his mother’s decision, although his father does not seem to think learning Mandarin is necessary. Similarly, in Instance 1, the father’s decision about not learning Mandarin overwhelmed the mother’s preference for learning it.

Interconnected factors, such as the parental educational background and English proficiency (Curdt-Christiansen, 2015) (Instances 1 and 2), the perceived possibilities of going back to the home country (Instances 1 and 2), attitudes to the new culture versus original culture (Instance 1) and their children’s (especially that of young transnationals, that is, Generation 1.5) English and Chinese proficiencies (Instances 3 and 4) influence parents’ FLP negotiation and decision-making. The decision may be a long-lasting one

(Instance 1) or may be changed later (Instances 2, 3 and 4). Instance 4 shows that families of more than one child may adopt different language planning decisions for each child.

Among the above cases, Instance 1 is extreme because the language planning decision seems non-negotiable and unchangeable over time. Different from Mr Li’s

‘guiding thought’ of ‘Chinese should understand Chinese’, Mr Li’s friend chose to adopt a Western ‘coffee-drinking’ culture and, thus, an English-only family language policy.

That is, the first generation’s deep-seated beliefs about themselves and their children’s

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identity, and identity-to-be regarding the home country, and the host country exert a crucial influence on their language maintenance decisions.

Meanwhile, SL2’s comments on parents’ identity issues in influencing children’s language planning reveal that Generation 1’s transnational identity is evolving with their understanding of, and changing position in relation to, culture and social networking in both source and host countries. Factors such as 1) parents’ struggle to fit into the host country caused by sociocultural differences, 2) the pragmatic and emotional closeness with their dominant language (i.e., Chinese) and 3) the general rising role of Mandarin and China in international affairs may ‘force’ parents to reconsider their initial language planning decision (i.e., choosing not to learn Chinese) and start planning for their children to acquire the language.

From our focal families (i.e., the Li, Guo and Tan families), we can observe that choosing to maintain Chinese is primarily driven and regulated by an essentialist language ideology regarding ethnic authenticity (i.e., being Chinese and learning Chinese). More specifically, learning Chinese language is linked with the understanding of Chinese characters, Chinese culture in general and China’s history; ultimately, it is about the maintenance of ‘roots’. This notion of ‘roots’ is an abstract construct that reflects Chinese transnationals’ connection with the place of origin within the worldwide Chinese- speaking community, with a focus on place and culture of origin remaining present and powerful in the host environment.

Therefore, it is clear that Chinese maintenance planning is largely an identity practice. Attending and not attending to this practice present completely different ideological discourses, under which being Chinese is viewed differently and the relationship between being Chinese and learning/speaking Chinese is either supported or challenged.

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4.5 Chapter Summary

Finding 1: The nature of CLP.

The initiation of CLP can be an extended and joint form of FLP, merging various legal and political factors. CLP is marked by the variety of Chinese language—the subject of acquisition planning. The CLP process is stimulated by changing sociopolitical situations and is fundamentally affected by immigrants’ legal citizenship arrangements— immigration policy enacted as community language policy. Acquisition of citizenship of the host country not only settles one part of an immigrant’s identity struggles in relation to place of origin but also determines the ‘heritage’ construction of CLP. This means that an immigrant’s CLP is not always initiated by the discourses of ‘keeping roots’, which is a manifestation of what Fishman (1969, 1973) calls ‘Great Traditions’.

Finding 2: Putonghua Mandarin as the exclusive subject of CLP.

Putonghua Mandarin is the most valued Chinese variety in the Chinese education context and the dominant lingua franca within the dispersed Chinese community. The power of Putonghua is exemplified by the prestigious image of local Beijing people and by language modelling agents of China’s national media. The language ecological mechanism enables a full representation of this power in the heterogeneous Australian

Chinese community. Therefore, other standard Mandarin varieties, such as Guoyu and

Huayu, possess less power and Chinese regional languages are almost absent in formal

CLP. This situation suggests that general Chinese CLP is covertly becoming a practice of prestige planning (Lo Bianco, 2010) for Putonghua, which is rooted in a ‘politically and economically more powerful’ LPP centre (Clyne, 1991b, p. 1)—China. China’s ‘re- emergence’ in world affairs has had a direct effect on the status of its official language within the Chinese LPP sphere of ‘retention and recovery’ (Lo Bianco, 2007, p. 13) across

Chinese diasporic communities.

Finding 3: Children’s negative attitudes to community language maintenance.

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Chinese Australian children have generally developed a negative attitude towards learning Mandarin, although it is normal for them to participate in the Mandarin learning.

They are trapped in a conflicted ideological space where parents and community educators ‘push’ the learning, while mainstream society typically misunderstands the learning. Children’s multilingual encounter with Putonghua involves classroom-based learning that is community led and home-based learning that is parent led, along with the negotiation of ideological discourses based in Chinese culture and their own personal learning styles and preferences as informed by mainstream schooling. Attaining a high degree of proficiency in Mandarin requires an intense or even day-to-day involvement with the language and involves diverse kinds of tension associated with the learning process. Therefore, it can undermine families when their community efforts towards language learning—especially those of children—are considered the major reason for non-Chinese-background students’ underachievement in Mandarin courses and assessment.

Finding 4: A language ideological continuum that informs FLP: from essentialist ethnic authenticity to language assimilation.

FLP, in relation to the necessity of Chinese maintenance, is primarily a parental identity practice. It is situated on a language ideological continuum, with one end informed by an essentialist ethnic authenticity discourse (i.e., being Chinese and learning

Chinese) and the other end informed by language assimilation. The language maintenance decision is made on the basis of which language ideological discourse parents draw on or are positioned towards. The internal force that determines language maintenance is parents’ alignment with the essentialist language ideology (i.e., being Chinese and learning Chinese) and the more pragmatic consideration of Chinese in intergenerational communication. Challenging the ethnic authenticity ideology by means of not actively

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engaging with Chinese language and its intergenerational maintenance leads to stereotypes about Chinese-background children and parents.

The external forces that affect whether Chinese is maintained include parental perceptions about children’s competence in English (the language of mainstream society), the rising status of Mandarin globally which is associated with China’s economic rise, familial connections with Chinese-speaking communities or countries, and parents’ educational background and associated competence in English.

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Chapter 5: Speaking Regional Languages and/or Mandarin at Home

Although the children of the three participating families learn Mandarin in TCS, all of them are from regional language–speaking backgrounds. This chapter contributes to answering Research Question 2 which focuses on Chinese Australian families’ experiences of using Chinese regional languages alongside Mandarin. Research Question

2 turns the attention of the present study towards domestic communication and, specifically, the emotional meanings attached to home languages:

• Research Question 2: What language(s) do they use at home? What do the languages mean to the families? How do they talk about the language decisions they make?

In this chapter, data are presented and analysed according to the individual households—the Wuxinese-speaking Li family (Section 5.1), the Fuqingnese-speaking

Guo family (Section 5.2) and the Teochew-speaking Tan family (Section 5.3). These highlight the main regional Chinese variety that each family speaks, although multiple

Chinese varieties or another language may also be spoken in the household. Then, a thematic section (Section 5.4) is devoted to language maintenance and shift situations occurring in both Australia’s Chinese community and in China. Preliminary findings are provided in Section 5.5.

5.1 The Wuxinese-Speaking Li Family

This section discusses the Li family’s home language use and parental perspectives on their home language—Wuxinese. This section contains four excerpts of analysis: Excerpts 11-F1, 12-F1, 13-F1 and 14-F1 (see Table 5.1).

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Table 5.1 The Li Family’s Home Language Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual Quote/description experience 11-F1 Language planning ‘[taking children to visit Mandarin-speaking activities friends]…the results were not ideal’ 12-F1 Mother tongue affect ‘When I’m not happy or feeling lonely, I’ll think of it, it’s the sound of hometown’ 13-F1 Language ideology: ‘It’s a matter of inheritance. Wuxinese, speaking Wuxinese and seriously, we paid no attention to it, but they being Wuxinese happened to speak it’ 14-F1 Language ideology: ‘If they walk down the street in Wuxi, local speaking Wuxinese and people would tell that they’re not Wuxinese, being Wuxinese but once they start to talk to them, people would believe they are actually Wuxinese’

5.1.1 Mr Li: ‘It’s the sound of hometown’

Within the Li family, Wuxinese is predominantly used among all family members and English is used between siblings. Although all of them can speak Mandarin, they do not speak it as their home language.

Early in the first interview (see Excerpt 11-F1, Appendix 6), Mr Li stated the importance of creating a target language–speaking environment in improving children’s community language ability (i.e., Mandarin): ‘I took them to my [Mandarin-speaking] friends’ house, so that my friends can talk with them [in Mandarin]’ (i.e., when Mr. Li’s children were four to six years old; see Turns 3–5, Excerpt 11-F1). However, this language planning of ‘creating language and literacy environment’ (Curdt-Christiansen,

2013a, 2014, 2015) was not effective and was later discontinued. The reason for this was that their children would only engage in oversimplified interactions with Mr Li’s

Mandarin-speaking friends, with the following example given by Mr Li:

Mr Li’s friend: James, David, dinner is ready [in Mandarin]. James and David: Yes [in English]. (Turn 9, Excerpt 11-F1) This made me more curious about Mr Li’s use of Wuxinese at home. As fluent

Mandarin speakers, for what reason did Mr and Mrs Li not speak Mandarin to their

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children to create such a Mandarin-speaking environment in their own home? (see

Excerpt 12-F1, Appendix 6).

The reasons given for preferring Wuxinese at home were, per Mr Li, ‘Habit. We just speak Wuxinese out of habit; nothing special, we didn’t think about the kids’ (Turn

2, Excerpt 12-F1). These reasons tend to confirm a naturalised or taken-for-granted and unexamined approach, rather than a deliberate planning action in regard to home language use. Although Mr Li thought Wuxinese was ‘not that important’, his subsequent clarification about the role of Wuxinese showed its considerable significance in Mr Li’s and his family’s life (Turn 4, Excerpt 12-F1). This significance can be understood by both the speaker’s emotional attachment to MT and the language’s retention of ancient Chinese features facilitating the learning of classical Chinese poetry—the ‘linguistic value’

(Curdt-Christiansen, 2014, p. 47) of Wu Chinese. In other words, language attitudes to

Wuxinese contain two layers: first and foremost, attitudes to the MT; and second, the attitudes to Wu Chinese as a legitimate Chinese variety.

According to Mr Li, Wuxinese is associated with an intricate combination of deep feelings and, therefore, ‘This stuff, it’s hard to explain. The more you want to explain it or analyse it, the more confused you would be’ (Turn 4, Excerpt 12-F1). However, Mr Li was still able to unpack these feelings (i.e., attitudes to the MT) through defining it as ‘the sound of hometown’, especially under the circumstances of ‘when I’m not happy or feeling lonely’ (Turn 4, Excerpt 12-F1). Wuxinese can also be a manifestation of

‘homesickness’ (Turn 4, Excerpt 12-F1). In general, MT attitudes involve a strong emotional connection to the speaker’s place of origin. In this case, the origin is more related to the hometown Wuxi than the home country.

Second, Wuxinese, as a legitimate variety of Chinese, maintains certain linguistic features of ancient Chinese that do not exist in its modern standard variety (i.e.,

Putonghua). Owing to the dominant role of Putonghua in China’s public life, the value

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of so-called dialects that retain features of classical Chinese has often been neglected by

Mandarin speakers. For example, in the interview I became rather confused about Chinese poetry’s flat and deflected tone arrangement (Turns 7 and 9, Excerpt 12-F1) on account of my ignorance about the historical role of Chinese regional languages in composing classical poetry.

At this point, I should reiterate that in my own previous career, the recitation of classical Chinese poetry was heavily present, and I can attest that poetry reading is purely mediated by Putonghua. However, only during the interview did I realise that none of the ancient Chinese poets was actually a Putonghua speaker and none of the poems was written in modern Chinese. Varieties of Chinese other than Putonghua are almost, if not completely, absent in the training of pre-service news presenters who are widely considered future ‘model’ speakers. This ‘Chinese as Putonghua’ ideology thoroughly permeates Chinese society.

5.1.2 Speaking Wuxinese and being Wuxinese

As Wuxinese speakers, what does ‘Wuxinese’ mean to James and David? (see

Excerpts 13-F1 and 14-F1, Appendix 6). First, James and David are considered ‘real

Wuxinese’ (‘地地道道的无锡人’) by locals in Wuxi because they are able to speak

Wuxinese with a native accent, specifically having the ‘accent of Wuxi town centre’ (‘无

锡城里面的口音’) (Fieldnotes/24MAY14). The connection between speaking authentic

Wuxinese (linked with the ‘town centre’) and being Wuxinese seems even more prominent, given that James and David do not actually look like Wuxinese—at least not

Wuxinese of the town centre—owing to their ‘countryside’ dress sense (Turn 5, Excerpt

14-F1). In short, James and David are recognised to be legitimate Wuxinese only when they are speaking Wuxinese. The idea of ‘who they are’, from an outsider’s perspective, is critically determined by the language they are speaking and the degree of proficiency they are able to display.

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Second, James and David are regarded as Wuxinese simply because of their heritage: ‘Their parents are Wuxinese, so then, they are too’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 14-F1).

People may hold this belief subconsciously because of the closely shared link between parents’ and children’s heritage. Therefore, as Mr Li said, ‘You don’t even need to ask’

(Turn 2, Excerpt 14-F1). Speaking Wuxinese is ‘a matter of inheritance’, and the acquisition of the Chinese variety was completely natural in the home setting and received no specific attention in the Li family (Turn 2, Excerpt 13-F1). However, this seemingly common language practice deserves special attention in the context that regionally born children in China might not speak the regional language, for example, Shanghainese or

Wuxinese, as commented by Mr Li (Turn 3, Excerpt 13-F1). Section 5.4 examines this issue in more detail.

5.1.3 Summary

The choice of husband’s and wife’s mutual MT (i.e., Wuxinese) as home language can be, by and large, a natural practice without implying deliberate or conscious regulating activities. Its ‘naturalness’ is derived from the MT’s socioemotional function.

The significance of Wuxinese language lies in its strong and complicated affective resonance linked with Mr Li’s place of origin and corresponding profound lived experiences. Specifically, MT affection is symbolised by the language’s representation of the ‘sound of hometown’ and ‘homesickness’ for its speakers (Generation 1).

Additionally, the significance of Wuxinese relates to its linguistic value in exploring ancient Chinese language, which can be easily obscured under the widespread

‘Chinese as Putonghua’ discourse. By maintaining and displaying a full Wuxinese competence, especially in alignment with linguistic features of Wuxinese of the Wuxi

‘town centre’, community language speakers (Generation 2) are able to be acknowledged as legitimate members of the Wu Chinese community. Another level of ‘ethnic authenticity’ discourse—regional Chinese identity—is captured through the link between

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speaking Wuxinese and being Wuxinese. James’s and David’s own experiences regarding

‘being Wuxinese’ is explored in Section 6.1.2.1.

5.2 The Fuqingnese-Speaking Guo Family

This section presents the Guo family’s language experiences through an analysis of their general home language use patterns and special home language practices— language used for releasing strong emotion. It also explores language attitudes, particularly language affect behind these language practices. Special attention is given to the multilingual practices of Ms Guo’s youngest daughter, Evelyn, who was four years old at the time of this study. Nine excerpts are included in the analysis: Excerpts 9-F2,

10-F2, 11-F2, 12-F2, 13-F2, 14-F2, 15-F2, 16-F2 and 17-F2 (see Table 5.2).

Table 5.2 The Guo Family’s Home Language Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description 9-F2 Language use pattern General home language use: Mandarin and English 10-F2 Language shift experiences ‘Although they think their mother tongue and attitudes to mother is Chinese, they realise that English has tongue become their mother tongue; in other words, Chinese has been “covered” by English’ 11-F2 Language use pattern Fuqingnese, Cantonese and Southern Min as other home languages 12-F2 Language practice and ‘I found that children who grow up here language attitudes to mother would have “English” as their mother tongue tongue...because people who are around them, who they have contact with, all speak “Galagalagala” ’ 13-F2 Language practice ‘Don’t speak English to Grandma; Grandma doesn’t understand English’ 14-F2 Language practice Swearing in Fuqingnese and not in English 15-F2 Language attitudes Attitudes to Mandarin, English and esp. Fuqingnese/mother tongue 16-F2 Language practice Evelyn’s use of mother’s swearwords

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Excerpt Multilingual experience Quote/description 17-F2 Language practice Evelyn’s language practice: use of Fuqingnese responding to a strong parenting behaviour

The Guo family maintains a close transnational relationship with their extended family. The immediate family connections that emerged from the data are shown in

Figure 5.1. More importantly, as an overview of Excerpt 9-F2 (General home language use), Excerpt 10-F2 (Language shift and MT confusion) and Excerpt 11-F2 (Other home languages) (see Appendix 7), Figure 5.1 shows the main languages used between family members. Clearly, societal multilingualism has been reflected at the individual level with the presence of dominant languages.

Figure 5.1. Family connections and language use patterns in the Guo family.

5.2.1 Language shift and MT ‘confusion’

The Guo nuclear family’s current home language practices are as follows: dominant use of Mandarin between parents and children (Turn 1, Excerpt 9-F2), whereas

English is the dominant language among children (Turn 3, Excerpt 9-F2; see also Turns

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6–7, Excerpt 12-F2, Appendix 7). Children’s code-switching between English and

Mandarin is spontaneous in general, but is inflected according to various interlocutors

(Turn 3, Excerpt 9-F2).

Ms Guo and Mr Cheung have always spoken Mandarin to their children, but the children’s language shift from Mandarin to English commenced once they started schooling at the age of three. According to Ms Guo (Turn 5, Excerpt 10-F2), this shift even led to the change of the children’s MT, and she used the verb ‘cover’ to indicate the power of English in replacing this status of Mandarin. What is ‘mother tongue’ according to parents’ experiences? MT is believed to be the language that parents speak to their children, as Ms Guo stated:

[T]heir mother tongue should be Chinese, because back then, from birth to three years of age, their mother tongue was completely from their mum and dad. (Excerpt 10-F2, Appendix 7) Ms Guo is a stay-at-home mother, and she is the person that her children interact with the most. Other immediate family members, such as the children’s father and grandparents, are away from the home for work during the daytime. Under these circumstances, the MT is in fact the language that Ms Guo uses most often with her children—Mandarin. Similarly, SL1 expressed his idea of a MT that is linked with children’s initial exposure to caregivers’ language in the home setting: ‘The real mother tongue is the language children used when babbling’ (‘真正的母语是这个孩子牙牙学

语的语言’) (SL1/INTW/02MAY15).

However, in the case of the Guo family, with the start of schooling, Mandarin gradually lost its MT status, while the children’s English language proficiency increased dramatically. Soon, English supplanted Mandarin and became the language through which children could access more information, whereas Mandarin was marginalised as

‘Mum’s language’: ‘Chinese is the one that Mum uses more when looking after them’

(Turn 5, Excerpt 10-F2). Nevertheless, this does not mean Mum’s language is devalued

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in practice. Instead, Ms Guo’s conscious and unconscious language modelling behaviours

(De Houwer & Bornstein, 2016) have a tremendous impact on her children’s language development in terms of Mandarin accent and certain other language uses, for example, swearwords (see Excerpts 13-F2, 15-F2 and 16-F2).

The power of English within children’s linguistic repertoire appears particularly prominent when its development is not purposefully planned. As shown in Turns 6–8

(Excerpt 10-F2), before the age of three, except for the family’s contact with their

English-speaking uncle and cousins, her children did not have much English input because Ms Guo did not appreciate the local Australian television programmes for children alongside her initial negative attitudes towards moving to Australia. The following interaction between the Guo family and me (Excerpt 12-F2) is extracted from our lunch conversation. Stimulated by the youngest child Evelyn’s brief but natural

English language practice (Turn 1, Excerpt 12-F2), Ms Guo again commented on MT.

Excerpt 12-F2: Evelyn’s language practice—MT

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-3/21MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold); the Guo family is having lunch together at The Chinese School Evelyn 1 Finish, Mummy. Guo 2 Good. Bo 3 What did she just say? ‘Finish, Mummy’? Oh, she wants more? Guo 4 ‘Finish, Mummy’; it means she’s finished; actually, I found that children who grow up here would have ‘English’ as their mother tongue [Bo: Yeah] because people who are around them, who they have contact with, all speak ‘Galagalagala’. Sophia 5 Galagalagala {laughing}. Bo 6 Sophia, do you speak English with Evelyn or something else? Sophia 7 English. [Bo: English. Is Chinese easier or English easier?] I like speaking Chinese, but I just speak English out of habit. [Bo: Speaking English out of habit.]

The mother thinks that the MT of her Chinese-background children is English, because they are in a linguistic environment where most people speak English (Turn 4,

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Excerpt 12-F2; see also Turn 5, Excerpt 10-F2). In this case, the MT was defined by the society’s dominant language which is often the language that the children are most proficient in among the others present in their linguistic repertoire.

This language shift situation illustrates Curdt-Christiansen’s (2012) finding of how the medium of instruction (i.e., English) in Singaporean schooling produces the shift of students’ dominant language away from the MT. In addition, in the community language context of Australia, English can take over from ‘old’ MTs (i.e., community languages) and become a student’s ‘new’ MT. That is, the concept of MT might not be a static notion permanently describing children’s home or initial language which they were expose to from birth; rather, in different sociolinguistic contexts, MT is an evolving and socially constructed notion.

According to the data (Turn 5, Excerpt 10-F2), the MT is not exclusively defined by parents’ or by other caregivers’ language; rather, we should also take into account children’s language of greatest proficiency (i.e., the dominant language). With the completion of language shift, a previously dominant language or old MT (i.e., Mandarin) can change its nature from ‘mother tongue’ to ‘Mum’s language’. However, can someone’s ‘mother tongue’ change? This issue is discussed further in Section 5.2.5.

From her perspective, Sophia expressed her liking for speaking Mandarin and considered speaking English only ‘out of habit’ (Turn 7, Excerpt 12-F2). In other words, although Sophia speaks more English than Mandarin, she has more affective connections with Mandarin which shows that being competent in one language does not guarantee an emotional affiliation to the language. In addition, older siblings’ English-dominant bilingual practice—an outcome of language shift—explains Evelyn’s early emergence of

English competence before starting kindergarten.

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5.2.2 Speaking Fuqingnese, Cantonese and Southern Min

Ms Guo speaks Mandarin and Fuqingnese with her father-in-law, whereas she speaks only Fuqingnese with her mother-in-law. Ms Guo and Mr Cheung occasionally speak Cantonese with each other, while Ms Guo and her grandmother speak Southern

Min. Before proceeding to each of these home language uses, let us closely examine the variety of Hokkien that the family, as native Fujian people, speaks. As outlined in Section

1.2, people from Fujian province have a long history of migrating overseas and are widely spread among Chinese diaspora communities. Therefore, it is important to represent their multilingual experiences, especially, younger generations’ transnational living in modern times.

Excerpt 11-F2 (Other home languages, see Appendix 7) is extracted from a very dense conversation between Ms Guo and me, which was filled with clarifications of information because I was not familiar with varieties of Hokkien. Fuqingnese, as a variety of Hokkien, has its own varieties. Ms Guo is originally from Yuxi, while Mr Cheung is from Honglu. Both Yuxi and Honglu are under the jurisdiction of Fuqing city. According to Ms Guo, there is not much difference between the Fuqingnese spoken in Honglu and that spoken in Yuxi; however, that of Gaoshan and Haikou is distinct from the Honglu and Yuxi varieties in relation to ‘accent’, although they are mutually intelligible. Near

Honglu, ‘if you cross the street, and then walk a few minutes into the countryside’, people speak Southern Min and this variety of Southern Min is distinct from the Southern Min that Ms Guo and her grandmother speak (Turn 4, Excerpt 11-F2). This brief summarisation of the data shows the linguistically diverse character of Fujian province.

Ms Guo adopts a language policy along the lines of only Fuqingnese with mother- in-law and both Mandarin and Fuqingnese with father-in-law. This is mostly implicit, that is, without very clear self-consciousness or planning, as described by her: ‘I don’t know why’ (Turn 10, Excerpt 11-F2). Triggered by my further request, Ms Guo specified the

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context where she speaks Mandarin with her father-in-law—when talking about news and

‘politics and world affairs’ (Turn 11, Excerpt 11-F2). However, conversation topics between Ms Guo and her mother-in-law only fit into the category of ‘informal everyday talks’, and, therefore, they use only Fuqingnese when talking to each other (Turn 11,

Excerpt 11-F2). Similarly, Ms Guo talks with her mother and other relatives in

Fuqingnese (Turn 9, Excerpt 11-F2), and we can assume that their topics are around everyday matters as well. Although Ms Guo was still unaware of the hidden rules of her

Fuqingnese and Mandarin uses when I pointed them out in an explicit way (Turn 11,

Excerpt 11-F2), it can be inferred that Ms Guo determines the language that she will use according to the content of her potential conversation and the specific interlocutor involved. The language choice decisions are made instantaneously; as she said: ‘Once you meet someone, you use the corresponding language’ (Turn 12, Excerpt 11-F2).

This practice can also be supported by Ms Guo’s occasional use of Cantonese with

Mr Cheung: ‘when something that we don’t want kids to hear, for example, talking behind someone’s back’ (Turn 13, Excerpt 11-F2). Cantonese is used as a way of deliberately excluding the people who do not understand them and protecting privacy (see also ‘keep something a secret’ in Yates & Terraschke, 2013, p. 120). Ms Guo’s stay for three months in Hong Kong enabled her to acquire the language—specifically because of the

Cantonese-medium television programmes and the reported similarities between

Cantonese and Fuqingnese (Turn 13, Excerpt 11-F2). Although the linguistic similarity or connection between Fuqingnese and Cantonese needs further examination, Fuqingnese, as a linguistic and cultural resource, played an active role in facilitating Ms Guo’s acquisition of Cantonese.

Southern Min is another Chinese variety that Ms Guo uses. Brought up by her grandmother, Ms Guo acquired the language naturally and it has become a valuable resource for the intergenerational communication between them (Turns 4 and 12, Excerpt

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11-F2). Maintenance of Southern Min makes the close relationship between Ms Guo and her grandmother possible. However, this kind of grandparent–grandchild communication does not seem to exist between Generation 2 and their grandparents (see Excerpt 13-F2,

Appendix 7).

As a daily routine, Ms Guo often talks with her mother, who lives in China, through a video call before preparing dinner. Moreover, Evelyn joins the conversation from time to time. Because Evelyn’s language practices of Mandarin and English mix, her communication with her grandmother does not usually go well. As Ms Guo stated:

Hearing Evelyn speaking English, my mum would say, ‘Don’t speak English to Grandma; Grandma doesn’t understand English’. Then, Evelyn would try to use Mandarin; eventually, my mum got quite confused, ‘Ah, okay, okay, I know’. [Bo: Grandma didn’t quite understand Evelyn?] Right, didn’t quite understand her… (Excerpt 13-F2, Appendix 7) This is a typical illustration of the intergenerational communication breakdown caused by second-generation Australian Chinese children’s language shift and loss. In

Evelyn’s case, several layers of language shift and loss are occurring: 1) language loss of her grandmother’s native language (i.e., Fuqingnese), 2) lack of competence of dominant community language (i.e., Mandarin) and 3) the start of language shift towards the mainstream society’s dominant language (i.e., English). The combination of these three processes generates a problematic grandparent–grandchild interaction. Therefore, it can be inferred that Evelyn’s relationship with her grandmother is very different from the situation between Ms Guo and her grandmother (i.e., Evelyn’s great-grandmother).

Language shift and loss would typically lead to not only communication barriers but a decrease of emotional intimacy with family members, especially senior members who are overseas.

In summary, the Guo family is from a linguistically diverse background and actively uses multiple languages, such as Mandarin, English, Fuqingnese, Cantonese and

Southern Min, in their daily life. In different social networks within the family, different languages are used for different conversation topics, informal and more formal alike, and

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even for establishing boundaries and preserving privacy. Meanwhile, code-switching between languages is commonly practised. All these practices comprise a series of

‘hidden rules’ of language use and collectively constitute an ‘implicit’ home language policy. Additionally, all are enacted seemingly spontaneously.

The grandparent generation uses non-Mandarin varieties (i.e., Fuqingnese and

Southern Min) as their main languages, the parent generation uses Mandarin as its absolute primary Chinese variety and the children have English as the dominant language.

Chinese-background children have experienced, and are continuing to experience, language shift from Mandarin to English along the mainstream English-medium schooling. In addition, the regional Chinese language is absent from the children’s linguistic repertoire.

For families with more than one child, it is confirmed that children’s language shift process begins immediately after the first child starts schooling. This explains why a preschool child (i.e., Evelyn) has already developed predominant English use and

English–Mandarin code-switching practices (see also Excerpt 17-F2 for a naturally occurring code-switching sample).

Finally, the competence of using regional Chinese varieties is beneficial to intergenerational communication, as shown briefly through the case of Ms Guo and her grandmother. Conversely, in Evelyn’s case the lack of a common language with her grandmother, caused by various processes of language shift and loss, creates a potential loss of family intimacy in the long run.

5.2.3 Swearing in Fuqingnese

Using languages for swearing or releasing other intense emotion is a special type of home language practice. It caught my attention for the first time on 1 November 2014.

I recorded it in my fieldnotes (see Excerpt 14-F2).

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Excerpt 14-F2 [Fieldnotes/01NOV2014] (Swearing in Fuqingnese, not English)

Conversation with Ms Guo about swearing (language practices and attitudes)

Ms Guo’s language practices—swearing in Fuqingnese

My question to Ms Guo was about the difference between swearing in English (F-word) and swearing in mother tongue: Fuqingnese

Reasons for swearing in Fuqingnese rather than English at home:

First, when she uses Fuqingnese, she is able to fully express her strong feelings. She cannot release such a feeling of anger in English. The swearword ‘dianpa’ of Fuqingnese does not sound as strong aurally to her children as the F-word; in addition, for Ms Guo the negative feeling attached to ‘dianpa’ is much stronger than that to the F-word.

Second, Ms Guo does not want her children to understand the swearwords. If she uses English, the swearwords will be too strong for her children.

Ms Guo chooses to swear in Fuqingnese, rather than English, because of the unbeatable efficiency of swearing in Fuqingnese and its lesser consequence for children.

First, she is able to fully express her strong emotions, such as anger, only through

Fuqingnese—this echoes the finding regarding Ms Guo’s strong emotional connection with MT/Fuqingnese in Excerpt 15-F2 (see Section 5.2.4). Second, she thinks that since her children do not understand Fuqingnese, swearing in Fuqingnese could minimise any potential negative impact of bad language use on them. This exclusive language use, which is similar to Ms Guo’s use of Cantonese for gossip (Turn 13, Excerpt 11-F2,

Appendix 7), shows that FLP extends beyond choice of languages to include the distribution of conversational topics within and across the languages in the family language repertoire.

Conversely, swearing in English, from which the speaker is more distant (Turn 2,

Excerpt 15-F2; Turn 4, Excerpt 12-F2), compromises the effects of swearing for releasing anger. In particular, in Turn 4 (Excerpt 12-F2), Ms Guo used a self-invented onomatopoeic expression, ‘Galagalagala’ (‘嘎啦嘎啦嘎啦’), in an amusing but slightly mocking way (Turn 4, Excerpt 12-F2) to signal how English sounds to her. The use of this expression shows Ms Guo’s distant emotional connection with English, which is a

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reflection of her attitude to the language. This is why Ms Guo found the negative feeling attached to Fuqingnese swearwords stronger than that attached to English alternatives.

Further, she considers that swearing in her children’s dominant language (i.e., English) would seem too confrontational to them.

However, although Ms Guo tried to exclude her children when using strong language and be a good language model, her swearing language practice has still influenced Evelyn, as reported in Excerpt 16-F2, and appeared naturally again, as reported in Excerpt 17-F2. Despite the fact that Evelyn’s language practices shown in Excerpt 17-

F2 cannot be considered swearing, these are associated with Ms Guo’s strong parenting practice accompanied with her particular language use.

Excerpt 16-F2: Discussion of Evelyn’s language practice—use of mother’s swearwords)

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 Can Evelyn speak the dialect of your mum? Fuqingnese?... Guo 2 ...She can’t speak it at all...but she knows swearwords {laughing}. [Bo: Oh, swearwords? From whom did she learn the swearwords?] Eh, sometimes, I would swear—when very angry, I would swear in hometown language...

Excerpt 17-F2: Evelyn’s language practice—use of Fuqingnese responding to a strong parenting behaviour

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-2/14MAR15], Mandarin, Fuqingnese (in Italics) and English (in Bold) Guo 1 I know you educators may not support this [moderate corporal punishment], but I think it is very necessary. Bo 2 How did you do it, smack on the bum? Smack on the hand? Guo 3 Smack on the hand...Eh, use that… [Bo: A pointer?] The cane [Bo: The cane?] {laughing} Grab the cane, yeah, hand, including Evelyn, she’s older, I also do, but only in the worst-case scenario. I rarely hit them, but if I do, they’ll have to raise their hands high; if I say three hits, I will definitely smack them three times, and not gently, it must be very hard. Evelyn 4 Yes, Mum don’t do that, throw away the chui, chuiyang [the cane]! Guo 5 Throw away the chuiyang [the cane], she said throw away the cane. Bo 6 Ah, she, what did she say? Throw away the… [Guo: Chuiyang.] Chuiyang?

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Guo 7 That was Fuqingnese. Evelyn 8 That was the stick.

While Ms Guo was talking about how she thought moderate corporal punishment, such as using the cane, was necessary, Evelyn interrupted her mother sharply by co- switching between Mandarin and Fuqingnese: ‘Mum don’t do that, throw away the chui, chuiyang!’ (Turn 4, Excerpt 17-F2). Evelyn’s reaction drew my attention; based on my long-term observation, while her siblings are having lessons, Evelyn is normally quietly watching Chinese cartoons on an iPad and Ms Guo is either talking with other parents or on her iPad. Intruding on adult conversations is very unusual behaviour for Evelyn, and this instance of spontaneous intervention shows that corporal punishment is a strong parenting behaviour for the child.

Chuiyang is the Fuqingnese equivalent of the word ‘cane’. Because of my unfamiliarity with Fuqingnese, I had to ask for a clarification of its meaning (Turn 6,

Excerpt 17-F2). Evelyn was capable of explaining it in English on her own—‘stick’ (Turn

8, Excerpt 17-F2)—by reason of having the rich linguistic resources of a multilingual child. The cane, for Evelyn, is first and foremost the Fuqingnese word chuiyang and then the English word ‘stick’, but the Mandarin equivalent is missing. Fuqingnese—the language closest to Ms Guo’s heart (see Excerpt 15-F2, Appendix 7; see also the analysis in Section 5.2.4)—has a role in her parenting behaviour and in turn affects her children’s language practice. Excerpt 17-F2 further demonstrates an intimate connection between

Ms Guo and her MT/Fuqingnese as well as the power of the mother’s language modelling behaviour (De Houwer & Bornstein, 2016).

In summary, in day-to-day family life, languages are commonly used to express intense emotions. As implicit home language policies, parents may use strong language spontaneously and strategically, and these language behaviours are significant in forming children’s language use subconsciously. Fuqingnese is still the language that is firmly

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attached to Ms Guo’s emotions, and it remains the means of emotional and forceful expression when personal/parent–child tension needs to be released, manifested in this case by swearing. In addition, strong and forceful use of Fuqingnese and very informal use of Cantonese conveys that FLP not only includes language choices but the arrangement of communicative topics within and across the languages.

5.2.4 Putonghua is more expressive but Fuqingnese is closest to heart

When Ms Guo was growing up in the 1980s, Mandarin had the status of the official language of China and medium of instruction for all education; consequently,

Putonghua plays a crucial role in her life compared with, for example, Mr Li, whose schooling and growing up was 20 years earlier, that is, in the 1960s.

Ms Guo’s language attitudes to Mandarin, English and especially Fuqingnese are examined through Excerpt 15-F2 (see Appendix 7). I had difficulty making the language attitude question clear and easy to understand in the first place (Turn 1, Excerpt 15-F2).

Ms Guo interpreted the unclear question as a query regarding the language in which she could better express herself—‘through which one myself can be better, better expressed?’

(Turn 1, Excerpt 15-F2).

The answer is that she believes Mandarin, or in her words, ‘Chinese’, is the best medium to express herself, since she is able to draw on expanded linguistic resources, especially vocabulary, while other Chinese varieties, or in her words, ‘dialects’, do not offer the same expressive range (Turn 1, Excerpt 15-F2). Further, Mandarin is the dominant medium through which Ms Guo can obtain information and access entertainment (Turn 3, Excerpt 15-F2).

Turn 4 (Excerpt 15-F2) touches on Ms Guo’s language attitudes to Fuqingnese, which is the language she shares with her parents. She associates Fuqingnese speakers with being ‘people from the same hometown’ (‘家乡人’) and they attract her attention, while speaking Mandarin is too common to obtain any attention. Moreover, Ms Guo

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refers to Fuqingnese as ‘hometown language’ (‘家乡话’). Both of these ‘hometown’- oriented terms illustrate her special affective affiliation with Fuqingnese. Although people would not perceive Ms Guo as Fuqingnese owing to her dominant Mandarin use, assuming the essentialist language ideology of ‘speaking Fuqingnese and being

Fuqingnese’, her emotional connections with the language and people who speak that language have always been clear.

I created a scenario to further elicit Ms Guo’s feelings about Fuqingnese (Turn 4,

Excerpt 15-F2), which revealed that Fuqingnese is the language closest to Ms Guo’s

‘heart’, no matter where she is. In particular, when she is in an unfamiliar country without the family around her, hearing Fuqingnese attracts her to talk to, and socialise with, the

‘people from the same hometown’. This interactive behaviour results from the perceived fact that people who speak Fuqingnese share the common environment in which they were reared and similar food preferences (Turn 4, Excerpt 15-F2). Conversely, Mandarin does not indexically suggest these meanings of belonging, warmth, comfort and solidarity, although it is the dominant language of the speaker. Fuqingnese, as the language of Ms

Guo’s nuclear family, plays a decisive role in her identification with, and membership of, its community. We may infer that Fuqingnese to Ms Guo could be what Mandarin is to

Sophia, Henry and Evelyn—the language that parents speak to them, the language they use extensively at home and the language that fuses with the notion of, and affective domain suggested by, the term ‘mother tongue’.

In summary, Ms Guo’s attitude to Fuqingnese is elicited by the researcher through various rounds of enquiry as shown in the above excerpt. Her distinctive language attitude is obscured by her dominant Mandarin practice and is not even consciously available to the speaker herself. However, the strong emotional connection between the MT

(Fuqingnese) and its speaker (Ms Guo) is apparent after probing, despite the ‘overlay’ of

Mandarin. It can be triggered by encounters with people from the same linguistic

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background and a change of the speaker’s life experience—for example, moving overseas or being separated from her family. That is, the language that people grow up with, and speak with their parents, is affectively powerful in a recurring way triggered by chance events and underlying nostalgia, although it may be no longer the person’s dominant language owing to language shift or loss. Whatever the level of proficiency, for its speakers, the language (Fuqingnese) is considered a symbol or acts as a reminder of who they are (Fuqingnese), where they grew up (Fuqing), what they eat (regional Fuqingnese food) and the types of emotional community these practices and memories evoke.

5.2.5 Summary

The Guo family represents both a new generation of Chinese transnationals and people of a place (i.e., Fujian province, China) that has a long history of transnational movement. As part of a generation that grew up in the 1980s, Ms Guo has experienced a language shift away from her regional Chinese towards Putonghua in the wake of the latter’s promotion and use as the exclusive medium of instruction in education and the official language of the nation-state. As Curdt-Christiansen (2012) highlights, policy on the medium of instruction and the general efforts of the educational system generate linguistic inequality. In addition, in this situation, disequilibrium in students’ language abilities is produced. In the meantime, although Putonghua is Ms Guo’s dominant language, other regional languages, such as Fuqingnese and Southern Min, remain active in her linguistic repertoire but are relegated to functions that are for the most part personal and familial.

In addition, her linguistic repertoire keeps expanding through her transnational experiences (e.g., Cantonese and English are acquired along the journey). Her linguistic repertoire is enacted through either implicit or explicit language policies governed by conversation topics, interlocutors and privacy concerns. Among all the resources in Ms

Guo’s repertoire, MT—the language that people grow up with and speak with their

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parents—is highly emotion inflected and deeply ingrained in its users. Not only does MT facilitate intergenerational communication and foster intergenerational relationships, it also helps emotional expression, exemplified in this case through the discussion about strong language use.

However, the intimacy between the MT and its speakers can be easily neglected by the speakers when their MT and dominant language differ. Nevertheless, when MT attitudes are triggered, speakers tend to reflect on their identities, identity practices and their affective meanings, such as who they are, where they grow up and what they eat.

This is clear when the MT is described as ‘hometown language’, and people who speak the language are categorised as Jiaxiangren (家乡人) or Laoxiang (老乡) (‘people from the same hometown’)—a Chinese word that does not have a single-word English equivalent.

Ms Guo’s language shift to Mandarin has determined her dominant Mandarin practice and her children’s subsequent natural emergence of Mandarin competence.

Although the children’s Mandarin is being further strengthened through TCS, the development of English through their day-to-day schooling has provoked their language shift to English. For the preschool-aged youngest child, the emergence of English even starts at home through the influence of her older siblings. This language shift situation among Generation 2 led to parental confusion about what precisely is the children’s MT.

Should MT be considered the children’s most proficient language (i.e., society’s dominant language) or the language (i.e., parents’ language) to which they were initially exposed?

In Ms Guo’s own case, it makes sense to describe Fuqingnese as her MT owing to the elicited subtle, but profound, emotional connection between the language and herself. Similarly, but expressed more directly, Sophia, for whom English is dominant, prefers speaking Mandarin and thinks of speaking English as ‘out of habit’. It seems that

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in her case, more affections and affiliations are subscribed to Mandarin, thus Mandarin can be considered Sophia’s MT.

Although Ms Guo’s language modelling behaviour has a direct impact on her children’s language use, in relation to their Mandarin accent and word choices (De

Houwer & Bornstein, 2016), there is no substantial input and presence of regional Chinese varieties in the children’s life. While Ms Guo feels closest to Fuqingnese and uses

Mandarin as her most powerful communicative tool, her children have more affective connections with Mandarin and use English as their most proficient language.

In the Guo family, the younger generation has almost lost their parents’ MT and has shifted to the community’s dominant language; from there, English starts to develop dramatically in their linguistic repertoire. Under the language loss and shift circumstances involved, grandparent–grandchild communication is negatively influenced with a potential decrease of family intimacy. Especially when a language shift to English occurs prior to the adequate development of the dominant community language, Mandarin, as noted in Evelyn’s case, the breakdown of grandparent–grandchild communication appears inescapable.

5.3 The Teochew-Speaking Tan Family

This section discusses the Tan family’s experiences of speaking a regional

Chinese variety and English and of not speaking Mandarin. One particular issue is why do both Ms Tan and her oldest son Luke struggle when she attempts to speak Mandarin in the home. This section consists of five units of analysis: Excerpts 8-F3, 9-F3, 10-F3,

11-F3 and 12-F3 (see Table 5.3).

Table 5.3 The Tan Family’s Home Language Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual Quote/description experience

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8-F3 Language use pattern General home language use: Teochew 9-F3 Language shift Language shift and general home language use: experiences and Teochew and English language use pattern 10-F3 Language use pattern Not speaking Mandarin 11-F3 Language use pattern Speaking Teochew and English, but not Mandarin 12-F3 Attitudes towards the ‘I was a bit regretful, I half regretted speaking use of regional dialect to them, because I thought...the kids were language still young, so, you could speak dialect to them. They could still learn Mandarin when they grew up. If you didn’t speak dialect to them, they couldn’t learn it when they grew up’

5.3.1 Speaking Teochew and English, but not Mandarin

As the MT of both Ms Tan and her husband, Teochew has always been dominant in their home (see Excerpts 8-F3, Appendix 8). With their children’s English-medium schooling, the children shifted to being English-dominant bilinguals and English appears

‘more expressive’ to them than Teochew (see Turn 2, Excerpt 9-F3, Appendix 8). In short, the children’s dominant language has shifted from Teochew to English. The following excerpts show that Mandarin is not part of the Tan family’s home language practice.

Excerpt 10-F3: Not speaking Mandarin

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Tan 1 We rarely speak Mandarin at home, sometimes I would speak Mandarin to him, but he said, ‘I don’t understand’...You know, he spent all day at school and didn’t have much time at home...Also, there are not many topics to talk about at home...When we spoke Mandarin to him, he would say, ‘I don’t understand’; then, he just gave up. Tan 2 When he was little, we were more patient to teach him to speak...Now he’s grown up, and he understands both English and our Teochew, when I try to teach him Mandarin, I felt like, very...very, not very patient; I’ve lost that patience. Bo 3 Right, because he understands Teochew and English. [Tan: Why do I need to speak a language that he doesn’t understand?] Right, right, if he was a little child, you might consider speaking Mandarin to him. [Tan: I should teach him, to understand and to speak.]

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Excerpt 11-F3: Speaking Teochew and English, but not Mandarin

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 What do you think about his communication with his older brother? Do they normally use English with each other? Tan 2 They speak a lot in English unless they talk to parents; then, they’ll switch to Teochew. [Bo: Right.] When they talk about school stuff, game stuff, they can’t discuss that in other languages; all the games are in English... Bo 3 Right, anyway, they use English the most, right? [Tan: Yeah.] You use Teochew with the kids at home, right? [Tan: Yeah.] The kids speak English with each other? [Tan: Yeah.] How about between their father and them? [Tan: Teochew.] Teochew? [Tan: Yeah.] Right, that means there’s almost no Mandarin-speaking environment at home? [Tan: No.] Right. Tan 4 I, now, speak Mandarin to them...I try my best [Bo: To speak a bit more] yeah, to speak more. I speak Mandarin as soon as I remember, but it’s too late...It’s hard to change, hard to change, after I speak a few sentences to Luke in Mandarin, I’ll just forget to keep it up, and he’ll sometimes say, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about’...then, I wasn’t patient enough to repeat it, you know? [Bo: You find it impossible to stick to Mandarin.] Because, if you teach a little child and you know they don’t understand, you would have more patience to talk to them...He’s already grown up, so, who would still have the patience?... Bo 5 When he was little, you didn’t speak…if you could make a decision again? [Tan: I’ll definitely speak Mandarin to him.] You didn’t think about too much about Mandarin when he was little? [Tan: I thought, if he took Chinese lessons later, he would learn very fast, very…] Right, you didn’t realise that if you spoke Mandarin to him in everyday life, his Mandarin would be more… [Tan: Yeah]; when you’ve realised it, he was already grown up? Tan 6 Yeah, yeah, it was my problem. I didn’t realise that earlier; if I did, I would have spoken Mandarin to him earlier. Now I find it really hard because dialect can easily slip out of my mouth.

More specifically, Teochew and English are mutually complementary, and there is no space for Mandarin in the Tan household—Teochew is the language used between parents and children, while English is the language used among the children. It can be assumed that Teochew is used to deal with a wide range of household topics, while, as observed by the mother, English is used to deal with school-related and computer game– related topics (Turn 2, Excerpt 11-F3). These practices create a stable ecological family language environment. The children’s communication needs within the home can be completely fulfilled through the medium of either Teochew or English. Under these

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circumstances, speaking Mandarin is simply unnecessary and unnatural, as noticed by Ms

Tan: ‘Why do I need to speak a language that he doesn’t understand?’ (Turn 3, Excerpt

10-F3).

Conversely, Ms Tan is under pressure to speak Mandarin to Luke because he is preparing for the VCE Chinese exam. Apparently, speaking Mandarin is considered beneficial to Luke’s performance in the exam. In TCS, there is a locally famous saying of VCE Chinese teachers to parents of Year 11/12 students, as a teacher said in a teacher– parent meeting: ‘The only thing you [i.e., parents] need to do is speak Chinese to your child at home; we’ll look after the rest’ (‘您只要坚持在家和孩子说中文, 剩下的交给

我们’) (Fieldnotes/06JUN2015). Influenced by this language ideology regarding ‘the advantage of speaking particular language(s)’ (i.e., Mandarin) (De Houwer & Bornstein,

2016, p. 682), Ms Tan attempted to change her home language to Mandarin. It was also because Ms Tan attributes Luke’s difficulty in learning Mandarin to his use of Teochew:

‘He speaks Teochew...since he was a child, so that’s why it’s really hard for him to learn

Mandarin’ (Turn 4, Excerpt 8-F3). Unfortunately, this language planning measure was not going well for several reasons.

First, Ms Tan finds it particularly difficult to adhere to her Mandarin-only policy;

Teochew would ‘slip out of mouth’ easily (Turn 6, Excerpt 11-F3) and she can only speak

Mandarin when she remembers to do so. Second, the children do not respond well to

Mandarin, as indicated by Luke’s statement, ‘I don’t understand [Mandarin]’ (Turn 1,

Excerpt 10-F3; Turn 4, Excerpt 11-F3). Moreover, as Curdt-Christiansen (2014) show, children’s unresponsive behaviour towards a newly introduced language can affect parents’ consistent use of the language. Third, once the children responded negatively to her Mandarin use, Ms Tan would lose the patience to clarify any points of misunderstanding or miscommunication. According to Ms Tan (Turn 2, Excerpt 10-F3;

Turn 4, Excerpt 11-F3), her lack of patience results from the fact that her children have

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already grown up. She was able to be patient enough to provide verbal explanations when the children were little. However, since then Mandarin has not ever been part of the family’s natural language use, and the Mandarin-only policy has not been successful from either the parent’s or the child’s side.

This failure to create a Mandarin-speaking environment (Curdt-Christiansen,

2013a, 2014) is predictable because the language, despite its symbolic importance, does not serve a real communicative purpose within the pre-existing, stable, self-sufficient family Teochew and English bilingual ecology. This evidence proves that once ‘the ground rules of family communications’ are set ‘either consciously or unconsciously’ and

‘language habits’ are formed during the initial stage of FLP (Yates & Terraschke, 2013, p. 113), it is unlikely these habits will be changed.

5.3.2 Ms Tan: ‘I was a bit regretful, I half regretted speaking dialect to them’

What were the reasons behind Ms Tan’s adopting Teochew as the home language from the outset? What are her beliefs about Teochew and Mandarin? Adopting Teochew as the spoken home language was not a de facto language policy. Instead, it was a conscious decision made by Ms Tan after weighing up Teochew against Mandarin. She states:

I actually was a bit regretful; I half regretted speaking dialect to them, because I thought...the kids were still young, so, you could speak dialect to them. They could still learn Mandarin when they grew up. If you didn’t speak dialect to them, they couldn’t learn it when they grew up, and they couldn’t speak the dialect...dialects couldn’t be learned when they grew up...it has something to do with tongue. I spoke Teochew to the kids because I wanted them to be able to communicate with my relatives and friends when they went back [in Malaysia]. (Excerpt 12-F3, Appendix 8) Ms Tan believes ‘dialect’ (i.e., Teochew) cannot be acquired if children are not exposed to it from early childhood, while Mandarin can be learned in the classroom later in life (see Turn 5, Excerpt 11-F3). Importantly, by acquiring Teochew, children were expected to be able to communicate with Ms Tan’s relatives and friends back in the home country of Malaysia. It can be observed that family-associated emotions are ascribed to

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Teochew, but these emotions do not apply to Mandarin. Moreover, regarding the decision of speaking Teochew to her children, Ms Tan’s correction of her own word choice from

‘a bit regretful’ (‘有点后悔’) to ‘half regretted’ (‘有一半后悔’) shows not only the practical but the affective role of Teochew in her family life. It is the common MT that is not only shared between wife and husband but with the extended family. In effect, Ms

Tan is fusing discourses of emotion and identity with practical communication needs.

Further, as Ms Tan stated, she would choose to speak Mandarin at home if she could (see Turn 3, Excerpt 10-F3; Turns 5 and 6, Excerpt 11-F3), because she realised the considerable challenge involved in learning the language in the classroom. This is more of a practical concern over communication and exam needs. Specifically, the reasoning here is as follows: if the mother spoke Mandarin to her child from birth or a very young age, her son would speak and learn Mandarin much more easily and competently which would help him achieve a satisfying performance in the VCE Chinese exam. This academic achievement–oriented attitude towards Mandarin is a contrast to the affection-loaded attitudes towards Teochew.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that if Ms Tan could turn back time to make a second home language choice, she would expect a struggle between emotions and family intimacy attached to Teochew, and the socio-economic benefits presumed to be gained with learning Mandarin.

5.3.3 Summary

In summary, Teochew and English are the Tan family’s home languages. The children were raised speaking the parents’ MT (i.e., Teochew), and their later dominant use of English is a manifestation of language shift provoked by the demands of school learning and social life in the mainstream schooling and the failure and abandonment of the Mandarin-only policy at home. Both of these home languages have perfectly fulfilled the speakers’ communicative purposes. In this situation, a parental attempt to introduce

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Mandarin to the family—a complementary language planning activity for the child’s

VCE Chinese exam—poses a real challenge to the family because it is removed from any domain of naturally occurring usage. This proposed Mandarin-only policy, in practice, was violated either by the mother’s compulsive MT (Teochew) use or by her son’s unresponsive behaviour towards Mandarin. That is, Mandarin proved hard to integrate into the family’s daily communicative practices owing to the resistance to the language created by the complete and well-established home language ecology. Planning a new family language creates enormous challenges or is doomed to failure once communication needs have been sufficiently satisfied through existing linguistic resources in the home—in other words, once ‘language habits’ are formed (Yates &

Terraschke, 2013).

Parents’ beliefs about Teochew and Mandarin, and their beliefs in different acquisition paths of languages, are responsible for the family’s initial language planning decisions. Teochew is attached to the notion of ‘family’ and is a routine dimension of their daily life; it is taken for granted as much as it is valued. Further, it is considered not learnable as an additional language, unlike the dominant community language that can be learned anytime in the classroom where its dominance is naturalised. However, the pragmatic values of multilingualism (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014, 2016), learning Mandarin in the Australian context where its promotion is extensive and its role in facilitating university admission through the additional exam scores that second languages produce for students are proved to be powerful family language planning driving forces. For the

Tan family, parents were forced to reconsider their well-developed home language practices and shift to Mandarin, yet, this externally validated choice could not dislodge the established family practice. The language ideologies regarding Mandarin and other

Chinese varieties are found not to be compatible in all cases. Speaking Chinese regional languages is considered an obstacle to improving Mandarin at both the institutional and

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individual levels. This is a separate bilingualism language ideology (Creese & Blackledge,

2011; Curdt-Christiansen, 2015).

5.4 Regional Language vs Mandarin

This section analyses a language maintenance and shift situation around Mandarin and regional Chinese varieties. During the fieldwork, I realised that it is not uncommon to find Australian-born children who speak a Chinese regional language perfectly, as observed in the cases of the Li and Tan families. Conversely, these children’s China- or

Malaysia-based cousins are involved in progressive deterioration of their parental generation’s language patterns, since they may no longer speak the regional Chinese variety. Table 5.4 presents a summary of all the units of analysis in this section.

Section 5.4.1 highlights the issue by drawing on multiple data sources: the researcher’s fieldnotes, school leaders’ interviews (Excerpts 4-SL1, 5-SL1 and 3-SL2) and focal families’ interviews (Excerpts 15-F1 and16-Fl). How did this issue draw the researcher’s attention? Why does a language shift occur or not occur? What are the consequences? Section 5.4.2 (Excerpt 1-Teacher T) enriches the complexity of the issue through a ‘micro-lens’, specifically focusing on multilingual experiences of one

Shanghainese Australian family. What are parents’ beliefs about Shanghainese maintenance in relation to Mandarin? Section 5.4.3 provides a summary.

Table 5.4 Experiences of Language Shift and Maintenance

Excerpt Multilingual Quote/description experience

Fieldnotes/30AUG2014 Language shift and Teacher Hou and her Daughter’s maintenance Experience

4-SL1 Language shift and ‘Nowadays, Shanghai’s kids can’t maintenance speak Shanghainese, and all speak Putonghua’

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Excerpt Multilingual Quote/description experience

3-SL2 Language shift and ‘Shanghai-style culture has lost its maintenance unique features’

Fieldnotes/01NOV2014 Language shift and Teacher Hou and her Daughter’s Constructed narrative maintenance Experience

15-F1 Language shift and ‘Some cousins can’t speak maintenance Wuxinese, but only Mandarin’

16-F1 Language shift and ‘Our overseas-born children, maintenance however, have learned to speak Wuxinese’

5-SL1 Language shift and ‘Home language is used in a maintenance relatively enclosed, relatively enclosed environment, used within a family’

1-Teacher T Language shift and Teacher Tu’s family experiences maintenance

6-SL1 Language shift and ‘They’ll feel a bit awkward’ maintenance

5.4.1 ‘Shanghainese kids can’t speak Shanghainese’

This issue first drew my attention on 30 August 2014, as shown in my fieldnotes:

Teacher Hou’s daughter who was born in Shanghai came to Australia when she finished her primary school in China. She is 20 years old now and cannot speak Shanghainese. Teacher Hou told me that only Mandarin was allowed in her daughter’s school and Shanghainese was not even allowed during breaks. She believes that this kind of language policy has led to the fact that many young generations of Shanghainese cannot speak Shanghainese. Teacher Hou said that Australian Shanghainese kids, instead, could speak Shanghainese. Nowadays, Shanghai is offering ‘local dialect lessons’; I said, ‘That’s great!’ She responded, ‘It would be enough if they are allowed to choose whichever language they want during class breaks; that’s more natural’. (Fieldnotes/30AUG2014) The above epitomises the present situation of Mandarin and Shanghainese in

China, whereas the opposite situation prevails in Australia’s Chinese community. In

China, Mandarin is extensively promoted and used across all social domains, including schools, which leads to Shanghainese becoming endangered among the young. As SL1 noted, mandating the use of Putonghua as the medium of instruction at schools in China results in the loss of children’s native regional language:

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Nowadays, Shanghai’s kids can’t speak Shanghainese, and all speak Putonghua because they’re taught in Putonghua and have been since kindergarten. That’s why some people say Shanghainese has become a language that needs to be saved. (Excerpt 4-SL1, Appendix 4) In addition to addressing the same issue, SL2 explains the consequence of the loss of a regional language. Shanghainese is a case in point:

When I went back [to Shanghai], I found that my niece couldn’t speak Shanghainese, and also a whole bunch of regional features are lost in today’s Shanghainese; they should have maintained it, for only then can Chinese language be enriched. They are now starting to save Shanghainese. To be honest, originally, when Shanghai was aimed to be built as an international metropolis, Shanghainese was abandoned, and people only spoke Putonghua and English...Shanghai-style culture has lost its unique features [Bo: Right, now they are starting to save it] Because humour in Shanghainese is lost when translated to Putonghua. (Excerpt 3-SL2, Appendix 5) According to SL2, Shanghainese is considered a critical component of what constitutes ‘Shanghai-style culture’ (Haipai culture, ‘海派文化’) (Wu, 2004). The rise of

Putonghua not only accelerates local children’s language shift to Mandarin but diminishes some ‘regional features’ of Shanghainese language per se—a consequence of language shift at the societal level. At the personal level, the loss of Shanghainese competence creates an emotional and more broadly affective gap between younger and older generations. For example, children could not appreciate Shanghainese humour that their parents or grandparents would normally value.

In the circumstances surrounding Putonghua and ‘dialects’, students’ language use is regulated by explicit or implicit school language policies that favour Putonghua— systematically marginalising Chinese regional languages.

On 1 November 2014, Teacher Hou’s story about Shanghainese and Putonghua appeared again during fieldwork with more details this time. Based on the fieldnotes,

Teacher Hou and Her Daughter Lily’s Experience was constructed (see Appendix 9). The same phenomenon was also mentioned during my interactions with Mr Li (see Excerpts

15-F1 and 16-F1, Appendix 6) but with reference to Wuxinese. Teacher Hou and Her

Daughter Lily’s Experience and David and James’s Experience (Excerpts 15-F1and16-

F1) reflect how the promotion of Putonghua in China forms the linguistic repertoire of

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children from regional language-speaking backgrounds and how this linguistic repertoire affects their communication with overseas-based cousins. Tables 5.5 and 5.6 illustrate these children’s relative proficiency in their regional language, Mandarin and English, also specifying the LPP prescription that might be most pertinent to each one.

Table 5.5 Lily and Her Cousins’ Communication Model

Shanghainese Mandarin English Proficiency LPP Proficiency LPP Proficiency LPP Lily Low Mandarin- Low Early High Main only migration to language policy Australia (de facto during and no national primary maintenance language) schooling initiatives of Australia Cousins Low Mandarin- High Official Low Foreign only language of language policy in China; learners Chinese medium of schools instruction

Note. LPP = language policy and planning.

Table 5.6 David, James and their Cousins’ Communication Model

Wuxinese Mandarin English Proficiency LPP Proficiency LPP Proficiency LPP James High Home High Weekend High Main and language schooling in language David Australia (de facto national language) of Australia Cousins Low Mandarin High Official Low Foreign -only language of language policy in China; learners Chinese medium of schools instruction

Note. LPP = language policy and planning.

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Lily’s shift from ‘Mandarin’ to ‘English’ dominance results from her transnational movement at a young age and the series of language policies that prevailed in the settings at each stage. First, Lily’s early experience of exclusive use of Mandarin as the medium of instruction in China is the principal reason for the attrition of her Shanghainese. She would only respond in Mandarin when her parents spoke to her in Shanghainese (para. 2,

Fieldnotes/01NOV2014, Appendix 9). This exclusive use of Mandarin in schooling is also the reason that Lily’s cousins are Mandarin-speaking instead of Shanghainese- speaking. Second, since her arrival in Australia, Lily’s Mandarin proficiency has deteriorated owing to the absence of any form of maintenance activity because of the overwhelming pragmatic need to acquire English. As a consequence, a communication barrier has formed between Lily and her cousins. Although I do not think Lily completely

‘could not communicate’ (‘无法交流’) with her cousins (as described by her mother), lack of Shanghainese ability has arisen as the missing link in Lily’s communicative life.

When Teacher Hou commented on the Mandarin-only policy, I felt her child’s lack of Shanghainese ability really upset her. Shanghainese, not Mandarin, is indispensable to the identity of those identifying with their regional origins. However, the current Shanghainese revitalisation initiative in Shanghai through its use in public services (para. 4) and in school programmes (para. 5) was not appreciated by Teacher

Hou. The coexistence of Mandarin-only policy at school and Shanghainese lessons was considered ‘unnatural’ and ‘ridiculous’ (para. 5) by Teacher Hou. Instead, she believes that ‘encouraging Shanghainese student to speak Shanghainese at school’ is a more natural and effective way to maintain Shanghainese.

Similarly, Excerpt 15-F1 reveals briefly the very low competence of James and

David’s cousins in regard to the Wuxinese language. Conversely, it is the home language of James and David and they are highly proficient and emotionally connected to it (see

Excerpts 13-F1 and 14-F1, Appendix 6). Although Mr Li said that the cousins could only

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speak Mandarin (Turn 2, Excerpt 15-F1), it seems more likely that they are Mandarin- dominant Wuxinese heritage language speakers. The cousins would at least be able to understand Wuxinese, but with a limited verbal repertoire. Excerpt 16-F1 explains the main reason for this limitation in the cousins’ regional language competence—the promotion of Putonghua. Despite the fact that Mr Li thinks it is ‘completely right’ to promote Putonghua, ‘it leads to an extreme’ (Turn 3, Excerpt 16-F1)—‘forget some languages of your own region’ (Turn 5, Excerpt 16-F1). In this situation, regional language revitalisation has been planned through mass communication, that is, radio and television programmes (Turn 5, Excerpt 16-F1).

A major difference between Lily’s and David and James’s experiences is the fact that Lily was born and educated in China up to Grade 6, whereas David and James were born and educated in Australia. This difference means that David and James’s home language use was not directly influenced by the general discourse around Mandarin in

China. Adopting the regional language as home language in the Li family has successfully contributed to the maintenance of Wuxinese among the second generation. SL1 specifically mentioned the semi-autonomous (i.e., ‘relatively enclosed’) nature of individual homes and a minority community:

I would say home language is used in a relatively enclosed, relatively enclosed environment, used within a family. It isn’t used in the wider society, is it? As a result, the vocabulary, the pronunciation and the intonation are maintained. (Excerpt 5-SL1, Appendix 4) SL1 made this judgement when he was commenting on a 103-year-old Shanghainese lady’s Shanghainese:

We have a 103-year-old lady living in our community...she fled to Malaya from Shanghai when the Japanese were bombing Shanghai. Then, when the Japanese occupied Malaya, she came down here to Australia, and she’s been living in Australia for six or seven decades...When I was talking with her in Shanghainese, I found that her Shanghainese was the 1930s’ Shanghainese; because she was in a relatively isolated environment, her mother tongue was preserved completely. It didn’t change with the times because it didn’t have the environment for the change, right? When you speak Shanghainese with her, you’ll find her pronunciation and intonation is the 1930s’ Shanghainese pronunciation and intonation. (Excerpt 5-SL1, Appendix 4)

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There are two layers of spaces that prevent children’s language change or shift.

First, transnational movement and associated use of regional Chinese language (e.g.,

Wuxinese and Shanghainese) outside of source country (e.g., China) has cut off the channel for natural language change (e.g., from 1930s’ Shanghainese to modern

Shanghainese) or language shift (e.g., from Wuxinese to Putonghua) linked with the changing sociolinguistic ecology in China. Second, using the language in their Australian home—an autonomous and intimate environment—further enhances the stability of the language if parents consistently use it.

In addition to having successfully maintained Wuxinese, attending the Mandarin- medium Chinese CLS enables David and James to acquire the community’s dominant language, Putonghua. Based on Excerpts 15-F1and16-F1, the upper part of Figure 5.2 attempts to show how English-dominant multilingual Australia could produce English- dominant Mandarin and other Chinese variety speaking multilinguals, while the lower part of the figure shows how Mandarin-dominant multilingual China would form monolingual Mandarin speakers or Mandarin-dominant dialect heritage language speakers. The middle up–down arrow indicates the potential communication medium of

Chinese-background children and their China-based cousins: Mandarin-dominant multilingual language practices. This could serve as a model to help parents raise multilingual children (Generation 2) capable of efficiently interacting with home country relatives.

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Figure 5.2. Communication model between overseas Chinese descendants and their China-based cousins.

In summary, the status of Putonghua as the official language of China and medium of instruction in the educational context has created a dominant language ideology that is in favour of exclusive Putonghua use. Influenced by the dominant language ideology, the use of non-Putonghua Chinese varieties, especially in the school setting, falls into disfavour owing to absence of an overt policy or societal arrangements that could favour ongoing coexistence of bilingualism. This is an overall context where language shift takes place. At a societal level, regional languages start to lose some of their ‘regional features’ which are considered unique to the regional culture and identity.

At a personal level, younger generations, who are from traditionally non-Mandarin-

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speaking areas, become Mandarin dominant. This language shift of children may create an emotional gap with their parents and grandparents that can only be filled by them sharing the same MT. In such circumstances, regional language revitalisation initiatives emerge through its limited use in public space, mass media and special school programmes. Therefore, in the educational context, the coexistence of compulsory

Putonghua promotion and optional regional language programme appears.

Conversely, Chinese families in the diaspora community are located in a different language ecological system. A home of a linguistic minority group is autonomous or at least semi-autonomous in nature which is able to prevent potential natural language change and language shift situations. That is, compared with its Chinese counterpart, a regional Chinese variety used in Australia’s Chinese homes may not change or develop over time, and language shift to Putonghua is less likely to occur. Additionally, learning the mainstream community language (i.e., Putonghua) through complementary schooling further develops children’s Chinese language and literacy abilities.

The different language shift, loss and maintenance situations regarding the

Chinese language in China and Australia have a direct impact on transnational individuals’ linguistic repertoire and their communication with extended family members. Regional language is the missing link in the communication between Chinese Australian children and their China-based cousins: Mandarin is the most efficient medium of their interaction; otherwise, the interaction will be hindered by lack of a shared language.

5.4.2 An Australian Shanghainese family

This section introduces an Australian Shanghainese family (the Tu Family) who adopted different family language policies for different children (see Excerpt 1-Teacher

T, Appendix 9). The mother, Ms Tu, is David’s Chinese teacher in TCS. She will be referred to as Teacher Tu in the following analysis. Briefly, as a Mandarin teacher herself,

Teacher Tu does not believe that speaking a regional Chinese language with children

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would have any negative impact on children’s learning of Mandarin, a perspective largely formed by her own experience of raising two multilingual children.

Both of Teacher Tu’s children speak Shanghainese, Mandarin and English.

However, different home language rules were employed during their upbringing. An explicit Mandarin-only policy was applied to ‘the older one’, whereas this policy was softened and then ceased for ‘the younger one’. Both children are dominant English language users. Two family language policies have resulted in their current different linguistic attainments.

Brought up by her Shanghainese-speaking grandparents, the older daughter acquired Shanghainese. Then, driven by an assumed negative correlation between speaking regional language and learning Mandarin, a Mandarin-only policy in the household was enacted when the daughter turned five years old (Turn 2, Excerpt 1-

Teacher T). The first child is now described as a ‘good’ Mandarin speaker, but her

Shanghainese has developed a distinctive feature described by the mother as ‘a bit strange’

(Turn 3, Excerpt 1-Teacher T). The enforcement of the Mandarin-only policy is believed to be the reason for this.

Conversely, the second child has a different personality compared to her older sister and the Mandarin-only policy was ‘gradually’ ignored not only by the child but by her parents. With the child’s development of Mandarin competence obtained through complementary schooling, the Mandarin-only policy ceased (Turns 3 and 5, Excerpt 1-

Teacher T). The second daughter is now a ‘satisfactory’ Mandarin user, and her

Shanghainese is considered ‘very standard’ or ‘relatively standard’ (Turns 3 and 5,

Excerpt 1-Teacher T).

The mother is very satisfied with the second child’s current overall language competence, although her Mandarin is not as fluent as her older sister’s and may be ‘not lively’ (Turn 3, Excerpt 1-Teacher T), but she is rather disappointed with her older

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daughter’s ‘a bit strange’ Shanghainese (Turn 3, Excerpt 1-Teacher T). During the interview, I was also able to sense the mother’s clear language attitude: the maintenance of a standard regional language with ‘not lively’ Mandarin means much more than having

‘good’ Mandarin and speaking ‘a bit strange’ regional language. Apparently, Teacher Tu has experienced a change of attitude towards the somewhat incompatible nature between speaking regional language and learning Mandarin. Speaking Shanghainese is no longer considered bad for her children’s Mandarin learning.

Shanghai’s regional language is crucial for an overseas Shanghainese-background

Chinese family. From what I have observed, Shanghainese is commonly spoken among

Shanghainese parents and teachers in and outside TCS. Being Shanghainese and speaking

Shanghainese is a formula that implies a language policy that guides people’s language practices, especially for first-generation transnationals. Among people of Shanghai origin, a clear sense of Shanghai pride and identity exists. After my first visit to TCS, I wrote in my journal:

It seems like a Shanghainese school—so many teachers were from Shanghai, and you can hear Shanghainese almost everywhere in the office during class intervals— this really reminds me of working in Shanghai in 2010. (Fieldnotes/30NOV2013) This strong connection between Shanghainese people and their regional language is not only in an ideological sense but practically as well. Therefore, Teacher Tu’s husband, the father, was originally uncomfortable with following a Mandarin-only policy.

In addition, his initial subconscious code-switching from Mandarin to Shanghainese when asked to speak Mandarin (Turn 2, Excerpt 1-Teacher T) resulted from this same connection. As SL1 expressed it:

A couple has always been talking to each other in dialect, and all of sudden, if they start speaking Mandarin with each other, they’ll feel a bit awkward...but for the sake of children, speaking Mandarin at home is good for kids to learn Mandarin. (Excerpt 6-SL1, Appendix 4) The enforcement of a Mandarin-only policy in Teacher Tu’s home actually challenged the connection between being Shanghainese and speaking Shanghainese.

Eventually, speaking Mandarin between parents and the child became a ‘conditioned

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response’ for both parties (Turn 2, Excerpt 1-Teacher T). However, it should be noted that the Mandarin-only policy was driven by a pragmatic concern—the potential significant role of Mandarin skills in the child’s schooling (Turn 2, Excerpt 1-Teacher T).

This was also shown in SL1’s above comment (Excerpt 6-SL1). That is, in this situation, being Shanghainese and speaking Mandarin is by no means a challenge to their

Shanghainese identity.

In summary, being Shanghainese and, therefore, speaking Shanghainese is a natural family language practice which is reinforced by the presence of grandparents in the household and the Shanghainese neighbourhood within the local Chinese community.

Without the overwhelmingly dominant ideology centred on Mandarin as presented in

China, non-Mandarin Chinese varieties acquired in Australia’s Chinese homes are less likely to shift to Mandarin. Being somewhat insulated from China’s official practices opens up additional language planning choices. While the prevalent ‘Mandarin as Chinese’ discourse that is linked with pragmatic values (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014, 2016) does exist in the wider Chinese community, it has limited power to produce extensive language shift among the non-Mandarin-speaking younger generations.

In such circumstances, parents interacting with children in a regional language is essential to maintain the language. The regional language here should be the same as parents’ MT and home language whose use is more emotionally connected to familial and diaspora networks and conversations. Therefore, the use of regional language as home language is an implicit kind of family language policy.

Indeed, dominant community language ideology influences parents’ home language planning decisions which could lead to more explicit kinds of family language policy, for example, a Mandarin-only policy. Meanwhile, parents’ deeply rooted connection with their regional language is a factor that constantly interacts with, or even contradicts, the explicit family language policy in either a deliberate or subconscious way.

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Ultimately, the interactions may cause a change of language use rules, reflected in the practice of different policies for different children within a single family unit. In this way, a family language policy can be similar to archaeological evidence with different layers revealing a different environment at particular points in time.

The data show that ‘standard’ regional language and ‘satisfactory’ Mandarin spoken by children is more valued than the combination of ‘a bit strange’ regional language and ‘good’ Mandarin. The high expectation of regional language competence is addressed because it is a significant marker of regional identity and pride. It can be inferred that regional languages differ in social status and public imagery. In the current case, Shanghainese language is acknowledged as a privileged Chinese variety by its users.

5.4.3 Summary

This section tackled a language maintenance and shift phenomenon in the case of

Shanghainese: ‘Australian Shanghainese children can speak Shanghainese, whereas

Chinese Shanghainese no longer can’. Here, we note that a regional language has become the missing link between an Australian-born second-generation child and China-based relatives of a similar age.

As native Shanghainese people, speaking Shanghainese, the MT, is shown as a natural language practice. Shanghainese is regarded as the symbol of its speakers’ proud

Shanghainese identity. This Shanghainese pride exists either consciously or subconsciously in these speakers’ mind, from which the sense of a ‘Shanghainese community’ emerges. Yet, it is the unique linguistic ecological systems featured by different language ideologies in China and Australia that have produced the countries’ different language shift and maintenance situations.

In China, the privileged status of Putonghua—that is, the official language and medium of instruction (Curdt-Christiansen, 2012)—provokes widespread language shift from regional languages to Putonghua among younger generations. This linguistic

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situation is similar to the overwhelming powerful status of English as the dominant societal language in Singapore when competing with MT education (Curdt-Christiansen,

2016). Parents and educators need to be alert to emotional and identity implications of children’s language shift. Further, regional languages themselves start to lose their distinctive linguistic features. Conversely, in Australia the Chinese language is a

‘community language’ in nature and this sociolinguistic contextual change means that the maintenance of a specific community language (e.g., Shanghainese) has become a private matter, driven by parental choices that can be enhanced by grandparents, and is less affected by the general discourse and official practices around Putonghua. Despite this, the Putonghua-centred ideology does influence language planning decisions at the community level, as noted in Chapter 4. However, the dominant community language ideology has limited traction to initiate a large-scale language shift towards Putonghua, although it can certainly interfere with regional language–centred private language policy.

Further, the above discussion reflects a somehow mutually incompatible view towards regional language maintenance and the acquisition of the standardised Mandarin variety. Acquiring Putonghua does not necessarily lead to replacement of regional

Chinese variety if both are promoted as complementary. In other words, both first language (L1) and second language (L2) capabilities can coexist in society and among individuals and families. In the FLP context, parents should at least be informed of the possibility of diglossia in children’s communicative life. Diglossia is an unequal relationship between different varieties of one language (Ferguson, 1959) or between different languages (Fishman, 1972). Classically, diglossia contains a High (H) form and a Low (L) form (Ferguson, 1959). The H form normally has literally written functions, whereas the L form has more colloquial home functions—this is a strategy for long-term stability or survival of the two language varieties or languages. Although the relationship

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between H and L is unequal, both of them will ‘survive’ because each of them has a clear communicative role in relation to each other. This issue is further explored in Section 7.2.

5.5 Chapter Summary

Finding 5: The socioemotional function of a MT—an extension of ideological aspect of FLP: ‘natural’ family language practice, a symbolism of ‘hometown’ and

‘family’, ‘unlearnability’ and sub-Chinese community membership legitimacy.

The use by a husband and wife of their mutual MT as a home language is a ‘natural’ practice—this sense of naturalness being a product of the socioemotional function of an

MT. An MT may also relate to the concept of the ‘hometown’. The inheritance by Chinese

Australian children of regional language varieties entitles them to become legitimate members of a Chinese speech subcommunity. The dynamics of the MT, ‘hometown’ and membership legitimacy manifest a specific layer of ‘ethnic authenticity’ that exists within the Chinese community at a subnational level.

The MT and the concept of ‘family’ are inseparable. The value of the MT is further highlighted by its perceived ‘unlearnability’ as an additional language. Natural

MT use among family members produces a stable language ecology in the home.

Introducing a new language into the stable ecological system as the family language policy would generate resistance from family members and potentially end in policy failure because the new language does not serve a communicative function. The attempted initiation of a Mandarin-only policy in the Tan family was directly driven by a pragmatic concern regarding language (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014, 2016) over the relationship between speaking Mandarin at home and achieving success in the external end-of- schooling exam.

For parents who are originally from a regional language-speaking background but speak Mandarin as the dominant Chinese variety, the issue of the regional language or

MT still proves to be highly emotion inflected, ‘hometown’ related and deeply involved

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in the daily life of first-generation Chinese Australians as part of intergenerational communication, thus fostering intergenerational relationships and emotional expressions, including strong language use.

Finding 6: Intergenerational language shift situations: regional Chinese language—Mandarin—English.

Children born in China during the 1980s are likely to become Mandarin-dominant multilingual parents (e.g., Ms Guo) later in their life and to adopt Mandarin as their home language. A Mandarin-mediated educational system is responsible for this language shift situation. Meanwhile, other regional languages may remain active in their ever-increasing linguistic repertoires but are largely relegated to personal and familial functions. Their linguistic repertoire is enacted through either implicit or explicit language policies governed by communicative topics, interlocutors and privacy concerns. However, there is no substantial input nor presence of regional Chinese varieties in the lives of the Guo family children. Generation 2 children have displayed a strong affinity towards Mandarin, while they use English as their most proficient language. This is a classic manifestation of language shift—from regional languages to a dominant community language, before dominance shifts to the main societal language (see Pérez Báez, 2013). This sequence of language shift has produced a problematic grandparent–grandchild communication model with a potential decrease of family intimacy.

Finding 7: Dynamics of language ecology and language shift and maintenance.

Scenarios of Chinese language shift and maintenance originate from local linguistic ecological systems marked by geographic boundaries; they are mediated by particular language ideologies. Young people in China with a background of speaking regional Chinese shift to predominant use of Putonghua as a result of official language promotion discourses in the public sphere. Under these circumstances, the emotional and

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identity effects of regional language loss on children should alarm both educators and parents.

Mandarin has become the dominant Chinese variety in the Australian Chinese community, influenced by the Mandarin-centred Chinese language ideology prevalent in

China. However, the relatively ‘closed’ nature of private households and proud regional

Chinese-identity recognition creates the possible situation of the maintenance of regional

Chinese languages by second-generation Chinese Australians without overwhelming ideological interactions with the Mandarin Chinese discourse. Additionally, this study has identified a language ideology that believes in the existence of incompatibility between the acquisition of Modern Standard Mandarin and the maintenance of regional Chinese languages.

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Chapter 6: FLP and Children’s Multilingual/Multicultural Experiences

This chapter contributes to answering Research Question 1, with its focus on the home domain, and Research Question 3, in regard to Chinese Australian children’s identity. This identity issue is explored through an analysis of the children’s multilingual and multicultural experiences. This builds on the Mandarin learning in CLSs and children’s Mandarin learning experiences presented in Chapter 4. For convenient reference, the first and third research questions are:

In this chapter, the findings are presented according to different family units of analysis: the Li (Section 6.1), Guo (Section 6.2) and Tan families (Section 6.3). Under each family unit, data are categorised into two thematic subsections, for example, family language policy and children’s experiences. Section 6.4 summarises the preliminary findings.

6.1 The Li Family

6.1.1 Watching Chinese television as a de facto language policy

This section responds to Research Question 1 and considers the activities implemented by parents and children in their home to learn Mandarin. It comprises nine excerpts of analysis (see Table 6.1).

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Table 6.1 The Li Family’s Language Policy

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quotation/description 17-F1 FLP style ‘as long as they watch Chinese TV, that’s okay’ 18-F1 FLP style ‘haven’t actually taught them formally’ 19-F1 Watching television as de Watching Australian television and facto family language policy naming younger brother 20-F1 Watching television as de Watching Australian television and facto family language policy naming younger brother 21-F1 Watching television as de Two televisions and learning Mandarin facto family language policy vocabulary 22-F1 Watching television as de Two televisions and learning Mandarin facto family language policy vocabulary 23-F1 Watching television as de Television and Mandarin proficiency facto family language policy 24-F1 Watching television as de Watching television and the Li family facto family language policy 25-F1 Watching television as de Television and cultural knowledge facto family language policy

Note. FLP = family language policy/planning.

By the time I interviewed Mr Li, I had already held similar conversations with Ms

Guo. Therefore, influenced by the Guo family’s ‘sit down and study’ style of learning

Mandarin at home (see Section 6.2.1), I asked Mr Li questions that sought to understand the style of FLP in the Li household (see Excerpts 17-F1 and 18-F1).

Excerpt 17-F1: FLP style

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15], Mandarin Bo 1 In your house, do you have a particular time that you sit down with your children and help them to learn Chinese? Li 2 No. [Bo: No?] No. Bo 3 So mainly in the Chinese school? Li 4 Yeah, in the Chinese, Chinese school, then, as long as they watch Chinese TV, that’s okay.

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Excerpt 18-F1: FLP style

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 …do you actually teach them, teach them the language, at home? Li 2 Basically, haven’t actually taught them formally… Bo 3 Neither does Mrs Li? Li 4 No, just help them a bit…something like, ‘How you should write this character’, ‘You shouldn’t reverse stroke orders’.

These two excerpts indicate that the Li family does not explicitly seek to teach

Mandarin in the home. Rather, two types of language experiences—watching Chinese television and Chinese homework supervision—play a role in facilitating the development of David’s and James’s Chinese language and literacy abilities. Compared to helping with children’s homework, watching television was constantly emphasised by the Li family throughout the entire data collection process. It was discussed as a significant daily family routine that is believed to have greatly contributed to the children’s high level of proficiency in Mandarin. It should be recalled that Wuxinese is their primary home language, alongside English.

The following excerpts illustrate the role of television watching, especially

Chinese television programmes, in the Li family. It was found that: 1) the name ‘David’ was given to David by his older brother, James, and was directly inspired by an Australian television programme (Excerpts 19-F1 and 20-F1); 2) there was a perceived positive correlation between Mandarin ability and Chinese television viewing (Excerpts 21-F1,

22-F1, 23-F1 and 24-F1); and 3) there was a perceived positive correlation between

Chinese cultural understanding and watching Chinese television (Excerpt 25-F1). The television-related data were drawn from individual interactions with Mr Li and David, as well as from David’s essays and drawings.

Excerpt 19-F1: Television and naming

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin

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Li 1 The principal wanted us to find a private tutor to help him [James] to improve his English, but we didn’t. We always thought, children were still young, the key point was how you guide them on a daily basis and how you help them. We didn’t mean they wouldn’t learn English; instead, we helped him. One of our methods was we often bought some children’s DVDs, like, the youngest one’s name, David, was given by his brother. We watched Channel 9 quite often back then. The name David was from Channel 9…I asked James what name his younger brother could have. He said ‘David’. I asked ‘why “David”?’. He replied, ‘There’s also a David on TV’. James was very little at that time. [Bo: How old was he?] Three or four years old…

Excerpt 20-F1: Television and naming

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Li 1 The youngest one’s name was given by the oldest one…There was [the name of a boy band], a show on Channel 9, when he’s little, I often asked him to watch it. There, there were five people performing and one of them was called David. David is a guy, he performed really well…Later, our James said his brother should be called David…He said he really liked David, so his brother should be called after this.

Excerpt 19-F1 begins with the Li family planning to help the English learning of the older son, James. As a result of James’s limited English competence when he began primary school, the school principal suggested that the family engage a private English language tutor. However, Mr Li did not follow this advice provided by teaching professionals (De Houwer & Bornstein, 2016); instead, he relied on English DVDs and television programmes. This was an explicit language planning choice by the family, and

James’s English language competence developed quickly as a result. Influenced by

Australian television, three- or four-year-old James took the initiative to name his younger brother after his favourite member of a children’s musical group (Excerpts 19-

F1 and 20-F1).

This practice of naming family members is a dramatic example of the power of popular culture in young people’s lives. It is also a glimpse into Chinese Australian children’s communication practices and, specifically, their role in provoking language shift in which mass media plays a role. Once English begins to become prominent in children’s linguistic repertoire, they are capable of constructing meanings by drawing on

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meaningful semiotic resources—such as meanings embedded in Australian television entertainment programmes. If watching Australian television is considered a factor that produces children’s language shift, it is important to consider whether watching Chinese television is useful for Chinese language maintenance.

It should be highlighted that the Li family possessed two televisions—one used only for Chinese programmes and the other for English programmes (see Excerpts 21-F1 and 22-F1). This is an iconic representation of bilingualism and biculturalism in an

Australian Chinese household. It dramatically encodes the sociolinguistic convention of compartmentalisation—an early view in sociolinguistics about diglossia arising from the clear separation of roles of two languages (English and Mandarin in the current case) or dialects in the social lives of multilingual speakers (Ferguson, 1959). Evidently, in this research, the parents almost only watched Chinese television programmes, whereas the children watched both English and Chinese programmes (Excerpts 21-F1 and 22-F2).

Thus, a space was created in which Mandarin functioned in the children’s communicative life which is crucial for maintaining Mandarin in the long term.

Excerpt 21-F1: Two televisions and learning vocabulary

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 How about their Chinese level, their…? Li 2 Each has his own advantages…in terms of understanding and reading, the oldest one should be—is definitely stronger than the youngest. But the youngest, I guess, has a wider range of knowledge because he has been watching quite a lot of Chinese TV since when he was very little. Some of his vocabulary was learned from TV. Some characters or words that the oldest can’t write, but the youngest can. Their help is mutual. Bo 3 …Do they play any game related to Chinese? Li 4 The stuff that they play is all in English… Bo 5 In terms of watching TV, you just mentioned they watched Chinese TV programmes when they were little; how about now? Li 6 We have, one side is Chinese, the other side is English…if he found the Chinese one interesting, he would turn his head to it [Bo: You have two televisions in your house, right?] Yes, two televisions…in terms of English programmes, there’s more interesting and entertaining stuff. [Bo:

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Entertainment programmes?] Right…Apart from that, our oldest one likes informative stuff, like…quiz show. Sometimes someone got an answer wrong, and our oldest one would give the correct answer straight away… Bo 7 What kind of questions they would ask in those game shows? Li 8 I rarely watch them, something informative, including, it’s all-inclusive, everything.

Excerpt 22-F1: Two televisions and learning vocabulary

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Li 1 David, what are his characteristics? His academic performances are actually quite average, but if his teacher asks him questions, he might answer the questions by using some of the words he learned from outside classrooms…He doesn’t entirely rely on textbooks, he would mix some words learned from outside classrooms, like from TV… [Bo: Very interesting, Chinese TV?] Yeah, Chinese…He also watches English TV. Bo 2 …Is the oldest one the same? Li 3 The oldest one watches two televisions, at the same time…mainly watches English TV…if he finds something interesting on the Chinese TV, he turns his head, watches the Chinese one.

James and David have different television viewing habits. The older child, James, primarily watches English programmes because they tend to be ‘more interesting and entertaining’ (Turn 6, Excerpt 21-F1). In addition, James can rapidly supply the correct answers for questions or puzzles in Australia’s television game shows (Turns 6, Excerpt

21-F1), but will also turn to watch the Chinese programmes when he finds a particular programme interesting (Turn 6, Excerpt 21-F1; Turn 3, Excerpt 22-F1). This practice exhibits James’s grasp of both heavily Chinese and Western culture-laden content, although English remains his dominant language. Conversely, David watches more

Chinese programmes which have become the source of his ‘extracurricular’ vocabulary

(Excerpts 21-F1 and 22-F1; see also 24.3-F1) that he actively uses in the classroom. This contributes to his wide range of knowledge (Turn 2, Excerpt 21-F1) and general high proficiency in Mandarin (see Excerpts 23-F1 and 24.3-F1).

Another factor that displays this pattern of dual proficiency is the fact that David often helps his older brother write Chinese characters (Turn 2, Excerpt 21-F1). During

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my conversation with Mrs Li, she often mentioned David’s language assistance practice which she believes to the reason for David’s Chinese being superior to James’s. As recorded in my journal: ‘Mrs Li thinks David’s Mandarin is stronger than James’s because

David sometimes could help James with characters’ (Fieldnotes/22NOV2014). However,

I was still very surprised when David stated that he thought Mandarin was the easiest language, compared to English and French (Excerpt 23-F1), because I assumed Chinese

Australian children would think English is easier than Mandarin. The conversation in

Excerpt 23-F1 occurred when I knew David was also studying French.

Excerpt 23-F1: Television and Mandarin proficiency

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV-1/21FEB15], English Bo 1 Do you think French is easier than Chinese? Or Chinese is easier? David 2 Ah, Chinese is the easiest. [Bo: Chinese is easier?] Chinese, I think, it’s easier than English. [Bo: Ah, Chinese is easier than English?] I think. Bo 3 Why you think that? David 4 Because, em, I used to watch a lot of Chinese TV. [Bo: Oh, right.] I think it’s easier. Bo 5 So, you found even English is harder, is more difficult than Chinese? David 6 Yeah. Bo 7 Do you watch any English movies or TV? David 8 Now I do.

Although David believes Mandarin to be the easiest language to acquire, this self- reported language attitude does not necessarily indicate that David’s Chinese proficiency is higher than his English. Through observation and interaction with David, I found his

English level to be superior to his Mandarin. As Mr Li described, the computer games that his children play are in English (Turn 4, Excerpt 21-F1). In this incidental manner, the language used for and during recreational activities—especially online gaming routines—may signify its dominant status in the children’s evolving linguistic repertoire.

Nevertheless, and more importantly, the link between Chinese television watching and reduced degree of difficulty of learning Mandarin (Turn 4, Excerpt 23-F1) was

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highlighted in this conversation. This relationship was further developed in David’s essay

(Excerpt 24-F1). Moreover, the type of Chinese programmes watched by the Li family indexes and specifies a distinctive connection between the family and their country of origin.

Excerpt 24-F1: Watching television and the Li family (David’s essay ‘My Family’) (translation left, original right)

Excerpt 24.1-F1: Television programmes (sentences 7–11, para. 2)

My dad likes watching the International Chinese Channel (CCTV-4) of China Central Television. He says you would know what’s going on in the world even without leaving your house if you often watch this channel, keeping pace with the times. You will also be able to thoroughly understand Chinese history and culture and learn a lot of other knowledge and improve your ability of articulation and level of Mandarin. His favourite programmes are China Showbiz, Journey of Civilisation, Homeland Dreamland, Chinese World, Memory across the Strait and Our Chinese Heart.

Excerpt 24.2-F1: Television and Mandarin proficiency (sentences 9–11, para. 4)

I remember when he [my older brother] graduated from primary school, he was the only student who was given Principal’s Award in the school. Therefore, he often helps me with my study. Brother’s Mandarin is good, probably because he often watches CCTV-4.

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Excerpt 24.3-F1: Television and vocabulary/Mandarin proficiency (sentences 5–12, para. 6)

I do not study hard, especially Mandarin. Teacher asked me questions, but I often forgot words that I should know from textbooks, so I answer the questions by using vocabulary that I learned from outside classrooms. The teacher criticised me and then praised me. My Mandarin is quite standard, and I was invited by a company to do voiceover. I earned more than 200 dollars in total. Although my brother studies well, he has not earned money for family. I did! This is why I am proud of myself! I answer teachers’ questions by using the words learned outside the classroom, that’s because I often watch CCTV-4!

In David’s essay, ‘My Family’, watching television is frequently mentioned, demonstrating its crucial role in the Li family’s daily life. The correlation between watching Chinese television and achieving high Chinese proficiency is acknowledged by

David’s evaluation of his brother’s Mandarin competence: ‘Brother’s Mandarin is good, probably because he often watches CCTV-4’ (Excerpt 24.2-F1). CCTV-4 is the abbreviation for China Central Television Channel 4, also known as Chinese International

Channel (中文国际频道). This name is almost synonymous with ‘Chinese programmes’ in the Li family. According to the channel’s website:

China Central Television Chinese International Channel (CCTV-4) is the only Chinese medium channel of China Central Television that broadcasts to the world. The target audience is Chinese all over the world, especially Chinese living overseas, and compatriots of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. (Translated from http://tv.cctv.com/cctv4asia/)

It is clear that the Chinese diaspora community is the channel’s target audience.

This is further reflected through names of the channel’s programmes, such as Homeland,

Dreamland (远方的家), Chinese World (华人世界) and Our Chinese Heart (中华情), as discussed in David’s writing (Excerpt 24.1-F1). These programmes can contribute to the general construction of the ‘diasporic mentality’ (Zhu Hua & Li Wei, 2016a, p.661). It is also worth noting that Mr Li was invited to Beijing to receive an award from CCTV for

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being a long-term overseas Chinese viewer (Fieldnotes/30NOV2013). Watching CCTV-

4 is not only Mr Li’s main pastime, but has also become a critical cultural practice in the

Li family that enables the family members to maintain a lively and contemporary connection with the home country.

Excerpt 25-F1: Television and cultural knowledge

Context: In the TCS classroom, I found that David had drawn some small pictures on his book (see Figure 6.1). He had tried to draw the famous fable, ‘Mr Dongguo and a Wolf’, based on the text. I was surprised that David knew how ancient Chinese attire appeared.

Figure 6.1. David’s drawing of ‘Mr Dongguo and a Wolf’.

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV-2/09MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 How did you know Mr Dongguo should be wearing this kind of clothes? [David: It’s ancient.] …also have this hairdo? David 2 Ancient. Bo 3 Ancient?…did you know what kind of clothes ancient Chinese people used to wear? [David: Eh.] Ah, how did you know? David 4 Watching Chinese TV…

Excerpt 25-F1 indicates that watching Chinese television facilitated David’s understanding and recreation of classical Chinese culture signifiers—in this case, ancient

Chinese clothing. David drew the story of ‘Mr Dongguo and the Wolf’ on his textbook with an accurate drawing of Mr Dongguo wearing ancient Chinese attire—clear evidence

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of his solid comprehension of Chinese cultural elements because of extended exposure to

Chinese ‘semiotic resources’ (Canagarajah, 2013; Curdt-Christiansen, 2013b) through viewing television programmes (Turn 4, Excerpt 25-F1).

It should be noted that, based on my observation, David drew this picture in class when he was not paying attention to the teaching. This drawing provides additional evidence of children’s negative attitudes towards learning Chinese (see Section 4.3).

Further, as stated by Li Wei (2015, pp. 177–179), community language classrooms are a

‘translanguaging space’, where, in the current case, David used drawing as a ‘modality’ that reflects his and the Li family’s lived experience of television viewing.

In summary, watching television is a cultural practice and language experience that has become an indispensable part of the Li family’s everyday life. Watching

Mandarin Chinese television programmes has enlarged the children’s linguistic vocabulary and explains their high degree of Mandarin proficiency in a family where

Mandarin is not the preferred and dominant home language.

Through the bilingual and bicultural practice of regular and extended television viewing (Australian and Chinese), these children have been helped to develop understandings of culture (such as David’s drawing of ancient Chinese costumes and

James’s quick responses to Australian game shows) and are able to construct meanings based on these understandings or existing semiotic resources embedded in the media

(such as James naming David after his favourite music band member). Further, watching

Chinese television is a way of maintaining or even enhancing connection with the home country, especially when the television programmes target Chinese audiences in diaspora communities.

However, can we consider the Li family watching Chinese television as a type of language planning or even a fully-fledged family language policy? To address this question, we should recall the working definitions of the term proposed in Section 2.4.1:

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According to the above description, Chinese television viewing cannot be considered language ‘planning’ because the practice is not intentionally undertaken for the purpose of language change. Rather, as a family routine, Chinese television watching primarily serves the family’s recreational needs, while the children’s development of

Mandarin proficiency is a by-product of this cultural practice.

Moreover, Chinese television viewing cannot be considered a family language policy because it is not ‘language use rules’, as discussed in the working definition of family language policy. However, watching Mandarin television programmes in the Li household proved to be a key language experience that contributed substantially to the level of children’s Mandarin competence in a consistent and systematic manner. This observation supports the idea that language policy need not always ‘planned’ (Johnson,

2013), which should be considered a de facto language policy. Therefore, the Li family’s

Chinese television-watching practice could be recognised as a kind of de facto family language policy.

Based on this discussion, family language policy can be re-conceptualised as follows:

Systematic and enduring language experience, language use rules or other language practice that occurs in the home and significantly influence children’s language proficiency is a family language policy.

6.1.2 David’s and James’s multilingual and multicultural experiences

By examining the Li family children’s multilingual and multicultural daily routines, this section addresses Research Question 3 regarding Chinese Australian children’s perceptions and experiences of their identities. The analysis includes the voices of the parents, children and community school educators. The excerpts of the analysis covered in this section are shown in Table 6.2.

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Table 6.2 The Li Family Children’s Multilingual and Multicultural Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quotation/description 26-F1 Chinese cultural practice Being Wuxinese: family bonds 27-F1 Chinese cultural practice Being Wuxinese: regional food 28-F1 Chinese cultural practice Being Wuxinese: regional food 29-F1 Academic engagement Being Wuxinese and the VCE 30-F1 Syncretic cultural practices Food habits, lifestyle, learning attitudes and family dynamic 31-F1 Syncretic cultural practices Food habits, lifestyle, learning attitudes and family dynamic 2-Teacher T Racial discourse ‘Your roots are still in China…your face will never change’

Note. VCE = Victorian Certificate of Education.

6.1.2.1 Being Wuxinese: Connection with Wuxi through family bonds and food

The idea and ideology of being Wuxinese was examined with the practices of speaking Wuxinese in Section 5.1.2, in which ‘identity’ was more positioned by ‘others’

(e.g., people in Wuxi City, China). This section analyses the Li family children’s own experiences of ‘being Wuxinese’. A very brief interaction with David (Excerpt 26-F1) provided a small insight into his emotional connection with the hometown of Wuxi. This was the first documented interaction between me and David. In a later conversation in

2015 (Excerpt 27-F1), the connection with hometown through family bonds expanded to include food—a factor that has reinforced this connection.

Excerpt 26-F1: Being Wuxinese—family bonds

Context: David told me that he had travelled to China. I asked him to rank his preference between Beijing and Wuxi.

S T Utterances [Fieldnotes/24MAY2014], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you like Beijing or Wuxi? David 2 Wuxi. [Bo: Why Wuxi?] Because Grandma is there.

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Excerpt 27-F1: Being Wuxinese—regional food

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV/21FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 When was the last time you had a holiday in China? David 2 Ah, a year ago…But only a few months left before going to China. Bo 3 …why do you want to go to China? David 4 Delicious! [Bo: Delicious. What cuisine do you like?] Ah, Wuxi’s. Bo 5 Wuxi? What’s the most delicious food in Wuxi? David 6 Sweet and sour spare ribs.

As shown in Turn 4 (Excerpt 27-F1), David used ‘delicious’ to describe the purpose of visiting China. In particular, the food of his heritage—Wuxinese dishes, specifically ‘sweet and sour spare ribs’—exemplified the child’s attachment to the hometown.

Excerpt 28-F1: Being Wuxinese—regional food (David’s essay ‘Visiting Henan’) (translation left, original right)

Visiting Henan

On 31 March, my whole family went to China. We went to Wuxi first and stayed there for four days. We tasted the authentic Wuxi Lingdeling Steamed Buns.

Moreover, in his essay, ‘Visiting Henan’, David mentioned his dining experience of eating the hometown’s famous food—Wuxi Lingdeling Steamed Buns. A similar connection with Wuxi through food was also identified with James, David’s older brother

(see Fieldnotes 22/NOV2014 in Appendix 6).

In addition, Mr Li (Fieldnotes/15NOV2014) provided a very interesting anecdote about the role of Wuxinese language in his family dinnertime interactions. On 13

November 2014, during dinner, David made a comment about how ‘appetising’ the

Chinese pickled vegetables were. According to Mr Li, David produced a sentence by mixing Wuxinese and Wuxinese-accented English in an amusing manner. After

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transcription into simplified Chinese characters and English, the utterance writes as: ‘酸

菜 very 开胃’ (Pinyin: ‘Suancai very kaiwei’. Translation: ‘Chinese pickled vegetables

[are] very appetising’). David’s brief language practice demonstrates a deep associational link between Wuxinese language and eating. Thus, there exists a space for Wuxinese to be actively used in the family’s life, and that space is created by the family sharing a meal.

David’s example here is a result of ‘socialisation into “taste” ’ (Duff, 2014, p. 24). Duff stated (2014, p. 24):

socialisation into ‘taste’, the ways in which children and others…learn to orient to and comment on particular aspects of food in meals (e.g., whether a particular dish is too salty, spicy, bland, or rather, very tasty, fresh, and tender) and also its status as source of pleasure, ethnic identity, or reward (DuFon 2006) is highly relevant in Chinese culture(s).

Dinnertime discourse analysis in language socialisation studies (see Duff, 2014) has qualified food/taste as a critical indication of ethnicity and identity. In Dottolo and

Dottolo’s (2018, p. xiv) book, Italian American women, food, and identity, the authors quoted Kit Yuen Quan (1990, p. 220), who grew up in America as a Chinese child: ‘As long as there are bakeries in Chinatown and as long as I have 85 cents, I know I have a way back to myself’. This phrase vividly describes the connection between food and sense of self—or, precisely, using food as a means of ‘finding’ oneself.

Further, Excerpt 29-F1 discusses David’s older brother, James, and his topic for

VCE Chinese Detailed Study—especially the decision-making process of choosing the topic. This excerpt provides further evidence of the salience of the Li family children’s

Wuxinese identity and bond with Wuxi City.

Excerpt 29-F1: Being Wuxinese and VCE

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15], Mandarin Li 1 I often told him, I said, my mother often saw Abing back then. Bo 2 Oh, your mother often saw Abing—the real person? Li 3 That’s true, yes, so I especially took him to a few places and took photos— that’s where my mother saw Abing. [Bo: During the Seeking Roots Trip this

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time?] Right, as far as I remember, some places where my mother told me Abing performed.

The Detailed Study is a compulsory element of the oral examination in the VCE

(Mandarin). Students are required to prepare a topic regarding the Chinese-speaking community’s language and culture. During the exam, students need to present the study to examiners and then conduct a discussion with the examiners on the topic. For his topic,

James chose an introduction to Abing (阿炳)—a Wuxi musician (1893–1950)—and his most famous piece, Erquan Yingyue (二泉映月) (The Moon Over a Foutain).

The original idea informing James’s choice for the Detailed Study derived from his 2014 trip to China, during which he visited a number of attractions in Henan province.

However, according to Mr Li, James’s possible topics were ‘very general’. For example,

Shaolin Monastery and Longmen Grottoes and the history of these sites was too lengthy a topic to be captured accurately in an eight-minute Detailed Study presentation (Parent-

1/INTW-2/19APR15). Beyond these constraints, the topics require knowledge of

Buddhism, but ‘we are not a Buddhist family’ (Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15). As a result of these constraints, a lack of historical information and religious concerns, it was decided to discuss a potential change of topic. Mr Li suggested to James that ‘now that you are

Wuxinese, look for a topic about Wuxi’ (Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15). Specifically, Mr

Li recommended that James pursue the topic of Abing and Erquan Yingyue. This piece of information also appeared in a casual conversation between me and Mrs Li on 22

November 2014.

In 2015, James made a side trip to Wuxi during his journey to Shanghai. To facilitate James’s VCE preparation, Mr Li accompanied James to visit the places where

Abing used to perform and took photographs of these sites (Turn 3, Excerpt 29-F1). All these places were selected from the memories passed on to Mr Li by his mother, James’s grandmother. If we compare James’s VCE Detailed Study project with an ethnographic

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case study, the ‘data’ of this study may contain not only stories of Abing as a musician but stories of Abing as a hometown person and stories of James’s grandmother and

James’s imagined encounters with Abing. In this scenario, James is the ‘ethnographer’, and is simultaneously an insider (Wuxinese) and an outsider (an overseas-born Chinese

Australian teenager). In short, the change of topics from physical sites to a Wuxi-related historical figure, together with the return trip (Fogle, 2013a) to Wuxi, reveals a critical aspect of James in which his Wuxinese identity is salient.

In summary, David’s and James’s connection with China may be better represented as their connection with Wuxi. Family and food rooted in this regional

Chinese setting have created a strong bond between these Australian Chinese children and their parents’ place of origin. The children’s Wuxinese identity is particularly prominent during family mealtime dynamics through language behaviours that involve

Wuxinese. Further, children use resources of their Chinese regional culture to facilitate their engagement with the host society, which in the current case was perfectly exemplified by James’s choice of VCE examination topic of a Wuxi theme.

6.1.2.2 Syncretic cultural practices: Food habits, lifestyle, learning attitudes and family dynamic

In response to the question of whether the children viewed themselves as Chinese or Australian, Mr Li gave the answer ‘half–half’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 30-F1). In a later interview on 9 May 2015, he gave a similar answer, ‘something in between’ (Turn 2,

Excerpt 31-F1). The following excerpts are from conversations between me and Mr Li on this issue of the Chinese Australian children’s identities.

Excerpt 30-F1: Food habits and lifestyle

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 Would they think themselves as Chinese or Australian?

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Li 2 Should be ‘half–half’. Because, you see, they really like going to China…Why? For one thing, is to ‘taste’, to ‘eat’. Chinese food culture is very cool. They wouldn’t resist the temptation… Li 3 Another thing is the tourism culture… Bo 4 …are their palates more Chinese or Western or? Li 5 So far, they’re more ‘Western’. [Bo: More Western?] Yeah, the oldest one cooks more Western. Of course, sometimes combines the two, it happens.

Excerpt 31-F1: Food habits, lifestyle, learning attitudes and family dynamic

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you think they are more like Australian kids or Chinese kids? Li 2 …something in between…because they’re growing up in two cultures. We’ve consciously and subconsciously brought previous habits to our home or to the society, the habits are possibly a kind of our culture… Bo 3 …can you give me some examples? Li 4 The Chinese kids part, like…in terms of study, they are quite self- disciplined…As parents, we normally attend to their homework…always need to supervise them a bit…during Chinese New Year or other festivals, we sometimes tell them something behind the celebration… Bo 5 Yeah. Can you give me some examples about their part of being Australian kids? Li 6 …for example, I said to him, ‘If you don’t finish your homework, I won’t be nice to you, I might spank you with a short bamboo rod or something’. He said, ‘Our teacher told me parents were not allowed to beat children’. …He said you couldn’t beat children, otherwise you’ll break the law in Australia, that’s illegal…

According to Mr Li, the major reason for justifying the children’s Chineseness or one of the manifestations of this Chineseness was the children’s level of interest in visiting China (Turn 2, Excerpt 30-F1). Specifically, this was raised to the level of

‘culture’—‘food culture’ (饮食文化) and ‘tourism culture’ (旅游文化) (Turns 2 and 3,

Excerpt 30-F1). However, although the children cannot resist the temptation of Chinese food, their palates are still ‘more Western’ (Turns 2 and 5, Excerpt 30-F1) and the oldest child’s Western culinary skills are clear (Turn 5, Excerpt 30-F1). This was also evident in a conversation between me and David (see Supplementary Excerpt: James’s Culinary

Skills, Appendix 6). In addition to culinary skills, James’s engagement with Western food

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culture through following cooking television programmes is another indication of this

Westernness. This ‘half–half’ identity is exhibited clearly.

Excerpt 31-F1 provides more evidence of the children’s hybrid identity, as reflected in their personal characteristics and their parents’ style of parenting, Again, the children’s food preferences and general positive attitude towards learning—‘quite self- disciplined’ (Turn 4, Excerpt 31-F1)—which is represented as a manifestation of their

Chineseness. Meanwhile, the parents’ attitudes and behaviours of attending to the children’s homework and supervising them (Turn 4, Excerpt 31-F1) are held to reinforce the children’s Chineseness. This was revealed in the discourses regarding the Chinese parents’ active role in organising their children’s lives for academic achievement. In addition, the parents’ cultural socialisation regarding the celebration of Chinese New

Year and other festivals (‘过年过节’) and general knowledge (e.g., solar terms ‘节气’,

Turn 4, Excerpt 31-F1, Appendix 6) may imperceptibly strengthen the children’s sense of Chineseness in the long term.

In relation to the children’s Australianness, this was held to be reflected by their responses to the father’s playful threat to physically punish them for not completing their homework: ‘parents were not allowed to beat children…otherwise you’ll break the law’

(Turn 6, Excerpt 31-F1). This legal and direct response illustrates not only David’s conscious awareness of the likely consequences of corporal punishment in Australia but his potential confrontation with the authority figure (the father), which may not be consistent with the Chinese family values being fostered at home or during TCS hours.

Another demonstration of Australianness can be inferred from Mr Li’s description of his children’s dress sense, as previously described in Turns 4 and 5 of Excerpt 14-F1— wearing a t-shirt and shorts in winter when walking down the street in Wuxi. This very casual and common dressing style does not appear strange in Australia, but would make

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the two brothers stand out in their hometown street in China. Local Wuxi people would not recognise them as locals until they started speaking Wuxinese.

Mr Li explains the reason for the children’s syncretic cultural practices and identity positions as ‘growing up in two cultures’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 31-F1). Specifically, parents and the home are key elements that are responsible for the continuous development of children’s Chinese identity on a daily basis (see also Curdt-Christiansen,

2013b): ‘We’ve consciously and subconsciously brought previous habits to our home or to the society, the habits are possibly a kind of our culture’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 31-F1).

In summary, the Australian-born Chinese children’s hybrid identity has been formed and is being continuously formed in a dialectical relationship by their home, the wider Australian society and other elements that are linked with the cultures of the home country and host country. The family and ethnic community are more responsible for the development of their Chineseness, and the context of Australia is constantly forging their

Australianness.

The current study discusses these culturally distinct aspects individually to better present each aspect. By doing so, for example, we have understood that the children are attracted by Chinese food to a degree that encourages them to travel there, yet have more of a Western palate. In reality, their Chineseness and Australianness are innately intertwined as part of who they are, and this relational pattern indicates that their

Chineseness is inseparable from their Australianness, and vice versa.

The hybrid identity described as ‘something in between’ by Mr Li implies fluidity between the two poles of cultural influence. This is a more accurate way to characterise the children, rather than the wording of ‘half–half’ which appears to be binary and rigid.

In fact, this fluid hybrid identity is performed on a daily basis in every aspect of the

Chinese Australian children’s life through their multilingual and multicultural practices in relation to food, travel, schoolwork and even dress.

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6.1.2.3 Teacher Tu: ‘Your roots are still in China…your face will never change’

This subsection focuses on David’s multilingual lived experiences through an analysis of teacher–student classroom interactions (see Excerpt 2-Teacher T, Appendix

9). This excerpt is extracted from David’s Chinese class on 28 February 2015. Teacher

Tu is David’s Mandarin teacher in the Chinese community school. The reader will recall that we drew on this teacher’s family language policy experiences in Section 5.4.2 to examine parental language attitudes to Mandarin versus Chinese regional language.

The interview reported in Excerpt 2-Teacher T occurred after Teacher Tu had finished teaching the main text, Visit Hong Kong. She was instructing students to read out another supplementary text entitled The historic moment. This described some details of the political handover ceremony of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China in

1997.

Excerpt 2-Teacher T: ‘Your roots are still in China…your face will never change’

S T Utterances [Teacher-1/CO-2/28FEB15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Tu 1 Asking you to read this is because I want you to know a bit more about the return of Hong Kong. This is knowledge, I think, you should read books to understand some historical stories, no matter it’s about China or about Australia, or other parts of the world, you should know about them. Like you watch or listen to the news every day, it’s a process of accumulating knowledge. Some students are not interested, they would say, ‘What have I got to do with the return of Hong Kong? It doesn’t matter to me, I’m Australian, I’m Aussie’ {students giggling}. ‘It’s none of my business’. However, your roots are in China, your ancestors are Chinese, you should know about some knowledge of China. What if other people ask you about it and you don’t even know any of them, ‘I don’t know’, ‘I don’t know’. Actually, you should know something. After all, because of your ‘face’, other people wouldn’t say you are… Boy 1 2 Australians. Tu 3 Other people, they’ll ask you, ‘Are you Chinese?’, won’t they? Is that right? Boy 2 4 They don’t actually ask. Tu 5 Right? Your roots are still in China, your ‘face’ can’t be changed. Although you were born in Australia, your face will never change.

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David 6 Surgery. {All the students laughing}. Tu 7 So, David is going to change his face and hair. David 8 No! I’m not! Tu 9 Don’t say it then. {Students laughing.} Okay, stop it! {Noises reducing.} I’m not joking, this is classroom, okay? You’ll show us a different face next week, won’t you? David 10 No! {Some students laughing.} Tu 11 Okay, your face can never change, so that’s why you should know something about China. {A girl raising her hand.}What? Girl 12 Why your ‘face’ is that important? Tu 13 This is not the question that I want to discuss with you. Don’t ask me about this, I can’t answer your question. Of course it is important! You think about if your face is important? Think about if it is important? Your face is of course important. Girl 14 No. Tu 15 Otherwise no one would spend money on something…just like David said ‘surgery’. {Student laughing.} The face is of course important. Is a person’s face important? Is the face important or not? Everyone wants ‘face’, face is of course important. I don’t want to discuss this, okay? This is a Chinese language classroom. The face I’m talking about, the face I’m talking about, you are Chinese. I don’t want to talk about something irrelevant, we’ve gone too far off topic. A person’s face is very important, of course important, it represents a nation. Everyone’s opinion is different, everyone’s opinion is different, everyone’s thoughts are different. Some students are not interested in this topic because they might think Hong Kong’s return has got nothing to do with them. It’s okay if you think it’s nothing to do with you, but what I meant was, you should know about this as knowledge. I didn’t ask every one of you to say, ‘I’m Chinese’, I didn’t mean that. What I meant was no matter it’s knowledge of China, Chinese history or Australian history, even that of the US, Germany or France, you should have gained some basic understanding. I want you to grasp more knowledge.

Teacher Tu’s intention was to highlight the importance of understanding world affairs through reading. However, classroom tensions were raised when she was asked to justify why students should have ‘some knowledge of China’. The tensions focused on two cultural concepts, ‘roots’ and ‘face’. The logic of Teacher Tu’s argument was that

‘your roots are in China, your ancestors are Chinese’, so the children should have an understanding of China. She automatically assumed students’ self-identification, as she recalled some students stated ‘I’m Aussie’ and asked, ‘what have I got to do with the return of Hong Kong?’. The key argument is that the physical appearance of ethnic

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Chinese people—‘your face’—defines identity and attachment to being Chinese, regardless of how the individual positions himself or herself (Turn 1) and where they were born (Turn 5). She drew this argument or identity perspective from ‘other people’

(Turn 1), which may represent a dominant ideology.

The first resistance to her argument came from a student expressing the view that people ‘don’t actually ask’ whether they are Chinese (Turn 4), which did not receive a response from the teacher. To further validate her argument, Teacher Tu mentioned the enduring and ineradicable nature of one’s physical appearance: ‘your face will never change’ (Turn 5). However, this time, David’s resistance to this opinion (the second resistance during this interaction) stimulated all students’ laughter: ‘surgery’ can actually change one’s face (Turn 6). Although his answer does not seem to be technically incorrect, his humorous response can be considered misbehaving or even a parody of the teacher’s reasoning—explicit resistance to her essentialist logic. As a consequence, the teacher herself made recourse to irony and humour (Turn 7), and again David expressed disagreement, ‘No’, twice in a row (Turns 8 and 10).

The third resistance was more explicit than humorous, and was expressed by a girl in the form of a rhetorical question: ‘Why your face is so important?’ (Turn 12). This question triggered the teacher’s strong response: ‘this is not the question that I want to discuss with you. Don’t ask me about this, I can’t answer your question’. This response was followed by a further justification of one’s ‘face’ (Turn 13). Turn 12 represents a rather direct challenge to the underlying assumption of Teacher Tu’s conduct of this episode. Her justification fused two senses of face—the literal physical sense with the

Chinese sociological concept of face (Mianzi, 面子), which links to notions of dignity, public prestige or honour.

Interestingly, Teacher Tu used David’s plastic surgery concept, of which she had just disapproved, to support her own idea of the importance of physical appearance to

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individuals, and then stressed how the Chinese cultural face (Mianzi) is important to

Chinese people. Later, ‘face’ was elevated to ‘nation’ representation (Turn 15). It should be noted that I do not think the teacher is drawing directly on nationalist discourse to influence the students. As she stated, ‘what I meant was you should know about this [the history of Hong Kong] as knowledge. I didn’t ask every one of you to say, “I’m Chinese” ’

(Turn 15). Her self-justification was a result of the way she had attempted to deal with classroom challenges linked with race, ethnicity, identity and nationalism based on her personally different connection with China, compared with her students’ connection.

In summary, we can see in this excerpt a clear and dynamic instance of how

Teacher Tu and her Australian-born Chinese students have taken different stances on identity. The students did not passively accept ‘knowledge’ that was passed onto them from the teacher. Instead, they actively engaged in the meaning-making process and even directly contested the teacher’s construction of their ‘natural’ identities based on physiognomy. Teacher Tu initially tried to socialise her students into the habit of being aware of historical and current world affairs by using Chinese identity discourses (roots, face and being Chinese). However, this provoked student resistance and even disobedience—misbehaviour in David’s case and critical questioning in the girl’s case.

Although Teacher Tu argued that these discussions were not relevant to the work to be completed in a language classroom (Turn 15), she had no option but to face these questions. It is clear that the Chinese language classroom is also a site where lively discussions routinely occur on issues of race, ethnicity, identity and even nationalism.

6.1.3 Summary

The Li family has not devised an explicit language policy to regulate their children’s Mandarin use and learning at home. Rather, the watching of Chinese television programmes functions as an enduring and systematic language experience in the Li household and represents a de facto family language policy that greatly contributes to the

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children’s Mandarin proficiency, including their Chinese cultural understanding. In addition, it provides the Chinese Australian children with a supplementary channel to maintain a connection with their parents’ country of origin. The practice of viewing multilingual programmes (Chinese and Australian television) enriches the children’s linguistic repertoire from which they are able to draw an array of semiotic resources to create new meanings. Both language shift and language maintenance are outcomes of this multilingual and multicultural practice.

This examination of Chinese heritage children’s identity processes and developments illustrates a high degree of syncretism or hybridity, which are produced by the lived reality of cross-cultural upbringing and daily routines, and can be reflected through cultural practices of eating, lifestyle, learning patterns and family dynamics.

Meanwhile, these practices orient the children involved into daily behaviours with strong lingual associations—both Mandarin and regional languages play a role in the above practices. These Chinese Australian children’s affiliation to China typically takes the form of parentally mediated ‘hometown’ roles into which they are placed by relatives, parents and routines of life.

Community language classrooms are places where Chinese Australian children’s identities are positioned, challenged, negotiated and then constructed, and where multiple ideological discourses can be seen to interact. Chinese ethnic identity discourses that are associated with ethnic roots and physical characteristics have been revealed to be taken on by educators, but also challenged by students. Students actively engage in meaning- making and identity negotiation, especially when they dissent from a teacher’s views.

6.2 The Guo Family

6.2.1 Systematic FLP

This section responds to Research Question 1 regarding the activities the Guo family undertake at home to help facilitate children’s development of Mandarin. The data

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presented below derive from Ms Guo’s first-person narrative, constructed by the researcher based on the interviews labelled Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15, Parent-

2/INTW-2/14MAR15 and Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15. The content of the narrative was checked by Ms Guo to ensure its accuracy.

The Guo’s family’s language policy

Ms Guo: When Sophia was five and half and Henry was four and half years old, I started to teach them Mandarin at home. After child care, once they got back home, I sat in the middle of our dinner table, and they sat next to me each side, and I taught them for one or two hours every day. The way that I taught them was the way that I was taught as a child.

After teaching them Pinyin, stroke orders, simple characters, I began to teach them according to textbooks. I used a set of Chinese textbooks [Jiangsu Province Edition]. The books were from their Chinese cousin who was just one year older than Sophia. My relatives who travelled between China and Australia quite often were really supportive. They always brought back used books for my children from their cousins in China. I had taught the kids Mandarin that way for three years at home and then came to the Chinese Saturday school from Year 3 and onwards when they were around eight years old.

Everyone in the family gets up around 7.00 am. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, after breakfast, I sent Evelyn to Kinder by 8.00 am, and asked Sophia and Henry to have a morning reading session from 8.00 to 8.45 am before school, which starts at 9.00 am. For example, if there are seven new characters in Lesson 1, I would ask them to form three phrases using each character, and then I may ask them the meaning of the phrases, especially the unusual ones, and make a sentence using it. Also, I would ask them to memorise the text.

Why do they have to do this? Because this was what I grew up with. When I was in primary school, basically, I needed to memorise every text in the Chinese book. Even now, I could remember which word was from which text from which grade. During school holidays, I ask them to write a diary every day and revise all the

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characters they learned in the last term and make phrases and sentences using those characters.

They don’t have much homework from day school, and they can complete it really well. All the ‘homework’ we are talking about is either homework from their Saturday school or from me. They will have to hand in a Chinese essay to me on Mondays. On Tuesday, they normally do Chinese mathematics homework. The mathematics ‘homework’ was based on a workbook that comes with a mathematics textbook. My relative brought that textbook to me from China. I think solving mathematics problems in Chinese is beneficial to the children’s Mandarin, as they have to read those ‘characters’ first. On Wednesday, they do Chinese homework of the Saturday school; on Thursday or Friday, they do either mathematics or English literacy homework. The mathematics and English literacy homework are also from the Saturday school.

I no longer sit down and teach them because they are on the right track and are getting independent. I will supervise them whenever they have questions—for example, when they come across some new characters. In addition, their current Chinese textbooks also come with two workbooks, and I would urge them to complete them.

The key content of the above narrative regarding the Guo family’s language policy is organised in Table 6.3 according to three categories: FLP activities (what), timeline

(when) and FLP style (how).

Table 6.3 The Guo Family’s Language Policy

Timeline FLP activities FLP style

Past: One to two Teach Pinyin, stroke orders and simple Sit down and teach hours/day, for characters (formal) three years Teach Mandarin textbooks of China

Tuesday, Form phrases using new Casual supervision Wednesday and characters (informal)

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Timeline FLP activities FLP style

Friday mornings, Morning Check meaning Casual supervision 8.00 to 8.45 am reading understanding (informal) session Make sentences Casual supervision (informal)

Memorise the text Casual supervision (informal)

Monday evening Write a Chinese essay Casual supervision (informal)

Tuesday evening Do mathematics homework (Chinese Casual supervision mathematics textbooks) (informal)

Wednesday Do Mandarin homework of the Chinese Casual supervision evening school (informal)

Thursday and Do mathematics and English literacy of Casual supervision Friday evenings the Chinese school (informal)

School holidays Write a diary Casual supervision (informal)

Revise characters Casual supervision (informal)

Make phrases and sentences Casual supervision (informal)

Note. FLP = family language policy/planning.

As shown in Table 6.3, the Guo family’s language policy is systematic and structured. Language learning tasks are clearly planned on a daily basis. There are essentially two planning stages which can be marked as ‘before’ and ‘after’ the children joined TCS. Before the children (5.5-year-old Sophia and 4.5-year-old Henry) commenced at TCS, Ms Guo assumed a three-year role of ‘home school teacher’ and organised an explicit instruction in a formal ‘sit down and teach/learn’ manner. The teaching content was based on Chinese language textbooks from China (Jiangsu Province edition) originally used by the children’s cousin and brought to Australia by relatives.

This indicates that the Guo family’s language planning is supported by members of their

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extended family (see also King & Fogle, 2006) which can be considered a type of informal foreign aid in language planning at an interpersonal level.

Ms Guo’s teaching philosophy was ‘The way that I taught them was the way that

I was taught [as a child]’ (‘我是怎么样过来, 我就怎么样让他们走我的路’). After three years of Mandarin home schooling, Sophia and Henry were enrolled at TCS from

Grade 3, which constituted the beginning of their second stage of FLP. At present, Sophia and Henry have a regular morning reading session, which in Mandarin is Chendu (literally

‘morning read’—‘晨读’)—a common daily language practice of schools in China. Sophia and Henry are required to revise newly learned characters, form expressions out of them, make sentences, memorise texts and complete other literacy related drills. This management is driven by Ms Guo’s own educational experiences in China: ‘because

Mum [Ms Guo] did the same thing when I was little, we had morning reading at school, and basically at primary school, we were asked to memorise every text’ (‘因为妈妈小时

候也是这样, 早晨有晨读, 要在学校晨读, 然后呢我基本上, 就是小学嘛, 每篇

的中文课都要背诵的’).

Moreover, during weekday evenings, different tasks and ‘homework’ are planned.

Most of the ‘homework’ is established by Ms Guo for Sophia and Henry to complete. It contains both Chinese-language-focused (Chinese essays and Mandarin exercises) and non-Chinese-language-focused (Chinese mathematics, mathematics and English literacy) homework (Sophia and Henry have mathematics and English literacy classes taught in

English at TCS on Saturday afternoons). Chinese mathematics homework is based on a workbook given by the children’s Chinese cousin, and Ms Guo believes that completing mathematics in Mandarin can also help improve the children’s Mandarin competence.

Further, Sophia’s and Henry’s school holidays are filled with language planning activities, such as diary writing and lesson revisions.

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In the second stage of home language planning, Ms Guo has adopted a more casual teaching style, reinforcing the already taught content and building inductive learning opportunities that seek to answer the children’s questions instantaneously, rather than ‘sit down and teach’. As she explained, ‘I found they’ve already been on the right track and are getting independent’ (‘我发现他们已经上了轨道了,就是也已经慢慢开始独立’).

In summary, Mandarin planning in the home context should be considered as significant as language teaching in Chinese CLSs. At a macro level, the family language policy involves the parents’ careful execution of home literacy activities, and, more importantly, parents’ and children’s long-term involvement and cooperation in applying these plans. In addition, family language policy can transcend the nuclear family and become an extended family initiative via transnational continuous mutual support. At a micro level, like teachers in school, parents have distinctive teaching philosophies influenced by their own educational experiences—their parental schooling history

(Curdt-Christiansen, 2009) and personal language learning experiences (King & Fogle,

2006)—and exert a direct influence on the ways they plan and execute their ‘family curriculum’.

Family language teaching takes various forms, either formal or casual, which distinguishes it from the more typically formal routines of classroom instructions. The

‘family curriculum’ evolves in parallel with the children’s curriculum in the CLS, and the family teaching and learning style changes with children’s complete adaptability to the home education. Specifically, the Guo family language policy in the first phase involved explicit instruction at home, whereas in the second phase the policy involved reinforcement and contextualisation of explicitly taught material across various school subjects. As part of the family language policy, a wide range of drilling techniques is used which aligns with the classroom teaching.

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6.2.2 Sophia’s, Henry’s and Evelyn’s multilingual and multicultural experiences

This section examines the experiences of Sophia, Henry and Evelyn, responding to Research Question 3 regarding Chinese Australian children’s identities. The key units of analysis are shown in Table 6.4. This section focuses particularly on Sophia’s and

Evelyn’s instances of engaging with multilingualism and multiculturalism.

Table 6.4 The Guo Family Children’s Multilingual and Multicultural Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quotation/description 18-F2 Racial discourse ‘Benjamin is a White guy. He’s bad’ 19-F2 Racial discourse Sophia’s classroom encounter 20-F2 Racial discourse Speaking Chinese in child care 21-F2 Chinese cultural practice ‘Saving face’ for teacher 22-F2 Chinese cultural practice Identity influence through naming 23-F2 Behavioural patterns Personalities 24-F2 Syncretic cultural practices Food preferences 25-F2 Chinese cultural practice Television-watching preferences

6.2.2.1 Evelyn: ‘Benjamin is a White guy. He’s bad’

In the fieldwork, identity-related conversations occurred spontaneously during my first interview with Ms Guo on 7 March 2015, as shown in Excerpt 18-F2. Four-year-old

Evelyn had started her schooling in February 2015, just one month before this interview.

Excerpt 18-F2: ‘Benjamin is a White guy. He’s bad’

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Evelyn now goes to? Guo 2 She goes to Kinder…In February this year…she got to know a boy called Benjamin, Benjamin, on her first day there, she told me he was an ‘English guy’. Bo 3 Right, she already had this kind of reaction at that time, it’s really…

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Guo 4 …she would think ‘We are different from them’—they are, they are ‘English people’. At home, she called them ‘English people’. [Bo: She didn’t say ‘Australian people’?] She didn’t, she might mean…he speaks English… Guo 5 Also mean…she also called him ‘White guy’, calling him ‘White guy’. Her Uncle Dan…after one week in Kinder, her White foreigner Guzhang’s [uncle’s] birthday. [Bo: Foreigner who?] Guzhang [uncle], means uncle…he asked her, ‘Evelyn, how’s your Kinder?’, then she said ‘Benjamin is a White guy. He’s bad’. Then she started to gossip with him, this boy is very naughty. When she said ‘White guy’, Uncle Dan’s whole family was there, so was our family. When they heard this little girl say ‘White guy’, all of those English people burst into laughter {laughing}…she has this consciousness, she is able to distinguish people who speak English, as well as they are ‘White people’.

After the first day at kindergarten, Evelyn told Ms Guo that there was a child called Benjamin who was an ‘English guy’, English person and ‘White guy’ (Turns 2, 4 and 5, Excerpt 18-F2). This was surprising for me (Turn 3, Excerpt 18-F2), because the child seemed to have developed a clear sense of ethnic and racial differences at such a young age. The word ‘English’ used to modify Benjamin appears to refer to English language, not English nationality (Turn 4, Excerpt 18-F2). Although Evelyn uses English and frequently changes between English and Mandarin (e.g., see Evelyn’s language practice in Excerpt 12-F2, Appendix 7), her awareness of ‘difference’ is reflected by an implicit acknowledgement of language differences between herself as a Chinese language user and Benjamin as an English user.

In addition to the role of language in defining a person, Evelyn also noticed the racial difference, as indicated by her calling Benjamin a ‘White guy’ (Turn 5, Excerpt 18-

F2). For Evelyn, the different physical appearance may be more pronounced than the language difference in characterising Benjamin because English is their shared language.

However, this was by no means Evelyn’s initial interaction with people outside her ethnic community. As shown earlier in Figure 5.1, the Guo family is in close contact with the

Johnson family: Uncle Dan, aunt (Ms Cheung) and their cousins Rose and Mark. ‘All of

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those English people’ (Turn 5, Excerpt 18-F2) refer to English-speaking Uncle Dan and

Evelyn’s cousins.

Moreover, Ms Guo called Anglo-Australian Uncle Dan Guilao ( 鬼佬)—a colloquial Cantonese term that literally means ‘ghost man’. The term is commonly used in Chinese diaspora communities to refer to Caucasians. ‘Guilao’ compares people of

White races to ‘ghosts’ because of their skin tone. For me, this is a derogatory and offensive term, although many disagree. Based on the circumstances of our conversation,

I believe that Ms Guo employed the term in a non-derogatory sense. To minimise the strong negative connotation, the term is translated as ‘White foreigner’ in the excerpt to suggest a racial indication (the use of ‘White’) while not failing to convey the somewhat derogatory and xenophobic undertone (the use of ‘foreigner’). Although the Guo’s extended family is interracial and intercultural, and children of the Johnson and Guo families are growing up together, ethnic, racial and language differences remain prominent, and have marked boundaries between nuclear families. Evelyn’s awareness of ethnic and racial differences between herself and her kindergarten friend is a reflection of this existing sense of familial division.

In summary, Evelyn’s experience of interacting with race and ethnicity discourses offers a glimpse into the ways the family and perhaps the society shape children’s sense of self and social and ethnic belonging from an early age. Young Chinese Australian children’s Chinese language competence and physical characteristics of their racial group are self-acknowledged outstanding elements that mark ethnic and racial boundaries and group memberships. Including the mainstream language (English) alongside Chinese in children’s linguistic repertoire, or extending children’s social networks beyond their ethnic community, does not necessarily change this identity awareness or ethnic group membership categorisation. It might be entertaining to hear a young child using the phrase

‘White guy’ at a family dinner party (Turn 5, Excerpt 18-F2); however, it can be

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disappointing and concerning when we see children experience conflicts arising from race, ethnicity, nationality and other identity-related issues, as revealed in the next section (see

Excerpt 19-F2).

6.2.2.2 Sophia: ‘they were picking on me, it’s unfair, it’s so rude’

Excerpt 19-F2 presents a whole interaction between Ms Guo, Sophia and I over lunch on 30 May 2015 in TCS. A relatively formal data collection interview with the Guo family was not originally scheduled for that day. Therefore, the excerpt is not classified as an interview, but a conversation. I started to record the discussion once I realised the seemingly casual conversation was touching on some very significant issues such as racism in Australian schools.

Excerpt 19-F2: Sophia’s classroom encounter

S T Utterances [Student-2/CONV/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Guo 1 ‘If a baby girl was born, they would basically get killed’. I said, ‘What the hell is the teacher talking about?’ [Bo: Your, your teacher said this in the class?] Right, her teacher told the kids. Sophia 2 Then she said, ‘Boys are important to Chinese’…Then she said, ‘in China, because you could only have one child, because there were too many people’…Then she said, ‘if the first one was a girl, she’ll get killed. If was a boy, like, he could survive. Then, if you want more kids, you’ll need to pay the government’… Guo 3 That’s right, but I’ve never seen ‘killing the girl’. [Bo: Right.] Like, Mum’s generation, I’ve never seen people doing that, maybe in some backwards areas, like villages. Bo 4 Yeah, she said ‘killing’, what’s…[Sophia: Yellow River.] Yellow River, Huanghe? [Guo: Yellow River area, it might be…are you talking about people of that region? Or?] [Sophia: I don’t know, might be, because the teacher, we were learning the Yellow River that day.] Oh. Sophia 5 The teacher said something about China, blah blah blah, somehow she said a lot about kids…I think that made me feel really bad [Guo: There exists, exists certain prejudice, you understand?] Made me feel like…all of classmates know I’m China, they pulled a face {distorts facial features} so that kind of feeling. [Guo: But I, I think your teacher should not have said that.] [Bo: Right, did you say anything?] No. Guo 6 You should have said, ‘My Mama was the first girl in her family and she didn’t killed’. [Bo: Yeah.] [Sophia: She didn’t ‘get’ killed.]…My aunty also, Mum’s cousin, still [Bo: Yeah] you can’t say all of them,

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just maybe one or two accidents, who knows. [Bo: Yeah.] In Australia, there was a crazy father who threw his three kids off the Westgate bridge. [Bo: Oh, right, this was a long time ago.] Why didn’t you say that? How crazy is that? Chinese people would definitely not do it. [Sophia: Why, why did he throw off kids?] So, you should, you should have asked Malinda why the father did that. [Bo: Is she the teacher?] She is the teacher, should, should not have said that, kids were killed, this was very, very {inaudible} this shouldn’t have appeared in the classroom… Sophia 7 I feel like she’s picking on people, I think it’s like they were picking on me, it’s unfair, it’s so rude. [Bo: Did you speak out in the class?] No. [Guo: You should, you should at that time, then they would understand, oh, they’ve touched upon your bottom line, right? That’s why sometimes you should speak out.] Bo 8 How did your classmates respond to that? [Sophia: My, my classmates knew, because I’d told them.] Oh, you told them. Oh, what did you tell them? [Sophia: That was not true.] Right. [Sophia: But they, they said they also heard that from the news.] About what, ‘get killed’? [Sophia: Yeah.] Something about abortion? [Guo: Ridiculous.] [Sophia: They would, they would kill…the teacher said they would kill the baby girl.] Oh. [Guo: There are many different ways of getting killed, maybe just abandonment or something.] This wasn’t nice, saying such thing. [Guo: Right, this would influence…] Also, in your class you are the only… [Guo: The only one.] the only Chinese kid, right? Sophia 9 Yes, I really hate people saying…[Guo: Every country has its own problems.] [Bo: Yeah.] She’s keeping on saying it…even if it’s not true, she’ll still say it. I don’t like that. [Bo: What class is she teaching?] Eh, Reading. [Evelyn: Reading.]…[Guo: But still, it can’t be helped, it’s a very common phenomenon.] I’m pretty sure, many people know China, why didn’t they say something, some other countries that I haven’t heard of, she seemed to have to talk about China, I don’t know why. [Bo: She always talks about China, right?] Yes, she does… Guo 10 Because China attracts worldwide attention. [Sophia: She didn’t talk about other countries at all, like France or somewhere.] No, no, no, Sophia, sometimes when you hear something unpleasant, you should comfort yourself, because our China grows strong and attracts worldwide attention, sometimes people are jealous, you can only comfort yourself like this. Actually, Australians don’t really like Chinese, because Chinese are so rich, once they came in, the real estate, house prices are driven up by Chinese people. Bo 11 I see. Sophia, are there any other things like this at school? Sophia 12 Yeah, sometimes, sometimes, some people, some kids, they would say something about China, I don’t know, it’s racist. [Bo: Yeah.] Being racist is like if I, they say Chinese people are too…like, it’s racist. [Bo: How old are these kids? They even had…] The same age as me…Grade 6 [Bo: Grade 6] but they are my friends, just sometimes they would say some stuff like that, say something [Bo: I see] [Guo: It, it can’t be helped] then, then they said ‘oh, not being rude to you’, it’s like, deliberately, because it’s rude…I hate people saying ‘no offense, because not being rude’, but you are being rude…

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Guo 13 We would often come across these later throughout our whole life. Sometimes we need to adjust our mindset [Bo: Yeah] or sometimes you could refute it immediately and let them know they have touched your bottom line, so…so did Mum, I came across these when I went to the language school. [Sophia: That was bad.] The teacher then said sorry to me… [Sophia: They like talking about China.] Yes, they often talk about China because China is the biggest immigrant-exporting country…when your immigration department was welcoming us to come here, they only see our money…but when we are here, your citizens are racist…

In Sophia’s mainstream school, during a Reading class on Yellow River, Teacher

Malinda (pseudonym) made comments about the phenomenon of son preference in China and the one-child policy (Turns 2 and 4, Excerpt 19-F2). China’s preference for sons—a socially-backwards ideology—has existed for centuries, and the controversial one-child policy is familiar to me as someone born in the 1980s. However, the comments caught my attention once I heard the word ‘kill’, as in the teacher’s statement, ‘if the first one was a girl, she’ll get killed’ (Turns 1 and 2). Regardless of whether this comment is true, it made Sophia ‘feel really bad’ and ‘feel like she [the teacher] is picking on people’ and

‘picking on me’. Sophia stated that ‘it’s unfair’ and ‘it’s so rude’ (Turns 5 and 7) because

‘all of classmates know I’m China [Chinese]’ and Sophia was the only ethnic Chinese student in the class (Turns 5 and 8).

Although Sophia did not confront her teacher—perhaps because of her timid personality and cultural background (see Excerpt 21-F2)—she explained to her classmates that her teacher’s statement was untrue. Nevertheless, her classmates stated that they had received the same information from the news (Turn 8). This is an exemplification of news media shaping people’s thoughts, including those of school children. Moreover, Sophia’s classmates would preface similar offensive comments around China or Chinese people with the statement, ‘no offense, because not being rude’

(Turn 12). All these behaviours were described by Sophia as ‘racist’, although I tried to avoid using this sensitive term when asking question (Turns 11 and 12). People may have different perspectives regarding whether Sophia’s experience constitutes a form of racial

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discrimination, and that topic is not the subject of the current analysis. However, Sophia has apparently developed a clear sense of what racism constitutes for her, and the incident in the school had a negative effect on her sense of wellbeing as a child of Chinese background.

In relation to Sophia’s language use, we can clearly see her code-switching practice between Mandarin and English. Importantly, English is the language that she used when expressing strong emotions (Turns 7 and 12). In addition, she would correct

Ms Guo’s English use when necessary. For example, Ms Guo’s active voice of verb

(‘killed’) was changed to the passive voice (‘get killed’) (Turn 6). Further, evidence of

Sophia’s language influence on siblings was identified, such as Evelyn’s spontaneous mimic of Sophia’s word ‘reading’ (Turn 9). The influence of parents’ language input patterns on children’s multilingual language use (De Houwer, 2007) can also be applied to older siblings.

Although Sophia has been living in Australia since she was three months old and has never received any schooling in China, in her Australian school she automatically becomes a representative of Chinese people in general, and even of China, because of her

Chinese heritage. Meanwhile, she also identifies as Chinese; otherwise, she would not find the comments made by the teacher and her classmates offensive. During Sophia’s narrative of her school experiences, Ms Guo consistently expressed opinions opposed to the teacher’s judgements (Turns 1 and 3). Triggered by my question about whether Sophia confronted her teacher (Turns 5 and 7), Ms Guo suggested that Sophia should have stood up for herself (Turns 6 and 7). This is a socialisation process through which Ms Guo informed Sophia about how to respond to ‘prejudice’ (Ms Guo’s term) or ‘racism’

(Sophia’s term, and later Guo’s term, Turn 13) at the interpersonal level as it was occurring.

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Ms Guo believes that the teacher made a sweeping generalisation about Chinese people whose first child is female based on a few extreme cases. Ms Guo and Sophia’s aunt were the first girls of each of their families and did not ‘get killed’ (Turns 3 and 6).

Moreover, Ms Guo challenged the teacher’s ‘prejudice’ (Turn 5) towards Chinese people by referring to Australia’s Westgate bridge murder case in which a Melbourne father threw his four-year-old child off the bridge in front of his other two children2 (Turn 6).

Ms Guo also briefly mentioned her own experience of being discriminated against when she was in a language school after arriving in Australia (Turn 13). By asking Sophia to defend herself, Ms Guo aimed to help Sophia demonstrate her principles—‘the bottom line’ (Turns 7 and 13).

However, according to Sophia, this incident was not an isolated occurrence. She expected her teacher to discuss other countries about which Sophia does not hold knowledge. However, to Sophia it seems that the presentation of China as a topic to be criticised occurs frequently. She did not understand why her teacher is ‘keeping on saying it’ (Turn 9). This issue should be related to the bigger picture—the current sociopolitical and socio-economic status of China and the ongoing relations between China and

Australia which have become strained in recent years (Jain & McCarthy, 2016).

When discussing ‘prejudice’ towards Chinese people, Ms Guo stated that ‘it can’t be helped, it’s a very common phenomenon’ (Turn 9) and that they ‘would often come across these later throughout our [their] whole life’ (Turn 13). She displayed explicit helpless connotations. She then tried to help Sophia develop a strategy to cope with these occurrences that exist at the societal level at times: ‘because our China grows strong and attracts worldwide attention, sometimes people are jealous, you can only comfort yourself like this’ (Turn 10). A ‘national pride’ approach is identified here in Ms Guo’s coping

2 See ABC News, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-03-28/dad-guilty-of-westgate-bridge- murder/2640356.

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strategy. However, helpless connotations appear again, and this time are signified in an implicit way by the use of ‘only’ and Ms Guo’s spontaneous tone of voice during the conversation.

The ‘helpless’ attitudes about reversing societal racism probably derive from the harsh reality of life faced by Chinese Australians, of which Ms Guo is aware, yet finds difficult to challenge:

China’s economic rises have drawn an international attention—both wanted and unwanted ones: a huge number of wealthy people nurtured by the economy growth came to Australia due to its welcoming immigration policy—this is a mutual choice. On the other hand, the influx of wealth forces up Australia’s property prices and then lead to debates around or even tensions between immigrants and other Australians. (The researcher’s interpretation of Turns 10 and 13, Excerpt 19-F2)

This is only a small example of the complex reality confronting Chinese people in Australia, but it does display the existing tensions which have also been extensively depicted in Australian media coverage.

The intercultural experience recounted in Excerpt 19-F2 is not light hearted. I could feel that Sophia was frustrated and upset when she felt as though the teacher was

‘picking on’ her, although the teacher may claim she was only objectively depicting a social phenomenon of China and that it was not a topic aimed towards Sophia personally.

Sophia’s sense of Chineseness was provoked by the teacher’s commentary, and her

Chinese identity was heightened in this encounter. This case also indicates that identities are socially situated and relational, rather than underlying ‘essences’ which is a belief held by ‘entity theorists’ who believe that ‘human attributes are immutable’—a belief that tends to ‘endorse social stereotypes’ (Bastian & Haslam, 2006, p. 228).

In summary, in this excerpt we see Chinese Australian children positioned as

‘Chinese’ in mainstream classrooms as a result of stereotyping, displaying ignorance of these children’s and Chinese people’s basic individuality, based on ‘cultural essentialism’.

Meanwhile, provoked by the situation that arose in the classroom, the children’s

Chineseness became salient. Prevailing tensions between China and Australia, as

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portrayed in the mainstream news media, have spread into classrooms. As a result of her

Chinese heritage, a Chinese Australian child was positioned as a representative of China and its people when issues related to China and Chinese people were raised in the classroom regardless of the connections or histories held by Sophia and other Chinese children in relation to China. Under such circumstances, Chinese Australian children have encountered intense classroom interactions with their non-Chinese peers and teachers, which challenges part of their identities inscribed through their cultural heritage, and creates unpleasant school experiences.

Like any ethnic group in such a situation, Chinese Australian families may feel helpless in the face of the external racial discourse surrounding Australian Chinese children, Chinese immigrants, Chinese people and China. However, parents are still the most influential agents of socialisation for children. They display coping strategies intended to tackle racist encounters at both interpersonal and societal levels (such as specifying one’s ‘bottom line’ and the ‘national pride’ approach respectively).

6.2.2.3 Speaking Chinese in child care

When Sophia was attending child care as a four-year-old, like her younger sister,

Evelyn (see Excerpt 18-F2), she started to display her awareness of race and ethnicity based on people’s language. Excerpt 20-F2 reports Sophia’s interaction with her child care teacher.

Excerpt 20-F2: Speaking Chinese in child care

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Guo 1 There was a Taiwanese teacher in the child care, a Taiwanese teacher came later…she was very helpful to Sophia. Bo 2 …How did she help Sophia? Guo 3 Eh, maybe sometimes when Sophia couldn’t do something by herself, the Taiwanese teacher may like talking to her in Chinese… Bo 4 Actually, after one year, her English had been…

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Guo 5 Had been really good, there was no problem when she was playing with other kids, she could totally follow teachers’ instructions…but she was very strange, the Taiwanese teacher told me that, ‘Your Sophia starts talking to me in Chinese once she sees me’. [Bo: Oh, really?] Yeah, the teacher then told her, ‘I can speak English, you speak to me in English’. She didn’t want Sophia to speak Chinese to her…because this was not helpful for Sophia’s English, also not helpful for her to communicate with other kids. [Bo: Oh, that means…] That means, only when Sophia could not understand anything, she would help her by using Chinese.

After attending the child care programme for one year, Sophia had developed sufficient English competence to communicate readily with teachers and peers (Turn 5), but would shift to Mandarin once she saw her Taiwanese teacher which she appeared to consider a natural language practice. The perceived racial and ethnic commonality between Sophia and her Taiwanese teacher drove Sophia to use their assumed common language (Mandarin) and, in this manner, perhaps invoke an essentialist connection between language and its major speakers’ racial and ethnic features.

In contrast, the Taiwanese teacher chose not to speak Mandarin to Sophia because of her concern regarding the social and educational involvement of children from a non-

English-speaking background (Turn 5). The teacher’s belief appeared to be that linguistic- minority children’s English capacity needs greater time on task to improve so they can better develop their academic potential in mainstream schools. The teacher would use

Mandarin only when Sophia encountered difficulty comprehending the teachers’ instructions (Turns 3 and 5). In this situation, the shared language became a translanguaging resource believed to be beneficial to Sophia’s overall experience in child care (Turn 1). Meanwhile, the status of English as the privileged medium of instruction was reinforced because, although both the teacher and student are from a Chinese speech community, Mandarin was confined to a functional role as a transitional tool to facilitate the children’s full acquisition of the dominant language (English).

In summary, very young children’s language practices can be directed by a subconscious link between people of the same racial and ethnic group (indicated by their

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physical appearances) and the language that they are assumed to speak. Sophia’s Chinese identity is revealed through her routine one-way Chinese language use with a Chinese- speaking teacher at child care. Child care provides a space where children’s home language interacts with the mainstream language. Depending on educators’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds, children’s home language can be deployed as a valuable resource to support children’s transition into Australian schooling and to enhance the quality of their initial educational experiences beyond the home and community. It should also be noted that the supportive role of home language in the transition process serves the purpose of English acquisition and that this stage marks the beginning of language shift if the child has no previous exposure to English in the home setting.

6.2.2.4 ‘Saving face’ for teacher

Excerpt 21-F2 below demonstrates the way Sophia’s Chinese identity is exhibited through the practice of ‘non-intervention’ that Chinese cultural socialisation values. Ms

Guo was invited by Sophia’s teacher to her classroom to avoid the extremely hot weather on one day. Thus, Ms Guo obtained an opportunity to observe the teaching.

Excerpt 21-F2: ‘Saving face’ for teacher

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-5/23MAY15], Mandarin Guo 1 The other day, the teacher wrote a character—even I could tell that she got the character wrong…[Bo: The teacher wrote a character wrong?] Right…Later on, some kids noticed it, they have noticed it. When I got back home, I asked my children. My son didn’t notice the character, but my daughter did. She said, ‘Mum, I knew she got a character wrong, I just didn’t say it’…because she is teacher, we should save her some face. Bo 2 Oh, this was what Sophia said? Guo 3 …I asked whether you noticed what’s wrong with the character? Henry said no…but my daughter did, she just didn’t say it because my daughter said that was teacher. [Bo: Right, she thought it would be embarrassing if she directly pointed out the teacher’s error?] Correct.

During the lesson, Ms Guo realised the teacher had written a Chinese character incorrectly on the whiteboard (Turn 1). The focal point of analysis here is that, even

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though Sophia also noticed the mistake, she did not point it out to the teacher. This was because she wanted to save ‘face’ for the teacher (Turns 1 and 3), as embarrassment would be caused by highlighting the teacher’s mistake.

This form of non-interventional behaviour against the teacher’s error discloses some aspects of Sophia’s Chineseness, especially when the Chinese sociological concept of ‘face’ is internalised in her reasoning. In Chinese social contexts, challenging a teacher in a culturally inappropriate manner would cause both the student and teacher to ‘lose face’. Stated differently, challenging an authority figure would cause undesirable classroom dynamics. For example, as seen in Excerpt 2-Teacher T, the teacher stated,

‘Your roots are still in China…your face will never change’ (see Section 6.1.2.3). In response, David and his classmates challenged their teacher’s idea of ‘your face will never change’, which led to an ‘interruption’ (not necessarily negative) to the state of flow in the classroom.

In summary, this example provides small insight into the ways some Chinese

Australian children have developed cultural awareness and are able to carefully handle situations in a manner that conforms to the expectations of their community.

6.2.2.5 ‘Complicated’ and ‘confusing’ names

The most straightforward evidence of the heterogeneity in the Chinese community is people’s names. Five members of the Guo family have three ‘different’ last names, which sometimes causes confusion for people outside of the community. When Ms Guo was filling out some forms in her children’s mainstream school, as a result of the children’s various family names (see Table 6.5), she was asked by school staff whether her children were from a blended family. The Guo family are not a blended family. Table

6.5 illustrates the key information of Excerpt 22-F2 (see Appendix 7).

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Table 6.5 The Guo Family’s Surnames

Title and/or last Last name in Notes for the Romanised name Chinese character last name Mother Ms Guo 郭 (simplified) Chinese Pinyin of 郭 Father Mr Cheung 張 (traditional) Hong Kong Romanisation of 张 Children Zhang 张 (simplified) Chinese Pinyin of 张

Ms Guo and Mr Cheung are originally from the same region in mainland China, but Mr Cheung now holds a Hong Kong passport. As a result, his previous last name,

Romanised as Zhang (张) in Mandarin, was changed to its Hong Kong counterpart,

Cheung (張) in Cantonese. After their marriage, Ms Guo did not take Mr Cheung’s name, but retained her birth name, Guo. In Chinese culture, it is not customary for women to change their names after marriage and Ms Guo continued this practice. Their children maintained their father’s previous Chinese surname of Zhang, rather than taking its Hong

Kong version.

An identity-related socialisation occurred when her children asked Ms Guo why she did not take their father’s surname, as do most people in Australia. Instead of explaining this as a common cultural practice, Ms Guo elaborated, ‘my life was given by my parents, so I should follow the surname of my parents’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 22-F2) and

‘myself is conventional, I would never change my surname that was given by my father’

(Turn 4, Excerpt 22-F2). This elaboration demonstrates the important and respected role of parents—especially the father—in a Chinese household.

Within the traditional Chinese hierarchical family structure, individual identities are defined by the family. In the current case, Ms Guo’s last name is defined by her father—an authoritative figure who, in Confucian tradition, is generally considered more senior and respected in a family. In this context, the husband is considered somewhat of an outsider. The secondary reason for not changing one’s name is the high cost involved

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in the legal procedure. Ms Guo presented this argument in a playful way to her children

(Turn 4, Excerpt 22-F2). She stated that the breakdown of one marriage and the start of another involves multiple name-changing procedures which would incur financial loss

(Turn 4, Excerpt 22-F2). Apparently, the Chinese habit of economic frugality is embedded in this socialisation process. At the end of the conversation, Sophia understood

Ms Guo’s cultural practice (naming) and expressed her intention of ‘doing the same thing’ in the future (Turn 6, Excerpt 22-F2).

In summary, the Chineseness of the Guo family in the present scenario is reflected in Ms Guo’s cultural practice of maintaining her maiden name after her marriage—a practice reinforced by Ms Guo socialising her children into the understanding and appreciation of this ritual of naming. Within this socialisation interaction, Chinese family values—considering the role of a father, the role of parents in general and money habits— are intergenerationally transmitted. However, the Chinese cultural practice does not transfer well to the mainstream Australian context, such that the seemingly ‘normal’ ritual practice caused confusion and even misunderstanding that challenged aspects of this

Chinese Australian family. In addition, the diversity and heterogeneity of representation of an identical surname (such as 张/張/Zhang/Cheung) across different sub-speech communities in the Chinese diaspora were less well recognised in the mainstream community.

6.2.2.6 Personalities, food habits and television watching

Through an identity lens, this section discusses and seeks to understand the Guo family children’s personalities (Excerpt 23-F2), food eating habits (Excerpt 24-F2) and television-watching preferences (Excerpt 25-F2). Excerpt 23-F2 below was generated by a direct identity enquiry during the target interview. The conversation began with a simple and direct question to Ms Guo about how she positions her children in relation to their

Chineseness and Australianness (Turn 1, Excerpt 23-F2).

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Excerpt 23-F2: Personalities

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Do you think your kids are more like Chinese kids or Australian kids? Guo 2 More like Australian kids…don’t like Chinese, Chinese kids. Bo 3 In terms of which qualities, you think they are more like Australian kids… Guo 4 I think they understand more about respecting other people…their thoughts are relatively a bit more independent…They would know what are the things that they shouldn’t let Mum know, it’s privacy. [Bo: Oh, they would do this…] Actually, my kids wouldn’t, but they show respect for others, like, for their classmates, they’re very respectful…you asked me to compare those Western kids with Chinese kids, I think our kids are relatively, relatively in the middle, they are standing in the middle of the line…they’re not extreme, Western kids are too independent, too private, like my sister-in-law’s children, if they don’t want to show Mum something, they will not. But our kids… Bo 5 For example? Guo 6 For example, Western kids would spend all of their pocket money on themselves…they wouldn’t be very generous, like, ‘Mum’s birthday is coming, what does Mum want?’. I’m comparing my kids with hers. For example, my kids would say, ‘Mum’s birthday is coming, we should give Mum a very nice gift because she likes it’, understand? {Laughing.}… Western kids may also do this, but my sister-in-law said her oldest son was slightly self-centred, he would spend a lot of money on himself…He would, after watching football, he asked his dad to buy him an 80-dollar footy vest…it’s too expensive, 80 dollars. My son said he would spend 80 dollars on things that are more meaningful… Bo 7 Are your kids interested in Australian sports? Guo 8 Yes, my daughter, she’s very athletic… Bo 9 Right, you just said they are more like… Guo 10 Very much standing in the middle. [Bo: Right, they have both characteristics of Western and Chinese kids.] Right. Bo 11 Just like you mentioned, like, ‘taking good care of Mum’, etc., they are more like Chinese kids? [Guo: …filial piety.] Right. [Guo: To be good to family members.] Yeah, how about their Western characteristics? Guo 12 For example, they respect other people’s privacy…and respect their ideas…and will not impose their own beliefs on others… Bo 13 …they would think of themselves as Chinese kids, or Australian kids?… Guo 14 …They may say, ‘We are Chinese’… [Bo: How did you know?] Probably because we also eat more Chinese food…At home, I normally cook, cook Chinese food. Also, since they were little, we’ve been watching Chinese TV. Bo 15 Chinese TV?

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Guo 16 Right…she told me Chinese TV is more interesting…because we watched the children’s channel, CCTV children’s channel, they have paper cutting and many other different types of programmes, but programmes here are a bit boring, you know, like Sesame Street…they think they don’t have many choices… Bo 17 Oh, right, when you talk with your kids, did they show something about their identity recognition…Like, have they said ‘my Aussie classmates’ or something…for example, when we said Australians or Westerners, this has actually implicitly indicated we identify ourselves as Chinese…Do they have similar categorisation? Guo 18 Yes, they would have said, ‘Mum, two Asians come to our school, then I knew they were Chinese’…They sometimes help people interpret because the kids’ parents don’t speak much English or just came to this country, I’ve helped them interpret, so did my kids… Bo 19 Oh, you know, what’s the background of their best friends? Guo 20 Basically, they’re all White…my daughter has two best friends, from Kinder to Year 6, they are really close… [Bo: How about Henry?] Henry, boys like being naughty, but he has one friend, they are close and get along, all of Henry’s friends are ‘bad kids’ {laughing}…but also very bright…all White kids…He can help Chinese kids, but they can’t really get along, I don’t understand why…he thinks he should be helpful when they don’t understand English because ‘we are Chinese’, but in terms of hanging out together, they never did. Bo 21 …how did you know this? Guo 22 My daughter also helped a girl who is older than her, she found the Chinese kid was difficult to deal with. [Bo: Yeah.] Like, a teacher asked my daughter to tell her don’t do certain things, but the girl just ignored her, and continued to use the internet, like talking with her previous Chinese classmates on QQ. This was not allowed at school because you can only use school computer to do schoolwork-related things, but she didn’t follow the rule. My daughter told me, ‘Mum, I really don’t want to do this work anymore. She really annoys me’…my daughter kept asking her not to do it, but she said to my daughter, ‘stop hassling me’…so my daughter doesn’t like her…She thinks Chinese kid… ‘Mum, is every Chinese kid like this? And impolite?’…My daughter said, ‘I helped her, why she didn’t say ‘thank you’ to me? But thinks I was hassling her and controlling her?’ The Chinese kid said that to my daughter.

Ms Guo thinks her children are different from children who grew up in China

(Turn 2, Excerpt 23-F2)—‘they are standing in the middle of the line’ between Chinese children and Australian children (Turns 4 and 10, Excerpt 23-F2). Ms Guo’s perspective on Australian childhood norms is largely generalised from her children’s experiences of socialising with their cousin Mark (from the Johnson family) in their family life. Mark would spend all his pocket money on himself and purchase expensive sportswear,

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whereas Sophia and Henry would spend their pocket money on their mother or ‘more meaningful’ items (Turn 6, Excerpt 23-F2). Therefore, Ms Guo believes that her children have the traditional Chinese virtue of filial piety and frugality; in contrast, their cousin is considered more self-centred and extravagant (Turns 6 and 11, Excerpt 23-F2).

According to Ms Guo, Western society’s general idea of independence and strong awareness of individuality and privacy can be seen reflected in her children’s behaviour.

However, Ms Guo used the word Zhongyong (中庸) (‘moderate’) when she compared her children’s Westernness with their cousin’s, which she labelled as ‘extreme’ (Turn 4,

Excerpt 23-F2). Zhongyong is a doctrine of Confucianism, and, in the present context, indicates a sense of harmony within Chinese Australian children’s identity spectrum. The

Guo family children’s characters are regarded as distinguishing them not only from

Australian children but from Chinese children who have grown up in China (Turn 4,

Excerpt 23-F2). Racial and cultural stereotypes about both Australian children and

Chinese children play distinctive roles in this comparison.

As a result of Sophia and Henry’s bilingual competence, they are often requested by their mainstream school to help newly arrived Chinese students and their parents through translation and interpreting services (Turn 18, Excerpt 23-F2)—language brokering (Antonini, 2016). Moreover, they are committed to offering assistance because of their shared cultural and ethnic background—‘we are Chinese’ (Turn 20, Excerpt 23-

F2). However, their friendship with those children failed to develop because of opposing attitudes towards school rules and personality differences (Turns 20 and 22, Excerpt 23-

F2). Although Sophia and Henry demonstrated personality characteristics rooted in bicultural exposure and upbringing, they identify as Chinese (e.g., see Excerpt 19-F2).

Interestingly, the justification provided by Ms Guo for her children’s Chineseness included routine practices, such as food preferences and television programme choices

(Turn 14, Excerpt 23-F2). Excerpt 24-F2 is particularly indicative of the significant role

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of Chinese cuisine in the Guo family. The family expresses a strong preference for

Chinese food over Western food.

Excerpt 24-F2: Food preferences

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-3/21MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Guo 1 …I often called my mum and asked, ‘Mum, what should I cook for dinner tonight?’…and my mum would tell me how to do it… Bo 2 You normally cook Chinese food, right? [Guo: Yes.] Have you ever cooked Western food or? Guo 3 They never ate the Western food I cooked…I cooked it really badly, I never baked a cake successfully…I didn’t even cook Chinese food. My mum can’t even cook Western food, how am I supposed to know how to cook? Bo 4 Right, how about your kids’ food preferences? Guo 5 They can eat both Chinese and Western food… [Bo: Where do you think their Western food habits come from?] The environment where they grow up, like, in the school, people would ask them, ‘Do you know what Bolognese is?’…Then I took them out to have Bolognese, so they would know what it was. But for me, isn’t that just beef, plus boiled spaghetti.

Family food and eating practices are powerful tools of socialisation (Duff, 2014) through which Sophia and Henry have naturally developed their Chinese palate and associated values. Their Western palate is acquired via both family (dining out in Western restaurants) and their Australian school’s socialisation processes (dining in the school).

As discussed in Section 6.1.2.1, by employing food as an identity signifier (Dottolo &

Dottolo, 2018) we can understand that Ms Guo’s children are Chinese and Australian simultaneously, but with a stronger Chinese identity manifestation when interacting with food and eating discourses.

Besides food, Ms Guo justified her children’s Chineseness by their preference for

Chinese television (see Excerpt 25-F2) as part of their multilingual life. Chinese television programmes are considered as providing more options and being ‘more interesting’ (Turn 4, Excerpt 25-F2; see also Turn 16, Excerpt 23-F2).

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Excerpt 25-F2: Television-watching preferences

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 …learning English, you actually didn’t deliberately… Guo 2 I didn’t deliberately, before three years old, I simply didn’t…they never had any contact with English because, at that time, even me didn’t like watching English TV. I thought that kids’ stuff, programmes from ABC-2, ABC for Kids, I didn’t like them. Actually, I felt repelled that—why did I come here? Bo 3 Before three years old, they didn’t have contact with English? [Guo: No.] Including English TV? Guo 4 No, no, because we had a satellite TV, it was all in…[Bo: Chinese.] They watched Chinese TV, CCTV children’s channel… [Bo: Did they like it? Three years old?] They liked watching TV very much…because Chinese TV channels had more programmes than that of here…whenever I turned on the TV, there were some programmes, like crafts or something else, a lot of options…

The children’s preference for Chinese television over Australian television is a result of Ms Guo’s preference management. The major reason for Ms Guo coming to

Australia was to join her husband, and she held no other personal driving factors. This is why, when she discussed her dislike of Australian television shows, she said, ‘I felt repelled that—why did I come here [to Australia]?’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 25-F2). Thus, television preferences related to more than just selecting which language would function as the preferred medium of communication. The preferences were linked with a subconscious attachment to the country of origin, the purpose of immigration and whether there was an expectation of permanence in the new setting. This is a clear identity-related issue.

Ms Guo’s Chinese television watching habit influenced her children’s habits.

Television viewing practice has become an important family event. For example, during this study’s fieldwork, I observed the youngest daughter, Evelyn, frequently watching

Chinese animations on her iPad in the school staff room. On 14 March 2015, Sophia and

Evelyn were watching a Chinese televising series, Lady & Liar (千金女贼) during their lunch break at TCS.

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In summary, Chinese Australian children’s identity flows from one end of a spectrum of being fully ‘Chinese’ to the other end of being fully ‘Australian’. The dichotomy is constructed based on certain racial and cultural stereotypes about young people at each ‘end’ of the continuum. There exists an implied sense of a static ethnic authenticity, which needs to be challenged. The Chinese Australian children’s identity included stereotypical features and cultural practices of both ‘Chinese’ and ‘Australians’ in a state of supposed ‘harmony’, as suggested by the Confucian thought of Zhongyong.

In addition, the Chinese Australian families’ Chinese food eating habits and Chinese television-watching practices contribute to defining and enhancing the family’s general sense of Chinese identity.

However, the harmonious self-identification does not ensure a tension-free situation during interactions with people from other Chinese backgrounds. On one hand, the Chinese Australian children’s bilingual competence greatly facilitates newly arrived

Chinese students’ communication and engagement with Australian schools. On the other, miscommunication or conflicts between ‘Australian Chinese’ and ‘Chinese Chinese’ children may arise from their different personalities and approaches to school rules.

6.2.3 Summary

The Guo family has a systematic set of language policy actions that support their children’s development of Chinese literacy at home, alongside the learning activity at their CLS. The nuclear family’s language policy is strengthened through support from extended family members (see also King & Fogle, 2006) who reside in the home country.

Highly structured family language policy requires parents to take a more formal role as home educators and to provide explicit instruction. Being a stay-at-home parent creates such conditions to implement the policy or ‘family curriculum’. Similar to regular classroom teaching, parents as home educators are directed by teaching philosophies that were informed by their own educational experiences. Ms Guo’s teaching practices

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regarding the use of drilling techniques correspond to general practices in the community classrooms. In the Guo family, the structured family language policy evolved into a more relaxed style with the development of the children’s language ability and adaptability in the ‘home school’.

From the early childhood stage, these Chinese Australian children demonstrated sensitivity towards issues of ethnicity, race and language. They were generally aware that their Chinese language competence and physical appearance had granted them an apparently permanent membership to the Chinese community. This membership was determined largely by physical characteristics, yet further enhanced by their Chinese language ability; however, this membership was not influenced by the subsequent adding of English to their linguistic repertoire. For a young Chinese Australian child, the connection between Chinese physical appearance and Chinese language competence can be easily established.

The commencement of child care marked the beginning of these Chinese

Australian children’s engagement with the mainstream educational system. It also marked the start of a language shift to English, especially for the eldest in the family. Young

Chinese Australian children’s transition into Australian schools can be better facilitated if educators share similar cultural and especially linguistic backgrounds. When Chinese

Australian children proceed to senior primary school level, they may have developed a sound bilingual competence which can contribute to their newly arrived Chinese peers’ successful transition to Australian schooling. However, the use of a non-English language in the mainstream school serves the purpose of smoothing the transition to the state of full English acquisition.

Although these Chinese Australian children’s bicultural and bilingual competence were used as resources (such as through language brokering practices) in the mainstream school, their life, cultural practices and ‘who they really are’ remained unknown to others

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beyond the Chinese community. Based on the evidence from this small sample, it appears that the ‘mainstream’ understanding of Chinese Australian children is widely based on racial and ethnic stereotypes and generalisation—a practice of essentialising (Bastian &

Haslam, 2006). Regardless of their exact relationships with China, in the classroom, these

Chinese Australian children were considered ‘Chinese’ and even positioned as

‘representatives’ of China and its people, with general attitudes extensively shaped by media coverage. When topics regarding China appeared in classroom discussions, the children’s Chinese identity was heightened and debates could lead to racialised interactions and identity challenges which caused the children to have unpleasant school experiences.

In these Chinese Australian children’s lives, parents played the key role in socialisation through which the children developed strategies to deal with stereotyping and to continue developing their understanding and appreciation of a broad range of

Chinese cultural practices (such as naming conventions). This section has indicated that these Chinese Australian children were able to foster adequate Chinese cultural awareness and behaviours.

Growing up in Australia as Chinese descendants, these Chinese Australian children were characterised by their ‘Chineseness’ and ‘Australianness’. Although this categorisation inevitably reproduces a form of stereotype, it provides a type of visualisation to capture the uniqueness of this group of young people. The hybridity of

Chinese Australian children’s identity is prominent and is situational. It flows between the ‘Chineseness’ and the ‘Australianness’, depending on the context and dimensions of life in which the children are involved.

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6.3 The Tan Family

6.3.1 General and VCE-focused FLP

This section explores Research Question 1 in relation to Mandarin planning activities in the Tan household. Four excerpts are analysed in this section (see Table 6.6).

The Tan family’s language planning can be categorised into general FLP and VCE- focused FLP according to different planning stages. The focal participant, Luke, a Grade

10 student, was preparing for the VCE test during the study’s data collection period.

Table 6.6 The Tan Family’s Language Policy

Excerpt Multilingual experience Description 13-F3 FLP style Casual homework supervision 14-F3 Parents as language planner Mother is the ‘teacher’ 15-F3 Private tutoring as language policy Private tutorial for VCE Chinese studies 16-F3 Private tutoring as language policy Private tutorial for VCE Chinese studies

Note. FLP = family language policy/planning, VCE = Victorian Certificate of Education.

Excerpt 13-F3 and 14-F3 indicate that the Tan family’s general language management has an informal style. Ms Tan attends to the children’s Chinese learning via casual homework supervision and no formal home learning is involved (Turn 2, Excerpt

13-F3).

Excerpt 13-F3: Casual homework supervision

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 They learn Mandarin at home—do you teach them something at a fixed time, like, having a family study time or something? Tan 2 …I didn’t…like writing down what should I teach…because I thought the Chinese school had already given them a lot of homework. When they were little, they had to learn how to write characters, do dictation, had a lot of homework. I didn’t need to teach them extra things, the Chinese school had already given them a lot of work…That’s why I didn’t teach them extras at home, I thought that’s good enough if they could learn their Chinese school textbooks well.

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Excerpt 14-F3: Mother is the ‘teacher’

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 How’s his Chinese learning? Tan 2 I could teach him when he was young because I learned Mandarin when I was in Malaysia…I finished Chinese primary school. From secondary school, I was taught in English and Malay…My Chinese is only primary school level…I was able to supervise him when he was little…

The above excerpts indicate Ms Tan’s belief that TCS has a comprehensive schedule both inside and outside the classroom (classroom teaching/learning and homework) and that she considered it ‘good enough’ if the children satisfied the school’s requirements (Turn 2, Excerpt 13-F3).

A prerequisite for a language planning activity—homework supervision—is the parent’s adequate knowledge of Mandarin (Turn 2, Excerpt 14-F3). However, as Ms Tan acknowledged, she had never received formal Chinese language instruction after primary school (Turn 2, Excerpt 14-F3) which later posed challenges when she supervised her own children. Under these circumstances, private tutoring played an important role in

Luke’s life as a form of ‘official policy’ once he started to undertake VCE Chinese studies

(see Excerpts 15-F3 and 16-F3).

Excerpt 15-F3: Private tutorial for VCE Chinese studies

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 I heard that there was another teacher teaching Luke, right? Tan 2 Yes, last year, I found myself—because my education level was not high enough, my level of Mandarin was no longer high enough to teach him, there were many things that I didn’t know how to teach, like writing, among others. I knew his Chinese was not good. If he only went to the big- scale class, didn’t pay much attention in class, not active in class, his Chinese level would be slowly…slowly decreasing. [Bo: Oh, I see.] Tan 3 So, I said, ‘If you want to do something, you should try your best to do it well’…I said we’d decided to take VCE Chinese. I didn’t even dare to think about VCE when he was little, but he’s always been doing Chinese well,

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always got either gold or silver medals3 …[Bo: Right, in this Chinese school?] Right, that’s why I realised that we could actually try VCE… Tan 4 Also, when he was little, I sometimes went to the parent–teacher meeting, his teacher said students who were learning here in the school should be okay to pass VCE…I found his Chinese school performance actually not bad, so I asked him if he would like to give it a go and that he won’t lose anything if he fails…Also, I said the more important thing was his good performance in the day school. Tan 5 But when VCE was approaching, I realised, as we’ve decided to take VCE, we must try our best…because we’ve already put a lot of time and effort into learning the language… Tan 6 Till last year, end of last year, I found I was unable to teach him, he should have a private tutor, sometimes when I teach him, he was a bit… [Bo: He might have realised the different roles of Mum and teacher.] Yeah, also, I didn’t know how teachers teach…The main reason was my limited capacity to teach. Bo 7 Yeah, does that mean when you began sending your children to the school to learn, the original intention was to maintain, to learn Mandarin? [Tan: Yeah.] Taking VCE Chinese became part of the plan at a much later stage…[Tan: At a later stage.] Oh, right. [Tan: Just found there were many additional benefits.] Right. [Tan: Then realised, he can actually…] Can actually? [Tan: Can actually, can actually take the exam.]

Excerpt 16-F3: Private tutorial for VCE Chinese studies

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin Tan 1 I’ve always been helping him, help him do revision…like, give him a dictation, something like that, help him do revision. [Bo: In terms of?] I could help him with anything that was on the textbook… Tan 2 But writing is really hard, I couldn’t be helpful…until Year 11, at the end of Term 3, I found that was the time, because VCE tests writing…If don’t hire a private tutor, it would be really hard for him to get through VCE…because my ability is also limited…Also, because school may have different teaching requirements from ours [Bo: Different, right.], you must learn what the school requires. [Bo: Right, he must know the test requirements.] That’s why I hired a private tutor for him.

Excerpts 15-F3 and 16-F3 consider the question of ‘why private tutoring’ (Curdt-

Christiansen, 2014, 2015). First, these excerpts primarily reveal that Ms Tan’s overall

Mandarin competence was no longer adequate to support Luke’s academic study at senior

3 In TCS, symbolic medals are awarded to students who achieve corresponding academic performance at the end of each term.

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secondary level (Turns 2 and 6, Excerpt 15-F3; Turn 2, Excerpt 16-F3). Second, VCE studies (including the writing component) are specifically exam oriented and require potential language planners with particular types of expertise (Turn 6, Excerpt 15-F3;

Turn 2, Excerpt 16-F3). Third, the decision to have private tutoring was driven by a specific work ethic: ‘if you want to do something, you should try your best to do it well’

(Turns 3 and 5, Excerpt 15-F3). Guided by this hard work ethic, since making the decision to take the VCE Chinese exam, the family may have felt they had to mobilise all available resources in the community—such as seeking external aid—to help achieve the goal. This is also a cultural socialisation process through which Luke is supposed to understand the desirable learning and working attitude.

In addition to the question of ‘why private tutoring’, the above two excerpts reveal some issues related to the decision to undertake VCE Chinese studies. As discussed in

Section 1.1, a longstanding controversy in Australia’s Chinese education surrounds the legitimacy of Chinese children taking the Chinese final year school exam versus non-

Chinese students. The Tan family case indicates that this Chinese Australian family’s decision to attend TCS began with a predominant language maintenance purpose, but was then heavily influenced by the school’s favourable attitudes regarding the benefits of studying VCE Chinese (Turns 4 and 7, Excerpt 15-F3). VCE Chinese is a ‘scaled-up’ subject which can greatly contribute to a candidate’s Australian Tertiary Admission Rank

(ATAR),4 the admission vehicle for university. Thus, if students can perform well in the

Chinese VCE exam, their likelihood of being admitted to tertiary education can be greatly increased. In addition, Luke’s general satisfactory academic performance at TCS suggests

4 According to the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) (2018): The ATAR is not a score out of 100—it is a rank. It shows a student’s achievement in relation to other students. The ATAR is calculated by VTAC solely for the use of tertiary institutions to compare the overall achievement of students who have completed different combinations of VCE studies. VTAC forwards the ATAR along with application information to selection authorities at institutions.

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that good results are possible (Turns 3 and 4, Excerpt 15-F3; see also Excerpt 4.2-F3).

Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to achieve good scores in the examination resulted in this student’s commitment to learning Mandarin during senior secondary schooling.

Excerpt 4.2-F3 Grade 10 essay ‘Me’ (para. 4) (original left, translation right)

I am in Grade 10 at [school name]. My academic performance is not bad, my mum insists that I learn Mandarin, and I also hope I can get good exam results. This is me—[xxx].

[Teacher’s comments: ‘Excellent’]

In summary, the Tan family language policy—general and VCE focused— correspond with TCS’s overall curriculum and teaching practices (general Chinese and

VCE Chinese). The policy takes either an informal (i.e., parental schoolwork supervision) or a formal form (i.e., private tutoring). Parents seek external aid in planning formal

Chinese literacy to compensate for their lack of professional knowledge and to help the child achieve good academic marks. Throughout the process of VCE-focused language planning, children are also expected to be socialised into the good work ethic that is highly praised in the Chinese community. This section has confirmed that Chinese Australian children can undertake VCE Chinese studies as a result of the general discourse around the studies’ potential pragmatic and utilitarian benefits (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014) associated with the high-stakes exam—‘instrumental motivation’ for language learning

(Curdt-Christiansen, 2009, p. 371).

6.3.2 Luke’s multilingual and multicultural experiences

This section examines Luke’s identity through his multilingual and multicultural experiences, corresponding to Research Question 3. The findings indicate that Luke’s identity and his family’s identity of being ‘Malaysian Chinese’ and ‘Australian Chinese’

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are demonstrated consistently throughout the data collection. The excerpts presented in the following analysis are shown in Table 6.7, including Luke’s written language production.

Table 6.7 The Tan Family Children’s Multilingual and Multicultural Experiences

Excerpt Multilingual experience Quotation/description 17-F3 Identity acknowledgement Being Australian Chinese 18-F3 Identity acknowledgement Being Australian Chinese 19-F3 Transnational journey Being Chinese—Migration story and Chinese cultural values 20-F3 Transnational journey Migration motives—being Chinese 21-F3 Multicultural school Being Malaysian Chinese (essays) experiences and identity acknowledgement 22-F3 Malaysian Chinese cultural General lifestyle, food preferences and practices connections with Malaysia 23-F3 Affiliation with Australia ‘My hometown is Melbourne’ 24-F3 Affiliation with Australia ‘I don’t want to work in Malaysia because all of my good friends live in Australia’

6.3.2.1 Being Australian, being Chinese and being Malaysian

When asked specifically about Luke’s identity, Ms Tan responded clearly and firmly that Luke would consider himself Australian Chinese (see Excerpts 17-F3 and 18-

F3). Additionally, Ms Tan believed that Luke did not have identity struggles because of his clear identity recognition (Turn 2, Excerpt 18-F3).

Excerpt 17-F3: Being Australian Chinese

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do your two children have a clear sense of whether they are Huaren (ethnic Chinese) or Australian? Tan 2 They, they are Australian Chinese, they are very clear about that [Bo: Very clear about that.] Yeah, yeah.

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Excerpt 18-F3: Being Chinese Australian

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 For kids of his age, do you think how would he identify himself? For example, does he think he’s Australian, Huaren (ethnic Chinese), Malaysian Chinese or Zhongguoren (a Chinese person who is from China)? Does he have a clear idea? Tan 2 I think Luke believes he is Australian, but he also knows he’s Huaren (ethnic Chinese). [Bo: He also knows he’s Chinese.] Yeah…he doesn’t seem to have, eh, in terms of his ethnicity, he doesn’t have any… [Bo: Struggles?] struggles, no, he doesn’t have.

The data from Luke and Ms Tan in relation to identity issues were basically symmetric. The ‘Malaysian’ and ‘Chinese’ dimensions of Luke’s identity are reflected in the following excerpts. Excerpt 19-F3 is extracted from Luke’s essay, ‘My Father’. It illustrates that every family in the Chinese diaspora has a unique immigration story to tell.

Generation after generation, Chinese people have undertaken journeys to attain a better life, as described in Chapter 1. Luke’s grandparents immigrated from China to Malaysia to obtain employment, and his parents then migrated from Malaysia to Australia to fulfil a similar purpose, as discussed through Excerpt 20-F3.

Excerpt 19-F3: Being Chinese (migration story and Chinese cultural values) (original left, translation right)

My Father

My dad’s name is [xxx]. Dad told me he was born in the remote countryside in Malaysia. My grandparents came to Malaysia from their hometown in China, so, when Dad was little, his family was very impoverished.

Dad worked very hard when he was young. He would help grandparents’ farm as soon as he got back from school. But Grandma often encouraged Dad to study hard so that he could find a good job and did not have to the hard work of farming. After Dad grew up, he did not let Grandma down, and became an employee [a teacher replaced the word with public servant] in the government’s post office sector. After a few years of working there, Dad changed his profession to business and continued to be hardworking and thrifty.

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Because Dad worked so hard, we were able to migrate to Australia and live a good life. He often encourages me and my younger brother to study hard [a teacher added another phrase that also means ‘study hard’], so that we can become the country’s asset.

In this essay, Luke acknowledged his family’s intergenerational immigration experiences, especially the hardships experienced by his father and grandparents. The

Chinese cultural values regarding education and filial piety incorporated by Luke into the essay indicate a system of values and their prominence that is part of Chinese identity.

Specifically, Luke’s grandmother encouraged Luke’s father to study hard to obtain an eventual ‘good job’, instead of undertaking farm work. This recalls a famous line in The

Analects of Confucius: Wan ban jie xia pin, wei you du shu gao (万般皆下品, 惟有读

书高), which means, the worth of other pursuits is small; the study of books excels them all. This aphorism is a classic Chinese ideology and remains influential in contemporary

Chinese-speaking communities. It was highly relevant to the ultimate goal of the Chinese literati in Imperial China—to be a civil officer in the government—as illustrated by another line in The Analects of Confucius: Xue er you ze shi (学而优则仕), which means, a man who excels in learning should become a civil servant.

Therefore, by later gaining a career as a public servant, Luke’s father fulfilled not only his grandparents’ aspirations but an underlying expectation fostered by ancient

Chinese culture that is heavily shaped by Confucianism. According to traditional Chinese family culture, achieving career success can be viewed as a child’s expression of filial piety. Luke also appreciated his father’s virtue: ‘Dad did not let Grandma down’ (para. 2,

Excerpt 19-F3). At the end of the essay, Luke acknowledges the connection between his father’s work ethic and their family’s current ‘good life’ in Australia and implies that he

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and his brother should follow his father’s advice to study hard. Once again, Chinese cultural values of academic achievement and filial piety are displayed. However, it should be noted that, in the last part of the final paragraph, Luke states that the purpose of working hard is to become ‘the country’s asset’. I assume, based on the context, that ‘the country’ refers to Australia. Correspondingly, Ms Tan shared with me the family’s initial intention to migrate to Australia, which was an identity-driven story (see Excerpt 20-F3).

Excerpt 20-F3: Migration motives—being Chinese

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Where is your family originally from? Tan 2 Malaysia. We’d been living in Malaysia till Luke was one year old…then his dad decided to come to Australia because his dad’s family, most of his siblings, had already migrated here in Australia. We were slower. [Bo: I see.] Tan 3 His father thought children going to school here in Australia, they could have equal opportunities because Malaysia is a Huijiao (Islamic) country. [Bo: What kind of country?] Huijiao, Huijiao country. [Bo: Islam, right?] That’s why their race is given priority…in terms of job application and etc.—they are given priority. Chinese people do not have many opportunities [Bo: Right, opportunities.] Unless you want to join their religion, or… [Bo: Right, Malaysia is a multi-racial and multi-religious country.] It’s fairly unequal. [Bo: I see, I’ve heard of that.] So, if we immigrate to a Western country, we could give our children an equal opportunity.

The Tan family migrated to Australia because ethnic Chinese (Huaren) do not have equal opportunity in a society with positive discrimination for the Bumiputra people

(ethnic Malays), and Chinese children growing up in the country face discrimination based on their race and ethnicity (Turn 3, Excerpt 20-F3) (see also Crouch, 1996). Thus, moving to Australia is considered to provide children with more equal opportunities (Turn

3, Excerpt 20-F3)—the ‘fair go’ in which Australian society and school systems take pride (Smyth, Hattam & Lawson, 1998, p. V). Additionally, other relatives of the Tan family—a support system—had already moved to Australia which added to the attraction of migrating (Turn 2, Excerpt 20-F3).

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According to Ms Tan’s perceptions, the family’s migration story started with an incompatibility between ethnicity and religion in their home country, and from being ethnic Chinese and living in a society with Islamic favouritism through a system of explicit laws, although the laws address ethnicity. The Malaysian law titled the ‘New

Economic Policy’ was enacted in 1971 after extensive anti-Chinese riots in 1969, in order to equalise the situation in the economy and education of ethnic Malay vis-à-vis ethnic

Chinese (Funston, 2001). For the Tan family, migration to Australia was considered a solution to this dilemma—that is, living in Australia could make being Chinese easier.

Excerpt 21-F3 consists of four extracts from Luke’s essays across different year levels. His written language practice is heavily identity based, as indicated by the titles of each essay: ‘All People Belong to One Close Family’ (Grade 8 essay, Excerpt 21.1-F3),

‘Me’ (Grade 9 essay, Excerpts 21.2-F3), ‘Me’ (Grade 10 essay, 21.3-F3) and ‘My Family’

(VCE preparation essay, 21.4-F3).

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Excerpt 21-F3: Being Malaysian Chinese (original left, translation right)

Excerpt 21.1-F3: Grade 8 essay ‘All People Belong to One Close Family’ (paras 1 and 2) (original left, translation right)

All People Belong to One Close Family

My name is [xxx]. I am turning 14 years old on [day and month]. My dad and mum are from Malaysia. I have a younger brother, his name is [xxx], he is 11 years old, and is in Grade 5 at [primary school name].

I am in Grade 8 at [school name]. Most of my classmates are from different nationalities. We have Australians, Indians, Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese and Chinese. My best friend is [xxx], and he is Vietnamese. We have been hanging out and studying together since pre-school. His mum and my mum have also become good friends.

Excerpt 21.2-F3: Grade 9 essay ‘Me’ (para. 1) (original left, translation right)

My name is [xxx]. I am in the Grade 9 Opportunity Class. My family has four people: Dad, Mum, younger brother and me. I am slim and 160 cm tall. I have black hair and brown eyes.

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Excerpt 21.3-F3: Grade 10 essay ‘Me’ (para. 1) (original left, translation right)

My surname is [xxx], first name is Luke, height is 175 cm, weight is 55 kg, black eyes, black hair, 15 years old, and was born into a well-off Malaysian family. I have parents and a brother who is three years younger than me and he is very naughty. I migrated to Melbourne, Australia, with my parents when I was one and a half years old.

Excerpt 21.4-F3: VCE prep essay ‘My Family’ (para. 1) (original left, translation right)

My family has four people, Dad, Mum, little brother and me. My parents and I are Malaysian, but my little brother was born in Australia. All of the above writing samples begin with a brief self-introduction to aspects of Luke. The following identity indicators are mentioned in the writing: name, age, height, body weight, hair and eye colours, family members, birth place of himself and his sibling, country of origin, grade levels and time of immigrating to Australia (see Table 6.8).

Table 6.8 Identity Indicators in Luke’s Written Language Production

Excerpt Name Age Height Weight Hair/ Birth Family Country Year Year Eye Place Member of of Level Colour Origin Arrival 21.1-F3 x x x x x 21.2-F3 x x x x x 21.3-F3 x x x x x x x x x 21.4-F3 x x x

First, Luke’s Chinese identity was indicated by consistent use of his Chinese name.

Additionally, during my interview with Ms Tan she rarely addressed her children by their

English names. Second, Luke described his physical characteristics—hair and eye

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colours—in his writing practice to specify his appearance. Although there exists inconsistency in the description (e.g., his eye colour is described as ‘brown’ in Excerpt

21.2-F3 and ‘black’ in Excerpt 21.3-F3), Luke reproduces a typical Chinese ethnic discourse. In the Chinese-speaking world, it is very common for people to portray themselves as a racial group of ‘black hair, black eyes and yellow skin’. This type of depiction appears frequently in Chinese patriotic songs. Table 6.9 illustrates the patriotic or ‘ethnic pride’ discourse that is closely related to the physical characteristics of Chinese people. Luke’s reproduction of this discourse displays his adequate socialisation into this aspect of Chinese culture.

Table 6.9 Examples of Appearance when Defining Chineseness in Music

Song Refers to Excerpts of lyrics English translation Descendants Ethnic ‘黑眼睛, 黑头发, 黄皮 Black eyes, black hair, yellow of Dragon Chinese 肤; 永永远远是龙的 skin; forever descendants of the 龙的传人 people 传人’ dragon Pearl of the Hong ‘让海潮伴我来保佑 Let the tide accompany me to Orient Kong 你, 请别忘记我永远不 guarding you, please do not ever 东方之珠变黄色的脸’ forget my never-changing yellow face Chinese Ethnic ‘五千年的风和雨啊, How many hidden dreams in the People Chinese 藏了多少梦; 黄色的 5,000 years of wind and rain; 中国人 people 脸, 黑色的眼, 不变是 yellow face, black eyes and lasting smile 笑容’

Third, Luke was particularly sensitive to his birth place and parents’ country of origin—Malaysia: ‘[I] was born into a well-off Malaysian family…I migrated to

Melbourne, Australia, with my parents when I was one and a half years old’ (Excerpt

21.3-F3); ‘my dad and mum are from Malaysia’ (Excerpt 21.1-F3); and ‘myself and my parents are Malaysian, but my younger brother was born in Australia’ (Excerpt 21.4-F3).

He has established a clear connection between country of birth/origin and identity.

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Luke categorises himself and his Malaysian-born parents as ‘Malaysian’—

‘Malaysian Chinese’, to be exact—as further confirmed in his writing: ‘We are overseas

Chinese, originally from Malaysia’ ( ). Conversely, in his essays, Luke never describes his Australian-born brother as Malaysian, Chinese or

Australian, except for a factual statement of the brother’s place of birth. The younger brother’s physical features may have prevented Luke from identifying him as ‘Australian’.

Further, in Excerpt 21.1-F3, Luke (then in Grade 8) indicated his awareness of the multiethnic nature of the student population in his mainstream school’s classroom (para.

2). The essay conveys the message that, although all people have different ethnic backgrounds, they all belong to an Australia that is a larger ‘family’. He described his classmates as deriving from different Guoji (国籍) (‘citizenships’), as ‘Australians,

Indians, Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese and Chinese’. However, I argue that Minzu (民族)

(‘ethnic groups’) is a more appropriate term in this context to indicate the most likely situation—that Luke’s classmates are from diverse ethnic backgrounds, yet the majority have Australian nationality.

As further shown in the second half of paragraph 2 (Excerpt 21.1-F3), Luke perceives his long-term best friend, Bob Nguyen (pseudonym), to be ‘Vietnamese’, even though he is an Australian citizen. This means that Luke categorises a person according to the person’s ethnic background, rather than their citizenship. This may be also the reason he has not explicitly identified himself, or even his Australian-born brother, as

‘Australian’.

In summary, the Tan family’s initial migration to Australia was driven by family aspirations to live as Chinese people in a fairer and more equal society. Luke’s Malaysian

Chinese identity is self-acknowledged. It can also be indexed through his name use, the ability to reproduce Chinese ethnic discourse and (most importantly) his deep understanding and appreciation of his family’s intergenerational migration experiences

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and traditional Chinese cultural values and practices that were involved in the transnational journey (such as the dynamics of work ethic, filial piety and academic expectations).

Born in Malaysia with Chinese ancestry and raised in Australia, Luke displays sensitivity towards people’s country of birth, ethnicity and physical appearance associated with ethnic background, all of which have become principal identity determinants for him. Legal citizenship does not seem to play a role in Luke’s identity classification of himself or others.

6.3.2.2 Lifestyle, food habits and connections with Malaysia and Australia

Luke’s and his family’s ‘Chineseness’ is also reflected in lifestyle and food preferences. The following casual conversation began with my interest in the Tan family’s plans for the children’s school holiday (see Excerpt 22.1-F3).

Excerpt 22-F3: General lifestyle, food preferences and connections with Malaysia

Excerpt 22.1-F3: Lifestyle and food preferences

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Have you got any plans for the school holidays? Tan 2 No, we usually, we rarely go out of town during the holidays, unlike Australians…we are not like Australians who like going out for the holidays, it’s very tiring…our lifestyle is very simple, that’s it… Tan 3 Then we cook delicious food…Chinese are particular about food… Bo 4 What kind of food do your two kids like? Tan 5 Luke only likes Chinese food…all the kinds, traditional or our hometown style, he likes Chinese food. He’s not interested in stuff like white bread…

This excerpt depicts a lifestyle that indicates identity, as Ms Tan stated, ‘we rarely go out of town during the holidays, unlike Australians’ (Turn 2, Excerpt 22.1-F3). Ms

Tan connects the lifestyle of ‘travelling’ with the identity of being ‘Australian’ and does not consider her family Australian. Instead, the Tan family’s interest in delicious food, specifically Chinese food, results in her implication of the family’s Chinese identity—

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‘Chinese are particular about food’ (Turn 3, Excerpt 22.1-F3). Although this excerpt includes a stereotype about the lifestyles of Chinese and Australians, it establishes the connection between lifestyle (including food preferences) and identity. Similarly, Luke revealed his Chinese palate, as opposed to a Western palate, in Excerpt 22.2-F3.

Excerpt 22.2-F3: Luke’s food preferences

S T Utterances [Student-3/INTW/14OCT15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you like Chinese food? Luke 2 I like Chinese food because my parents normally cook Chinese food. I’ve loved eating their dishes since I was little. Bo 3 Okay, do you, do you like Western food? Luke 4 …I don’t like Western food because I, I live in Melbourne, Melbourne, in Australia, Australian restaurants, there are restaurants from different countries…

Luke attributes his preference for Chinese food to his Chinese upbringing in relation to food habits (Turn 2, Excerpt 22.2-F3). Moreover, interestingly, Luke’s dislike for Western food is justified on the basis that he lives in Melbourne, where ‘there are restaurants from different [Asian] countries’ (Turn 4, Excerpt 22.2-F3). The connotations are that, because Luke lives in Melbourne, there is no reason to eat Western food when there are so many other options to choose from. Melbourne’s multiculturalism, contributed by immigrants, has created a rich and unique food culture with very diverse food choices originating from all over the world.

The family’s ‘non-travel’ lifestyle and passion for food also appeared in Luke’s essay, ‘My Family’ (see Excerpt 22.3-F3) and his interaction with the researcher (see

Excerpt 22.4-F3).

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Excerpt 22.3-F3: Lifestyle and connection with Malaysia via food (essay ‘My Family’) (original left, translation right)

Malaysia has a lot of delicious food. The most common one was Gan Lao Mian, satay, laksa, mee jawa, roti chanai. These are Malaysia’s special dishes. Although Malaysia has many special dishes, Gan Lao Mian is our favourite.

My family rarely travels, but we like staying at home and watching TV, DVD, going online and doing exercises in the backyard. We usually play basketball when we are free because we have a basketball stand. We enjoy playing it.

Excerpt 22.4-F3: Lifestyle and connection with Malaysia via family bonds and food

S T Utterances [Student-3/INTW/14OCT15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you often travel? Luke 2 No, I haven’t travelled much, but I go to Malaysia to visit my family every three years…I think Malaysia is very beautiful, and also Malaysian food is very delicious, so I went back to Malaysia. Bo 3 Do you like going back to Malaysia? Luke 4 Ah, I like going to Malaysia because my, my family is in Malaysia, I can visit them every three years. Also, I like Malaysian food very much.

Although Luke is not a frequent traveller, his overseas destination has always been

Malaysia, his country of birth (Excerpt 22.4-F3). Importantly, in Excerpts 22.3 and 22.4,

Luke’s emotional connection with Malaysia is exemplified primarily through family bonds and his attraction to local food (Turns 2 and 4, Excerpt 22.4-F3). The dishes listed in Luke’s writing—such as ‘Gan Lao Mian (干捞面), satay, laksa, mee jawa, roti chanai’

(Excerpt 22.3-F3)—are a variety of Southeast Asian foods. Luke builds a sense of exoticism in describing these dishes conveyed by their names and the fact that, except for

Gan Lao Mian, most of these dishes cannot be easily translated into Mandarin. Therefore,

Luke adopted written code-switching between Chinese characters and English words in his literacy practice (Excerpt 22.3-F3). Section 6.1.2.1 demonstrated that David Li’s language-mixing practice (i.e., ‘Suancai very kaiwei’ in Wuxinese—‘Chinese pickled

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vegetables [are] very appetising’) reflected a significant role of regional Chinese language in the Chinese Australian family’s mealtime discourse. In contrast, Luke’s case demonstrates the presence of other languages that are deeply associated with this Chinese

Australian family’s country of origin. Recognising Luke’s written language practice is crucial for acknowledging his unique Malaysian Chinese identity (Ivanič, 1998; Lillis,

2001).

Later in the interview, Ms Tan clarified that Luke’s food preference is a broad category akin to ‘Asian cuisine’ which is not limited to Chinese (see Turn 11, Excerpt

22.6-F3). As a result, the term ‘Chineseness’ used to describe Luke’s identity should be accurately specified as ‘Malaysian Chineseness’, which contextualises and distinguishes the type of ‘Chineseness’ from other counterparts in Chinese-speaking communities.

Luke’s Malaysian Chineseness was further enacted and reinforced through his trip to

Malaysia, as shown in Excerpt 22.5-F3.

Excerpt 22.5-F3: Connection with Malaysia (essay ‘Visiting Kuching’) (original left, translation right)

Visiting Kuching

Kuching is the capital city of Sarawak in East Malaysia. It is the biggest city in East Malaysia, and it is also the biggest city in the entire Borneo. Kuching’s Romanisation is ‘Kuching’. It means ‘cats’ in Malay, so Kuching is also called the cat city. My grandfather, uncle and aunt are living here. My parents are from the cat city.

On the second day after we arrived in Kuching, uncle drove us to the riverside of the south city. Kuching is located in northwest Borneo; beautiful Sarawak River divides Kuching into

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the south city and the north city. Walk along the river and look across, you can see the ancient and solemn state government house that was constructed during the British colonial period. The south city has a history museum, which contains many local antiquities and civilisation. This museum should be considered the most abundant in Southeast Asia. I learned a lot of historical knowledge through the trip.

After lunch, we drove to a cat museum, which was located in the north city. I believe that in other tourist attractions people can hardly find these many different kinds of handmade cat sculptures.

Kuching’s language is very colourful [a teacher extended the student’s original expression to an idiom]. Malay, English and Mandarin are widely used. Between Chinese people, besides Mandarin, dialects such as Hokkien, Hakka and Teochew are also commonly used languages. Compared with other big cities, Kuching people are simple and honest, life pace [the teacher added a character that the student had missed] is not so fast, and I enjoy this idyllic feeling.

[Teacher feedback stamp reads: ‘outstanding’]

The above essay (Excerpt 22.5-F3) displays Luke’s knowledge of his city of origin and existing family ties in the city (para. 1), the knowledge that he has gained through sight-seeing (paras 2 and 3) and his detailed observations of the city’s super- diverse linguistic landscape (para. 4). Thus, we can assume that the ‘return’ trips to

Malaysia contribute to constructing Luke’s Chinese identity with the unique Malaysian

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Chinese community’s characteristics, although Luke may not fully enjoy visiting

Malaysia for various reasons such as the high cost, poor connection of the local internet and the extreme hot weather (see Turn 10, Excerpt 22.6-F3).

Excerpt 22.6-F3: Lifestyle, food preferences, connection with Malaysia and no connection with China

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 He’s learning Chinese…he would come across a lot of things about China [Tan: Yeah.] but he hasn’t been to China, has he? [Tan: Never been there.] What do you think about his attitudes towards China? Would he say something like, ‘I’ve never been to China, why do I need to learn Mandarin?’ Tan 2 …he knows that, although he is not Zhongguoren (a Chinese person who is from China), he is Huaren (ethnic Chinese)…This was what I’ve been instilling into him since he was very young…‘You are ethnic Chinese, this language is like, like, is your mother tongue, you must acquire it’…So that’s it, he wouldn’t say because of China…he’s not from China, that’s why he didn’t want to go to China. Bo 3 Right, he didn’t seem to have any relationship with China? Tan 4 No, he didn’t…he didn’t say he wanted to go. Also, in his oral exam, there’re questions about…whether he’d like to work in China…He wouldn’t say he’d love to, it’s okay, if it’s short term, he doesn’t look forward to going there… Bo 5 Does he look forward to visiting Malaysia? Tan 6 He doesn’t…He just wants to stay in Australia…he said, if he had some career opportunities in the future, he would like to go to Europe… Bo 7 …he was born in Malaysia, right? [Tan: Yeah.] There are still some relatives living there, right? [Tan: Oh, there are relatives, they are ours, ours, our relatives.]… Tan 8 [Bo: Do you go back every year?] No, I don’t, but my husband…goes back every year during Tomb-Sweeping Day…Kids need to go to school…the school holidays after Term 1 are very short…It’s not worth going back in a rush…You also have to spend a lot…plus a very short visit, it doesn’t make sense…also kids are not really keen, going back is more for the parents. Bo 9 Do they have any cousins in Malaysia? Tan 10 They are not familiar with each other…they don’t want to go back because Malaysia’s internet is really bad, also it’s very expensive…they can’t get access to the internet to talk to their friends here…plus, they can’t play computer games; besides, Malaysia is too hot, they can’t stand it… Tan 11 Right, the only thing they like about there is to eat delicious food…[Bo: What do they like?] Our local food…[Bo: What do you think about their

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food preferences? All sorts of Malaysian food, Chinese food or as long as it’s Asian?] Asian food…because Luke likes eating Chinese food… Tan 12 Actually, I really encourage him to go to the ‘Seeking Roots Trip’. [Bo: …to China?] Yeah…I said it would help you improve your Chinese, but he didn’t want to go, he said if I was not with him, what if he got sick?…

According to Ms Tan (Turn 8, Excerpt 22.6-F3), Luke’s father returns to Malaysia once a year for the traditional Chinese Tomb-Sweeping Day, also known as Qingming

Festival or Chinese Memorial Day. It is a day when Chinese people commemorate their ancestors and deceased relatives at their graves. Although Ms Tan believes that the trips to Malaysia are ‘more for the parents’ than the children (Turn 8, Excerpt 22.6-F3) and

Luke does not visit Malaysia as often as his father, Luke’s acknowledgement of his father’s consistent Chinese cultural practice plays a role in identifying with the culture.

As shown in Luke’s Chinese workbook, he wrote the sentence

. This translates as, ‘My Dad returns to Malaysia to celebrate

Qingming Festival every year’. Together with the acknowledgement, the Chinese filial piety that underlies this cultural practice may be influential in developing Luke’s Chinese identity.

However, Luke’s Chineseness does not have a direct link with the country of

China, although they are remotely connected through the family’s migration history (see

Excerpt 19-F3) and the origin of the Chinese culture in general. Luke is not a Chinese person from China (Zhongguoren, 中国人), but an ethnic Chinese (Huaren, 华人) person with a Malaysian background, specifically from the East Malaysian state of Sarawak with its distinctive ethnic mix. This identity ideology has always been instilled in Luke by his parents (Turn 2, Excerpt 22.6-F3). Therefore, although Mandarin is considered essential to Luke, he is not motivated to visit China—for example, to join the ‘Seeking Roots

Trip’(寻根之旅)—let alone to find future employment opportunities (Turns 2, 4 and 12,

Excerpt 22.6-F3; see also Excerpt 24-F3). Thus far, Luke’s Chinese identity is rooted in

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a Malaysian socio-ethnic context, as has been demonstrated both implicitly and explicitly.

However, this identity still does not enable him to call Kuching his ‘hometown’. As shown in Excerpt 23-F3, for Luke, his hometown is Melbourne, where he grew up.

Excerpt 23-F3: ‘My hometown is Melbourne’ (essay ‘My Hometown’, para. 1 and last sentence of the essay) (original left, translation right)

My Hometown

My hometown is in Melbourne where I grew up.

…No matter what, I always love my hometown.

[Teacher’s comment reads: ‘Excellent +’]

In Excerpt 24-F3, triggered by a question about seeking future employment in

China, Luke disclosed his ideal permanent place of residence: Australia (Turns 2 and 4).

Excerpt 24-F3: ‘I don’t want to work in Malaysia because all of my good friends live in Australia’

S T Utterances [Student-3/INTW/14OCT15], Mandarin Bo 1 Are you interested in working in China in the future? Luke 2 I will work in Australia in the future. Because my family and friends live in Australia, and I am familiar with Australia’s environment… Bo 3 Do you want to go to Malaysia and work in Kuching? Luke 4 I, ah, I don’t want to work in Malaysia because all of my good friends live in Australia, and I am familiar with Australia’s weather and Australia’s environment.

Thus, neither China nor Malaysia are Luke’s ideal country of residence, which aligns with Ms Tan’s information (see Excerpt 22.6-F3). This is because Australia contains Luke’s family and friends, as well as being the environment with which he is familiar (Turns 2 and 4, Excerpt 24-F3).

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In summary, ‘Chineseness’ identified from the Tan family should be described as

‘Malaysian Chineseness’, through which its uniqueness can be legitimatised, recognised and highlighted in comparison with other types of Chineseness present in the Chinese- speaking diaspora community worldwide. Luke’s and his family’s food cultural practices and general lifestyles are considered signifiers of being Chinese, compared with the wider

Australian community. Luke’s connection with Malaysia is exemplified by a strong family bond and food preference, and can be enhanced by ‘return’ trips (Fogle, 2013a).

Additionally, Luke’s parents’ return trips to Malaysia for Chinese cultural practices (such as ‘tomb sweeping’) can strengthen their children’s emotional connection with the home country and understanding of Chinese family values (such as filial piety). All these factors contribute to their wider Chinese ethnic identity. However, acknowledgement of Chinese

Australian children’s home country affiliation does not downplay their ‘Australianness’.

Instead, they fully identify with being Australian in a sense—Australia is their ‘hometown’ and forever home. Melbourne, as a multicultural city, is proven to be an ideal place where

Chinese Australian children can grow up with their original culture, among other cultures, through various cultural practices.

6.3.3 Summary

The Tan family’s language policy on Mandarin learning has undergone two distinctive stages. The first took the form of homework supervision in a relaxed or casual style. Conversely, the second stage was characterised by a formal character, particularly through sourcing external language teaching aid or private tutoring (see also Curdt-

Christiansen, 2014, 2015). The parents’ inadequate Chinese literacy knowledge was one of the driving forces for them to outsource their planning initiatives as an extension of both the community school language planning and family language planning.

The change in FLP style was primarily caused by the change of the overarching purpose for learning Mandarin—from language maintenance to achieving high academic

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performance in a state-level examination (the VCE). The latter was a direct reflection of language learning pragmatism. It also reflects the community’s reproduction of the utilitarian language education ideology that pervades Australia’s foreign language education policy (Lo Bianco & Slaughter, 2009). Meanwhile, through the process of VCE preparation, Chinese Australian children are further socialised into desired work ethics that may be influential in shaping their early adulthood identity (Curdt-Christiansen,

2013b).

Luke’s Chinese identity has a close link with the Chinese community in Malaysia.

Being Chinese in the Tan family has been represented differently across generations.

Luke’s Chinese grandparents migrated from China to Malaysia to earn a living, while his

Malaysian Chinese parents migrated from Malaysia to Australia for a ‘fair go’ (Smyth et al., 1998), and Malaysian Chinese Australian Luke calls Melbourne his ‘hometown’. As a place that showcases multiculturalism and multilingualism (Fogle, 2013a), Melbourne provides young people a comfortable space to engage with their original culture.

After growing up in Australia as ‘Chinese’, as positioned by society, and as

‘Malaysian Chinese’, as identified by himself, Luke has developed a deep awareness of a person’s identity as defined by the person’s country of origin, which is marked by birth place, ethnic and racial background and physical appearance. A person’s legal citizenship is not considered prominent in defining identity formations. In addition to self- acknowledgement, Malaysian Chinese identity has been indexed by a wide range of interrelated language and culture practices, including name use, literacy socialisation into presentation of ethnic Chinese appearance, acknowledgement and appreciation of

Chinese family values, general lifestyles, food habits and return trips to Malaysia.

6.4 Chapter Summary

Finding 8: Family language policy mechanism

Family language policy definition

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Family language policy can be considered systematic and enduring language experiences, language use rules or other language practices that occur in the home and significantly influence children’s language proficiency. For example, in the Li family, watching Chinese television and Australian television constitute an informal kind of language policy—a critical multilingual experience that contributes to the expansion and enrichment of the linguistic repertoires of children.

Policy styles

Family language policy can be designed and undertaken in either a formal or informal manner, whereby parents take the role of ‘home educator’. Their teaching philosophy is an accumulated result of their own educational experiences which are often largely shaped in their home country. Policy style evolves according to children’s language competencies and adaptability in experiencing the family language policy.

Policy forms

Casual homework supervision is the most common form of family language policy conducted between parents and children on a daily basis. Additionally, ‘homework’ can be assigned by parents. Homework-related language policy performs a pedagogical function of reinforcing and contextualising explicitly taught material.

Private tutoring is a form of family language policy in which external aid is sought to compensate for inadequate parental knowledge/capacity in supporting children’s language and literacy development. The learning of Mandarin during the years of secondary schooling is stimulated by pragmatic values (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014) of taking a state-level Chinese language test. The shift from language maintenance to language learning utilitarianism demonstrates the community’s reproduction of the pragmatic justifications that underlie Australia’s promotion of Asian languages (Lo

Bianco & Slaughter, 2009).

Finding 9: Complex dimensions of multilingual experiences

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Ethnicity, physical appearance, language, transnational journey and identity

Dynamics of race, ethnicity and language function in the process of children’s identity recognition. The essentialist ideology between Chinese language ability

(Mandarin) and the physical appearance of being Chinese was identified even by very young Chinese Australian children.

The identity of being Chinese Australian contains rich transnational stories across multiple generations and multiple countries. For example, the Tan family’s transnational journey (China–Malaysia–Australia) was driven by the aspirations of two generations

(grandparents and parents) and eventually enabled the third generation to call Australia home. Yet, the interaction between place of birth and the physical features that characterise an ethnic group helps children form an awareness of self in relation to others.

Therefore, the dimension of ‘Chinese’ becomes prominent in children’s self-recognition, in which citizenship does not seem to play a role.

Syncretic cultural practices and identity

Syncretic cultural practices—food habits, general lifestyle, learning attitudes, family dynamics and return trips for cultural events—are signifiers of the hybrid identity of Chinese Australian children. Such practices enhance children’s and their family’s

Chinese identity in Australia. Importantly, these cultural practices orient young people into everyday practices with strong lingual associations.

Classroom experiences that position, challenge and shape children’s identity

Classrooms in CLSs involve space where children’s identities are positioned by educators, challenged by students and reconstructed through teacher–student negotiation.

Children are active participants who reflect on their identity and interact with their teachers’ assumed ‘natural’ position of children based on physiognomy—such as ideologies regarding ethnic roots, physical features of an ethnic group and belonging.

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In Australian schools, Chinese Australian children can be positioned as ‘Chinese’ and even as ‘representatives’ of the nation-state of China and its government because of educators’ and other pupils’ practice of cultural essentialism. Therefore, Chinese

Australian children may have unpleasant school experiences when intense and/or controversial topics arise in relation to China and Chinese people during school interactions. These experiences directly provoke and confront Chinese Australian children’s sense of Chineseness.

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Chapter 7: Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter begins by revisiting each research question, discussing the interrelated findings that emerged and were summarised in Chapters 4–6 (see Table 7.1).

Then, a framework for informed multiglossic FLP and enhanced multilingual experiences is proposed and discussed as a theoretical and practical implication of the present study.

The chapter concludes with the researcher’s reflections on the study, including its limitations, and identifying possibilities for further FLP research.

Table 7.1 Revisiting the Research Questions

Research Point of Question Finding question reference 1 Mandarin How do transnational Finding 1 The nature of CLP Chinese families Finding 2 Putonghua Mandarin as the engage in Chinese exclusive subject of CLP language planning in the community school Finding 4 A language ideological and in the home? continuum that informs FLP Finding 8 Family language policy mechanism 2 ‘Chinese What language(s) do Finding 5 The socioemotional function dialects’ they use at home? of a mother tongue What do the languages Finding 6 Intergenerational language mean to the families? shift situations How do they talk about the language decisions Finding 7 Dynamics of language they make? ecology and language shift and maintenance 3 An What are the Finding 3 Children’s negative attitudes emphasis on perceptions and to community language children’s experiences of the maintenance experiences children (from their Complex dimensions of own perspective as Finding 9 multilingual experiences well as that of their parents) in relation to Chinese language learning and their identities?

Note. CLP = community language planning, FLP = family language policy/planning.

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7.1 Revisiting the Research Questions

7.1.1 Acquisition planning for Putonghua: Research Question 1 revisited

Research Question 1 contains two critical sociolinguistic domains—community and family (Schwartz & Verschik, 2013)—that are believed to contribute to the development of Chinese Australian children’s competence in modern Chinese language and literacy via CLP and FLP initiatives. A critical dimension of this question is the standing and presence of Modern Standard Mandarin in relation to other Chinese varieties.

7.1.1.1 CLP: Discussion of Findings 1 and 2

The findings show that CLP and FLP complement one another (see also Conteh et al., 2013; Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; Patrick et al., 2013), and, moreover, CLP is an extension and a joint form of FLP. The purpose of CLP, a well-established practice on

Chinese Australian populations’ transnational trajectory, is initially informed and determined by sociopolitical circumstances in both the source and host countries, and associated legal citizenship struggles. In this situation, Australia’s immigration policy is in fact operated as a community language policy, and CLP is stimulated by the ideology of language pragmatism in a source country in which meritocracy and elitism are heavily practised (Ren & Hu, 2013). Later, once first-generation migrants’ Australian citizenship is settled, this new security tends to transform the nature of Mandarin from ‘official’ language in the source country to Australia’s ‘community’ language. At this point, the language ideology of cultural heritage maintenance through language planning commences functioning.

In the present research, both CLP and FLP take Putonghua as the exclusive planning subject, which also confirms the ‘changing hierarchies’ of Chinese multilingualism (Li Wei & Zhu Hua, 2010) in the Australian Chinese context. Moreover, the acquisition planning of Putonghua in teaching practice becomes a kind of de facto prestige planning (Haarmann, 1990) for the official language of China that is either the

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parents’ or community leaders’ home country or country of their ancestors. In LPP theories, prestige planning pays particular attention to the ‘aesthetic or intellectual’ aspect of a language variety modelled by, for example, ‘poets, philosophers and religious figures’

(Lo Bianco, 2010, p. 148). In the current study, the aesthetic standard of Putonghua is demonstrated by ‘local Beijing people’ and China’s national media, such as China Central

Television for spoken Chinese and People’s Daily for written Chinese. It seems that the

Chinese-identity-mediated ‘Great Traditions’ (Fishman, 1969, 1973) direct language affection towards the Mandarin variety of China within the Chinese Australian community.

In effect, people’s (parents and school leaders) own transnational Chinese identity and experiences formed their favourable language attitudes towards Putonghua and, accordingly, their CLP and FLP behaviours. At the personal level, the mainland Chinese students who migrated to Australia in the 1980s (Smith et al., 1993) constitute the cohort of stakeholders of present Chinese CLSs, while at the wider societal level, this favourable attitude towards Putonghua is reinforced as Mandarin increasingly gains an envisaged pragmatic role (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014, 2016) in the slipstream of China’s rising profile in world affairs (Lo Bianco, 2007). China’s rise also provides a continuous replenishment of ever numbers of new arrivals from China who are already committed to seeing a global role for Mandarin in trade and the new communication order of the world. Further,

Australia’s economic benefits-oriented foreign language policy (Lo Bianco & Slaughter,

2009) has boosted the nation’s strategic engagement with China—‘the Asian giant’

(Orton, 2016b; see also Figure 1.1)—and its language.

What counts as standard language in the Chinese context is already complex because of its inherent pluricentricity (Clyne, 1991b), with norm-setting correctness centres in the mainland China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. However, the language ideological impetuses identified above all combine to push the CLP and family language

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planning practices of Australia’s Chinese communities, regardless of their national origins, towards elevating Putonghua over all other Mandarin varieties. In the diaspora context, these influences coalesce in a language planning category called ‘retention and recovery’ (Lo Bianco, 2007, p. 13), such that what is being ‘retained’ or ‘recovered’ in fact privileges a standard form that the powerful LPP of the nation-state of China already promotes through mass compulsory education. This educational consolidation of

Putonghua is also buttressed by clear political and economic effects (Clyne, 1991b) favouring Putonghua.

7.1.1.2 FLP: Discussion of Findings 4 and 8

This research shows that as authoritative language planners in Chinese Australian households, parents have the absolute power to decide whether to develop and maintain their children’s Chinese literacy and language competence in the English-dominant setting of Australia. This decision is not only a private language planning decision but a parental identity performance that, in turn, can be seen to have identity implications (Lo

Bianco, 2007) for children.

Parents’ FLP decisions are situated along a language ideological continuum, one end of which is choosing to maintain Chinese language and the other end is choosing to let the language capability of the children atrophy. Parental language ideology that supports an essentialist connection between ethnic authenticity and ethnic language competence (e.g., being Chinese and learning Chinese) (see also Duff, 2014) is more likely to produce language maintenance policy, whereas language ideology that supports assimilation into host country norms produces language shift and loss decisions. However, this is not a yes–no question. The spectrum of parental language ideology suggests a diversified practice with ongoing and ever-changing permutations of FLP decisions.

Notably, in the discourse of ‘being Chinese and learning Chinese’, Chinese language has become a synonym for Mandarin owing to its prestige value.

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Specifically, this study shows that the following factors play a role in influencing parents’ FLP decision concerning the necessity of Mandarin acquisition and maintenance.

First, parents’ relatively stable but evolving cultural identity positioning in relation to the home and source countries is a fundamental internal ideological driving force for language maintenance, loss or ‘in-between’ decisions. For example, as seen in

Section 4.4, a father explained why he thinks it is not necessary to learn Chinese: ‘We are destined to drink coffee, not tea’—his metaphoric explanation illustrating the divergent values and lifestyles of Western and Chinese societies. Therefore, the FLP decision is clarified as an identity practice, not merely a language matter. The evolution of parents’ cultural identity along with their positions on the language ideological continuum is propelled by their conflicted experiences of transnational living as Generation 1, such as struggles to integrate into the new mainstream society and their fully functional and psychological connection with their native language, even if they may not be aware of it.

Second, the fact that parents’ and their envisaged children’s affiliations with the source country, and other Chinese-speaking societies at present and in the future, is normally employed by parents to justify their initial FLP decision (i.e., to learn or not to lean Chinese). This second factor is closely related to parental cultural identity introduced in the first factor, but it does not directly determine the parents’ FLP decision.

Third, parents’ educational background and English competence (see also Curdt-

Christiansen, 2015) provides parents who choose not to maintain the second generation’s

Chinese with a practical linguistic ‘tool’ that facilitates language shift to English in the home environment. Notably, parents’ high English language ability does not guarantee a language shift decision. Instead, parental transnational identity positioning tends to dictate their community language ideology.

Fourth, parental assessment of children’s proficiency in English and Mandarin and the pragmatic function of Mandarin in its immediate ecology that is associated with

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the state-level high-stake Chinese language test (i.e., VCE) and in the general ecology of

Mandarin in the contemporary world have a direct effect on their family language policy.

Although parents’ evaluation of children’s language ability may not match their actual language knowledge, the evaluation functions as a ‘genuine instrument’ in helping parents navigate their language planning decisions (Schwartz & Moin, 2012). Moreover, the utilitarian benefits (Curdt-Christiansen, 2014, 2016) of community language learning in the context of VCE provide a continuous and steady supply of Chinese language learners from a Chinese background at the senior secondary level, but the further pursuit of Chinese learning in the higher education setting is open to doubt.

In the setting of Chinese Australian homes, specific family language policy has been conducted to support the development of children’s Chinese language and literacy ability. The present thesis understands family language policy as ‘systematic and enduring language experience, language use rules or other language practice that occurs in the home and significantly influence children’s language proficiency’ (see Section

6.1.1). This re-conceptualisation of family language policy extends the field’s established definition (King et al., 2008) which tends to consider an ‘explicit’ and ‘overt’ nature of policy and neutralises the difference between ‘policy’ and ‘planning’. Drawing insights from general LPP theory (e.g., Johnson, 2013) and data that emerged from the fieldwork, this study finds that family language policy can be implicit and de facto, reflected in language experiences and rules in the household. Additionally, the distinction between language ‘planning’ and ‘policy’ needs to be clarified in FLP studies. The former highlights the intentionality of a language-regulating behaviour, whereas the latter is either explicit or implicit.

The present research identified the following five categories of family language policies, some of which have appeared in other studies. However, the present study offers contextualised nuances to the general discussion on each of the policies: 1) Chinese

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television programme viewing (see also Curdt-Christiansen, 2013b); 2) parental homework supervision (see also Curdt-Christiansen, 2013a) and completing ‘homework’ set by parents, which reinforces and contextualises the taught content; 3) relatively formal and structured home instruction, which requires parents’ strong commitment to play the role of home educators; 4) commercial private tutoring (see also Curdt-Christiansen, 2012,

2014, 2015; Ren & Hu, 2013), which is engaged to compensate for parents’ lack of expertise; and 5) parental management of children’s negative Chinese learning attitudes and behaviours. The first four categories are language- and literacy-specific activities, while the last belongs to the language ideological dimension.

Television watching and homework supervision take a casual and instantaneous style, whereas home schooling and private tutoring are much more academically oriented and formal. The style of family language policy also may evolve as children develop their

Mandarin proficiency and have adapted to the requirements of existing policy. Parents’ strategies to reverse their children’s negative learning attitudes include remonstrating or arguing with children while employing the essentialist reasoning linking learning Chinese with being Chinese, and applying traditional Chinese philosophical thoughts (e.g.,

Buddhism and Confucianism) (see also Curdt-Christiansen, 2009) and family values about education (Mak & Chan, 1995; see also Ren & Hu, 2013) as well as materialism and utilitarianism associated with China’s economic rise, as persuasive or even coercive practices.

Different family language policies and styles are the product of distinctive family cultures, mundane but continuous language experiences (e.g., Chinese television watching), parenting styles, family roles (e.g., homemaker) and general Chinese cultural and educational practices, all of which are directly related to parents’ own life and education experiences (see also Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; King & Fogle, 2006) in the home country.

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Except for the Guo family, the research has not identified the language policy of parents’ relatively consistent input of the target language (De Houwer & Bornstein,

2016)—Mandarin. Instead, regional Chinese varieties are consistently used as home languages. However, because of the sufficient language acquisition support from CLP and various other forms of family language policy, children from non-Mandarin-speaking families are still be able to acquire and display adequate levels of Mandarin proficiency.

This language maintenance situation once again shows that Chinese community language maintenance in the home is an ecological language planning practice drawing on resources from multiple sociolinguistics domains which creates a very different language planning ecology compared with those in individualistic OPOL contexts (e.g., Barron-

Hauwaert, 2004).

7.1.2 Habitual home language practices and language shift: Research

Question 2 revisited

Regional Chinese varieties (so-called Chinese dialects) are the focal points of

Research Question 2. Briefly, the three participating families are from Wuxinese-,

Fuqingnese- and Teochew-speaking backgrounds and adopt Wuxinese, Mandarin and

Teochew, respectively, as their dominant home language between parents and children.

The findings show the critical socioemotional function of MT in a household and language shift situations occurring in both Chinese Australian homes and their home country. Particularly, the conceptualisation of the socioemotional function of MT is an extension of the ideological aspect of family language policy, in response to Fogle’s

(2013b) suggestion in this regard (see Section 2.4.2.2)

7.1.2.1 Socioemotional function of a MT, language shift and language ecology:

Discussion of Findings 5, 6 and 7

Under the circumstance of both parents having the same regional language- speaking background, the socioemotional function of an MT is first exemplified by its

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natural and almost taken-for-granted use between parents themselves and between parents and children. The natural use of their shared MT by husband and wife produces their children’s regional Chinese language maintenance and corresponding regional Chinese identity. Second, the socioemotional function of the MT enables its users to make connections between the language and the identity-marking notions of ‘family’ and

‘hometown’. Such connections are another type of manifestation of the transnational population’s ‘diasporic mentality’ (Zhu Hua & Li Wei, 2016a, p. 661) that links the place of origin to the current place of residence.

Third, for those who no longer have the regional language dominant in their linguistic repertoire, such connections are found to still exist and can be triggered by various social, emotional and linguistic circumstances, for example, the practice of strong and forceful language use during the process of parenting (see Section 5.2.3). As

Tannenbaum (2012, p. 58) states:

Mother tongue is a central aspect of people’s internal sense of self and identity, and both a practical and symbolic link to their homeland, childhood, memories and early significant relationships, even when family members are not always aware of these links.

The current study also finds that participants’ understanding of Australian-born

Chinese children’s MT is shifting, especially when perceived MT (e.g., Chinese) and the most proficient language (e.g., English) differ. In addition, as seen in Sophia’s case (Turn

7, Excerpt 12-F2), views more favourable towards Chinese language, especially

Mandarin, rather than English, are displayed. Sophia appears to operate with a binary division of utilitarian acceptance of English and emotional attachment to Mandarin; her greater proficiency in English does not guarantee affinity towards it.

Although focal children in the present study have maintained the language of their parents (e.g., regional language in the Li family and the Tan family and Putonghua in the

Guo family), they are fast proceeding to dominant English use. It should be clear that the maintenance of a non-dominant language relies on a conscious language planning effort

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and purely relying on its ‘natural’ use between parents and children is inadequate.

Conversely, their China-based relatives of similar age (e.g., cousins) are becoming dominant Mandarin users and may not have maintained full proficiency in specific regional Chinese varieties. This parallel pattern of language shift and maintenance is produced by particular language ecology marked by geopolitical, national, regional, community and household boundaries. Therefore, it is time to revisit the concept of language ecology, as it applies in Chinese transnational communitive contexts.

Chinese Australian families live in a multilingual ecosystem consisting of various spheres of language use and language decision-making which broadly includes the general Chinese language planning occurring in Australia, China and other Chinese- speaking societies, CLP and family language planning. These Chinese-oriented spheres, in turn, relate to the counterpart ideologies and practices in and for English which these families interact with in the host society.

As reviewed in Section 2.2, the description of language ecology involves both psychological and sociological dimensions—that is, interactions between language (as a medium of social communication) and society, and interactions between multiple languages that exist in users’ linguistic repertoire (Haugen, 1972, p. 325). The present study shows that the language ecology with which Chinese Australian families engage concerns two dynamics that are stimulated by ‘language ideologies’ (see also Curdt-

Christiansen, 2016).

First, the interactions of the Chinese language with Australian Chinese communities, mainstream Australian society and China have produced a specific ecology of Chinese CLP in Australia which also resonates with the general sociolinguistic reality of the language in other Chinese diaspora contexts worldwide (e.g., see Wang, 2004 in the context of the American Chinese community). To be specific, Mandarin is the subject

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of Chinese CLP within the Chinese Australian community (see Section 7.1.1) and wider

Chinese-speaking societies.

Second, the interaction between their regional Chinese language, Mandarin,

English and other languages that Chinese Australians use demonstrates various levels of language maintenance, shift and loss. Generally, the use of a regional Chinese language tends to shift to the use of Mandarin, and the use of all Chinese varieties including

Mandarin tends to shift to the use of English. Here we see a nested or hierarchical ecology with two Dominant Language Constellations (Aronin, 2016): one shaped by the host national environment, Australia, and the other by the various source environments, China and the Chinese community of Malaysia, with the latter’s communication patterns influenced by the LPP discourses in China. Conversely, Chinese Australian homes are found to be the locus of regional Chinese language maintenance owing to their enclosed nature that is less likely to be influenced by the ecology of Mandarin as the exclusive language for educational purposes as has prevailed in China.

The original concept of language ecology (Haugen, 1972, p. 325) also specifies the determinants of an ecology for a particular language, which are ‘people who learn it, use it, and transmit it to others’; in the context of Chinese as a community language, these people are children (language learners and users) and parents and teachers (language providers). In relations between the first two, intimacy and responsibility prevail; in relations between the first and third, the prevailing norm is professionalisation. The present study shows precisely that the ‘life’ of a particular language is specifically determined by the dynamics of societal and parental language ideologies and language- regulating behaviours influenced by aforementioned language planning spheres.

Despite the fact that the ecological approach to multilingualism adopts a stance of reversing language shift and loss (Hornberger, 2002), in the diaspora context the study shows that FLP is a private matter and it is up to parents to judge the necessity of Chinese

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language maintenance, as discussed in Section 7.1.1. Therefore, the action-oriented approach that the present thesis adopts may not have a direct impact on families that choose language shift. Instead, it showcases the complexities and possibilities of language maintenance.

7.1.3 Living as Australian-born Chinese: Research Question 3 revisited

The present study pays special attention to how children actually experience multilingualism in the concrete ways that challenges and coping strategies are encountered (Zhu Hua & Li Wei, 2016a). Particularly, Research Question 3 addresses this issue—‘multilingualism as experienced’. The study finds that Chinese Australian children’s multilingual experiences are multidimensional, and they involve children’s ideological and practical interaction with the community language maintenance discourse, multilingual and multicultural practices and multilingual encounters in the extended household, CLS, mainstream school and other social spheres. These experiences highlight

Chinese Australian children’s complex identity process that requires them to navigate between the two broad cultural paradigms.

7.1.3.1 Negative community language learning attitudes: Discussion of Finding 3

Chinese Australian children have generally demonstrated a negative attitude towards community language learning, which is not surprising based on the review of the literature (e.g., Li Wei, 2011) and the researcher’s field observations. However, the nuances in the process of their language attitude development are worthy of attention. It is worthwhile pointing out that the prevailing ‘mainstream’ ideology about Chinese learning and study in Australia significantly misunderstands the reality of the struggle of

Chinese Australian children, instead assuming an imagined monolithic practice in which

Chinese language maintenance poses difficulties for English-speaking learners of

Chinese in VCE and other competitive situations.

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This study finds that attitudes to CLSs and to Mandarin learning are not congruent with each other. That is, attending a CLS and learning Mandarin can be considered two separate events from children’s perspective. The former is a critical and even desirable social event for children, whereas the latter is a normalised educational practice. In short, young children may like to go to the CLS to socialise with their friends, but they may dislike learning the community language. The conscious negative language attitude to

Mandarin learning starts developing along with children’s engagement with their

Australian mainstream schooling. The following factors were identified to explain this dislike.

First, the linguistic nature of Chinese language and character-based writing system pose a great challenge (Olmanson & Liu, 2017) for children. Second, a readily accessible Mandarin-speaking ‘language environment’ is lacking (Curdt-Christiansen,

2013a, 2014, 2015) for regional Chinese language-speaking families despite the fact that

Mandarin is labelled a ‘community’ language. Moreover, in practice, Mandarin is taught as a subject that situates it between ‘community’ and ‘foreign’ language in TCS for children from regional Chinese-speaking backgrounds. Thus, learning Mandarin becomes more challenging. Third, TCS takes up children’s weekend time, although from parents’ and TCS educators’ perspective TCS does not have adequate teaching hours. Further, a long-term commitment is expected from students (e.g., from preschool to Grade 12) to the weekend schooling and associated FLP. Fourth, conventional Chinese teaching and learning styles in TCS do not attract children’s interest (see also Li Wei, 2011).

These factors constitute a Mandarin learning ecology in TCS which poses challenges to Chinese Australian children’s beliefs regarding desirable school experiences that are heavily formed by their mainstream schooling. Consequently, negative attitudes towards TCS and Mandarin learning emerge.

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Under the circumstance, as discussed in Section 4.3, parents have attempted to utilise ideological discourses rooted in the traditional and contemporary Chinese cultures to manage children’s negative community language learning attitudes and behaviours.

Although children possess much less power when dealing with such practices of parents, they are able to selectively interact with the Chinese ideological discourses, to engage with the language learning in a half-hearted way, or to occasionally demonstrate various other forms of rebellion; as a result, parents may be able to adjust their language policy.

Briefly, Chinese Australian children’s experiences of learning Mandarin are accompanied by complex processes of negotiation, rejection and compromise between parents and children.

7.1.3.2 Being Chinese and Australian, cultural practices and classroom experiences: Discussion of Finding 9

As discussed, Chinese Australian children may not interact at all with the formal community language maintenance discourse because of a parent-initiated language planning decision. However, living as Australian-born Chinese children, they are constantly participating in the discourse about race, ethnicity, language and culture in the

Chinese diaspora and mainstream Australian contexts.

The findings suggest that Chinese Australian children from a young age display sensitivity towards ethnic stereotypes of what is proper behaviour, such as being identified as an ethnic Chinese person who must, therefore, because of their physical appearance be a proficient speaker of Mandarin. This sensitivity extends to perceived differences from Anglo-Australian children and adults. As seen in the cases of Evelyn

(four years old) and her elder sister Sophia (when she was also four years old) (Sections

6.2.2.1 and 6.2.2.3), children’s early awareness of the lived dynamics of ethnicity, race and language creates ethnic and racial boundaries and identity alignment and affects their

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language behaviours (e.g., to speak Chinese to other children or educators of the similar background) and associated early learning experiences.

As reviewed in Antonini’s (2016) work, transnational young people experience a series of emotional crises before they completely adapt to a new educational setting.

Likewise, Australian-born Chinese children’s initial involvement in child care includes the challenges caused by change of educational settings (i.e., from home to mainstream schooling) and change of language exposure (i.e., from home language to English). This study shows that the home language of young children from a linguistic minority can be used to facilitate their mainstream schooling transition if early childhood educators are from a similar linguistic and cultural background and make efforts to provide children a more enjoyable educational transition. Meanwhile, this study finds that the utilisation of home language in mainstream schooling does not serve the community language maintenance purpose; instead, it functions as a stimulus to shifting to English language dominance.

When children are growing up, as shown in Luke’s (16 years old, Grade 11) case, they are able to develop an unambiguous set of determinants that they use to describe their identity: the birth country and ethnic and racial backgrounds. In addition, the finding suggests that legal citizenship, which Generation 1 holds in high regard, does not play a major role in Australian-born children’s process of identity self-recognition and categorisation of others.

Particularly, Chinese Australian children have displayed a high degree of syncretism in relation to their identities. In the present study, they have been shown as

Chinese, Australian, Wuxinese or Malaysian or various combinations of these categorisations, such as Chinese Australian, Wuxinese Chinese, Malaysian Chinese and

Malaysian Chinese Australian. These identities are constructed according to a broad range of criteria and situational variables such as regional Chinese language competence,

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Mandarin competence and connections with home country, personalities and cultural practices involved in children’s day-to-day life.

Chinese Australian children’s connection with the home country is primarily the connection with the specific place of origin of their parents. One finding of this study is that ‘food preference’, ‘family bonds’ and ‘return trips’ are the most salient indicators of this connection. Moreover, the interactions among these three elements enhance Chinese

Australian children’s connection with the place of origin and, then, the home country, and eventually contribute to the formation of a wider Chinese identity.

Further, Chinese Australian children’s Chinese identity, or ‘Chineseness’, a product of socialisation within the family and the Chinese community, is also reflected through their understanding of, and engagement with and responses to, Chinese cultural values (e.g., traditional virtues including family values and saving ‘face’) and cultural practices (e.g., general Chinese lifestyle including eating habits, Chinese television viewing and the ritual of naming). Meanwhile, the children’s ‘Australianness’ is embedded in their lived experiences as Chinese. It should be pointed out that identity categorisation—so-called Chineseness and Australianness—is constructed through processes that draw on some level of racial and cultural stereotypes which assume a fixed ethnic and cultural authenticity. This stance needs careful consideration in the context of super-diversity and transnationalism. In real life, the Chinese and Australian identities are merged seemingly harmoniously and even unnoticed in Chinese Australian children’s multicultural being and living until triggered by direct experiences that provoke ‘who are you’, ‘where are you from’ or ‘where are you really from’ (e.g., see Zhu Hua & Li Wei,

2016b) type of challenges.

In the present study, the findings suggest that both the CLS classroom and mainstream classroom and school are sites where Chinese Australian children’s identities are positioned and questioned. The diversified identity positioning is shaped by Chinese

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ethnic identity discourse regarding cultural and ethnic roots and physical appearances, as well as racial and ethnic stereotypes and generalisation, and public events as covered in mainstream media on the general ideological and political relations between China and

Australia. Dynamic transnational identities are hardly acknowledged, legitimised or appreciated in the public sphere where the ideology of ethnic and racial authenticity prevails. Under this circumstance, children either challenge and negotiate such positioning or produce powerless responses that directly contribute to unpleasant school experiences, while parents remain powerful socialisation agents who provide children with attempted coping strategies (e.g., national pride approach), although they themselves have also demonstrated similar powerless attitudes against the racial discourse.

7.2 Implications: Towards a Framework for Informed Multiglossic

FLP and Enhanced Multilingual Experiences

Based on its findings and the above discussion, the present study proposes a framework for informed multiglossic FLP and enhanced multilingual experience that contributes to both the field of FLP and the evolution of a more communicatively aware

Chinese Australian community. A visualisation of the framework is presented in Figure

7.1 which contains five interrelated identity-oriented aspects (shown in red): language, family and community experiences, mainstream schooling experiences, ethnicity, and cultural practices. This framework is discussed below.

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Community

Language Planning Mandarin Mainstream School Language English Planning

Family

Language Regional language

Planning

Language

Family and Mainstream Community Schooling Experience Identity Experience

Cultural

Practices Ethnicity

Figure 7.1. A framework for informed multiglossia and enhanced multilingual experience.

7.2.1 Develop informed multiglossic FLP

Language plays a fundamental part in Chinese Australian children’s life, and children’s language abilities have reflected their unique multilingual experiences either through naturalised multilingual living or language planning in the community (CLP), home (FLP) and mainstream schooling. All these efforts have contributed to the formation of children’s linguistic repertoires. By emphasising ‘informed’ multiglossia or multiglossic FLP, this thesis argues that parents and community and mainstream

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educators responsible for children’s language development should be consciously aware of the potential result of their language planning practices and make more informed choices. The term ‘multiglossia’ is developed from ‘diglossia’, which was introduced by

Ferguson (1959) to refer to the long-term coexistence of two varieties of the same language, and further extended by Fishman (1972) to cross-language situations.

According to Ferguson (1959, p. 336):

DIGLOSSIA is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) super-posed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or in another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any sector of the community for ordinary conversation.

In particular, as briefly mentioned in Section 5.4.3, the super-posed variety is labelled the H form and the regional variety is labelled the L form (Ferguson, 1959, p.

327). The concept of multiglossia legitimises the inclusion of multiple languages (e.g.,

English, Chinese and other languages that children may learn) and multiple varieties of

Chinese language—for example, pluricentric standardised Mandarin (Clyne, 1991b) and regional Chinese varieties (Norman, 1988)—when discussing the abilities and distribution of abilities of languages that Chinese Australian children have and will have.

Chinese language planning for Chinese Australian children, as shown in the upper part of Figure 7.1, is a joint effort of the community and family, while mainstream schooling language planning produces the essential driving force for language shift towards English from children’s home and community languages.

The goal or aspiration of Chinese language planning should be for Chinese

Australian children to be multiglossic—Children need to be able to organise multiple language abilities according to the functions of the different languages in their lives and in the societal domains the children inhabit and to which they will be oriented as adults.

This was what Ferguson (1959) called ‘functional specialisation’ to address different

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functions of different varieties of the same language, whereas the current study uses this term to indicate multiple languages.

In the case of Standard Mandarin (H) and regional Chinese language (L), parents should be aware of the fact that if the family does not create a space and a specific function for the regional language, it will not be maintained in the long term. For example, in the

Guo family, the children lack sufficient space to develop the regional language and the grandparent–children relationship is negatively affected (see Section 5.2.2). Conversely, in the Li family, Wuxinese-mediated interactions are performed during the family’s dinnertime, and in the Tan family, Teochew along with other Malaysian languages are present in Luke’s written language production. These language practices conform to the

L domain (e.g., David’s dinner table talk; see Section 6.1.2.1) and even the H domain

(e.g., Luke’s essay; see Section 6.3.2.2) in the early literature on diglossia and constitute powerful and linguistically exclusive spaces for regional Chinese and/or Malaysian languages. In the Fergusonian ideal of diglossia, what is depicted is stable coexistence of varieties because their functional specialisation protects L forms from infiltration by H forms.

Children’s natural acquisition of regional language and/or non-Chinese language in the Li and Tan households should not be taken for granted, because if the regional language is not supported actively and consistently it may decrease. Especially for regional languages, the study finds that parents tend to make a choice without understanding that it will have language and identity consequences for children.

In the case of English (H) and Mandarin (L), Mandarin can be supported by creating learning space through CLP and FLP, including watching Chinese language television programmes, as seen in the Li family’s bilingual television viewing practice.

Therefore, if Chinese Australian parents decide to maintain the Chinese language in Australia, they need to consider the potential function that their regional language and

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Mandarin play. To recall here, as stated consistently throughout the entire thesis (e.g., see

Section 2.4.2.3, Finding 4 in Section 4.5 and Section 7.1.1), Chinese Australian children do not have to be ‘multiglossic’ or ‘multilingual’ or enter the space that will be discussed and encouraged, since it is a private family planning decision.

Creating a space for the exclusive or dominant presence for the regional language at home, with parents and extended family members, would increase the quality of intergenerational communication, family bonds and wellbeing (see Fillmore [2000] for a discussion of extreme cases of family relationship deterioration caused by language shift and loss). This is because children’s competence in a regional language that their parents and/or grandparents speak enables children to conserve certain communicative environments or moments in their family life in which family intimacy can be produced through regional language use. Because languages other than the regional variety will not be able to provide the same sense of intimacy, this practice is likely to enhance multiglossic ability. In the case of four-year-old Evelyn, even though her regional language competence has reduced to the use of isolated Fuqingnese swearing expressions

(see Section 5.2.3), Fuqingnese remains associated with family intimacy, which qualifies her incomplete regional language ability as a significant symbolic and emotional asset within the intimacy processes of the Guo family. As long as the ‘opportunity’ for that intimacy exists—functional distribution of the regional language—it is more likely to enjoy the vitality to survive and maintain. In the Guo family, children’s extensive use of

Mandarin fulfils the family-bonding function between children and parents, but not between children and grandparents owing to the lack of Fuqingnese. Only by acquiring full competence can children fully participate in intergenerational communication and thus maximise the extended family bond. Additionally, children’s regional Chinese identity can be activated through the display of regional language competence, as seen in

David and James’s case (see Section 5.1.2). Conversely, engaging with Mandarin

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learning in the community setting would improve children’s ability to interact with a wider Chinese community and obtain access to a wide range of language and culture resources.

Being multiglossic does not mean a complete separation of multiple languages, or in other words, that only one language exists within one certain domain to perform a single function. Instead, in real life, multiglossia is enacted by speakers through their translanguaging practices. For example, as observed in David’s practice of Wuxinese- accented English combined with Wuxinese (see Section 6.1.2.1).

The term ‘translanguaging’ is derived from students’ diverse and fluid multilingual practices involving various modalities transcending languages (Canagarajah,

2013; Li Wei, 2015) and it has a strong connection with multilingual pedagogies (García

& Flores, 2012; García & Li Wei, 2014; Hornberger & Link, 2012), which is more bottom-up (i.e., from translanguaging practices to its conceptualisation). However, the thesis puts forward the term multiglossia here for increased focus on the planning process of multiple languages per se at the family and community spheres from the perspective of language maintenance, which is more top-down (i.e., from conceptualisation of multiglossia to its application in the form of specific language planning behaviours).

7.2.2 Improve the quality of multilingual being and living

As discussed in Section 7.1.3, Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences constitute dynamics of multidimensional experiences occurring in the local Chinese community and individual family, and mainstream society (see the lower part of Figure

7.1) among other public domains, for example, community and mainstream schools.

Within these experiences, language, ethnicity and cultural practices are critical elements affecting the family’s ultimate sense of wellbeing as transnationals. The present study has shown these experiences contain many challenges, as pointed out by Zhu Hua and Li Wei

(2016a, p. 665):

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[w]hilst we celebrate the benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism, we should avoid romanticising them, or seeing them as universally positive experiences. Bilingualism and multilingualism are a reality in contemporary society. They are also a challenge to us all.

As addressed in Section 1.1, the mainstream Australian public discourse tends to treat Chinese Australian children as a monolithic and homogeneous Chinese-speaking group. This discourse poses a challenge, not only to the Chinese Australian family that is maintaining their community language but to the sociolinguistic reality of Australia as a multilingual nation. CLP and FLP are being undertaken within this tension-filled context.

For young Chinese Australians to fully engage with multilingualism in Australia and improve the quality of ‘experienced multilingualism’, the Chinese community, including CLSs, Chinese families and mainstream schools, needs to establish and maintain an ongoing dialogue mechanism.

First, the Chinese population and Chinese Australian children’s complex backgrounds, experiences and connections with the Chinese culture, language and home countries need to be not only acknowledged but legitimised through the breakdown of cultural essentialism that prevails in the society. Mainstream schooling educators especially should assume the responsibility of initiating the de-essentialising practice through everyday teaching practices in the classroom. Chinese Australian children’s translingual and transcultural identities need to be recognised and their home language should not be considered an obstacle to their English acquisition. By achieving this, flexible bilingualism and multilingualism should replace separate bilingualism and multilingualism (Creese & Blackledge, 2011), which has a root in Australia’s

‘monolingual mindset’ (Hajek & Slaughter, 2014). Further, as García and Leiva (2014, p.

199) have shown in the US context, which is highly relevant to language ideological discourse in the Australian context, ‘the flexible use of linguistic resources’ is able to

‘resist the historical and cultural positionings of English monolingualism’, and flexible

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multilingualism is a matter of social justice for children from diverse linguistic backgrounds.

Second, children need to be encouraged to share their multilingual experiences and feelings; importantly, parents and children should be equipped with strategies and external support. Particularly, multilingual services from the community and the mainstream needs to be made available to them in relation with learning to deal with stressful multilingual experiences. In addition, classroom teachers and educators of both

CLSs and mainstream schools should enhance their intercultural competence and corresponding handling of culturally sensitive issues that might have an impact on young children.

7.3 Reflections, Limitations and Possibilities

This section concludes the thesis with reflections on the study in general, its limitations and possibilities for further LPP and multilingual studies.

As noted in Section 1.4, following the completion of my Master’s in TCFL in

England, I commenced my PhD study with a great passion towards understanding the life of Australian-born Chinese children and their families. The process of pursuing this degree is a journey of attempting to understand LPP theories in the context of homes and communities. LPP has proved to be a useful conceptual tool to approach Chinese

Australian multilingual family experiences. At the same time, I acknowledge the following limitations that further research should address and transcend.

Methodologically, the fieldwork in TCS provided a precious opportunity to enter the life of some Australian-born Chinese children and their families. Conversely, the

‘field’ is far more challenging and complex than I expected. First, although I know these families quite well, I did not obtain home access to the participating families, thus, I observed their family interactions in the school setting to compensate (see Section 3.4).

Second, had I known the regional Chinese languages the participating families spoke, I

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could have had much deeper understanding of the data. Third, the sample size of the present study is small and conclusions are drawn from limited data sources; thus, I tended to work with these participants for quite an extended period to obtain more detailed data and nuanced information to address the research questions. Fourth, the data quantity produced by children was limited, and in the field I always had the feeling that a ‘gap’ existed between the participating children and me. Retrospectively, research techniques regarding working with children need to be incorporated into research training.

Conceptually, mainly FLP theories are utilised in the present study owing to its specific theoretical orientation; however, further studies could benefit from including theoretical frameworks such as language socialisation (Ochs & Schieffelin, 2001) and a more extensive engagement with translanguaging theory (García & Li Wei, 2014) to pay more attention to the multilingual and multicultural socialisation processes and children’s transformative language practices respectively. Additionally, the present study has tended to focus more on the multilingual reality, rather than its pedagogical implications (e.g.,

García & Flores, 2012). Therefore, future research could enrich the FLP field by incorporating more diversified research methods (e.g., quantitative or mixed methods design) and an extensive array of research participants (e.g., participants from Chinese- speaking societies other than China) and adopting a more interdisciplinary theoretical perspective.

This thesis has presented Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences through stories of three individual Chinese families and one Chinese CLS in Melbourne,

Australia. The family stories are historically and presently part of the local and wider day- to-day living of Chinese transnationals. The stories told in this thesis were essentially about language attitudes, linguistic practices and identities, in which struggles, tensions and inequalities consistently perpetuate. Through this work, I wish to present to the reader that Chinese Australian families and Chinese Australian children are active contributors

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to the entire Australian story of multicultural social development. Despite rather reductive and stereotypical descriptions of them in mainstream media, Chinese Australian children’s lives are those of ordinary Australian children, and characterised by the dynamics of transnational mobility and connectivity that typifies contemporary life.

Debates and public policy about language education and formal government language policy would greatly benefit by having a more nuanced and subtle understanding of the dynamics of these children’s and their families’ communicative lives. Their life is as complex and exciting as that of everyone else, and they need to be heard. Importantly, these lived experiences may not be the same as people have assumed.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Plain Language Statement Sample

School Leader Plain Language Statement

Chinese Australian Multilingual Family Experiences

Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne

Dear School Leader,

I would like to invite you to participate in a research project, entitled Chinese Australian

Multilingual Family Experiences. I am undertaking this research for my PhD degree in

Education at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne.

Why are we performing this research?

The aim of this project is to understand the situation of Chinese language education from a language policy and family language policy point of view. In other words, this research tries to answer a question: How do Chinese Australian families experience multilingualism in the Chinese weekend school, the classrooms and their homes? I believe that policies have various forms, for example, policies can be texts, language attitudes and behaviours. Since you are School Leader of the Chinese language school that I would like to research, your participation in this project would contribute to the understanding of Chinese Australian family multilingual experiences in the CLS setting.

Please note that this research does not aim to change the current style of school management, the quality of teaching or student learning experience in the school. Further, it is in no way related to any assessment or evaluation within TCS or other bodies to which the school belongs.

What will you be asked to do?

Should you agree to participate in the project, you are invited to contribute in the following ways:

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• Through 12 months, we would like to invite you to participate in a few one-to-one interviews with the student researcher and/or group interviews with other staff members of the Chinese weekend school. In the interviews, we will be interested in learning about your experiences and attitudes about Chinese education in Australia as well as the Chinese weekend school at which you work. Each interview would last approximately one hour. All interviews will be audio- recorded so that the student researcher can maintain an accurate record. We can arrange interviews at a time mutually convenient to you and the student researcher.

• We would like to observe and take notes about your typical routine (normal practice) at your workplace and in the Chinese community. Since we are interested in your normal practice during work and in the Chinese community, we will ensure that the presence of the student researcher is as unobtrusive as possible, and we will not request you to do anything other than what you would normally do at your workplace and in the Chinese community. However, natural conversations between you and the student researcher may occur during his observation, and the student researcher will not generate such conversations until he believes that doing so would not interrupt your work.

• We would like to request permission to participate in, and observe, the activities that you coordinate of the Chinese school and the Chinese community, such as staff meetings, teacher–parent meetings and language- and culture-related events. This would help us to better understand Australia’s Chinese community from various perspectives.

• We would like to request you to provide us copies of printed materials (e.g., school policies, teacher reports and student assignments) that would, in your opinion, help us better understand the Chinese community, the Chinese school or language policy and multilingual experience-related issues.

• We would like you to assist us in identifying potential student participants. The student researcher will finally select three students as focus participants.

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• We request you to give us your consent for classroom observations of focus students as well as audio-recording of teacher–student classroom interactions.

Are there any risks involved in the project?

There are very few potential risks to you because most of the data collection will be of naturally occurring interactions. In addition, most other forms of data are readily available materials and therefore would not cause you to experience any form of negative emotions.

However, at any stage, if you feel uncomfortable or upset on participating in the research, you will be able to withdraw if you so desire, without any repercussions.

It is worth noting that the student researcher’s supervisors have thoroughly vetted interview questions and discussion topics. Moreover, the supervisors and ethics organisations will be consulted throughout the research period to minimise potential risks.

How will your confidentiality be protected?

The student researcher has obtained approval for this research from the Human Research

Ethics Committee at the University of Melbourne. Your anonymity and the confidentiality of your responses and of any other data related to you from the researcher’s fieldwork will be protected to the fullest possible extent, within the limits of the law. Your name and contact details will be stored in a password-protected computer file, separately from any other data that you provide. This information will only be linked to your responses, for example, to know the address to which the student researcher should send your interview transcript for checking, if necessary. In the final thesis, you will be referred to by a pseudonym. The student researcher will remove any references to personal information that might allow someone to guess your identity. However, because the number of participants to be involved in this project is small, it is possible that someone may still be able to identify you.

The research data will be stored securely at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education for five years from the date of publication of the thesis and then destroyed.

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How will you receive feedback?

A brief summary of the findings will be available to you once the thesis arising from this research is completed. The results are also likely to be reported through journal articles, book chapters and/or academic conferences.

Do you have to take part?

Your participation in this project is completely voluntary. Should you wish to withdraw at any stage, or to withdraw any unprocessed data that you have supplied, you are free to do so without prejudice.

What are the benefits of participating in the project?

The project provides you with opportunities to think about, and share, your experiences, perspectives and perceptions as an overseas Chinese individual, a School Leader as well as an advocator of overseas Chinese language education. This type of reflection would help you maximise your professional experience and development.

Where can you obtain further information?

I hope these conditions will reassure you of the security of taking part and that you will find it interesting and useful to consider the topic and discuss it with the student researcher.

Should you require any further information, or have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the thesis supervisors, Professor Joseph Lo Bianco (principal supervisor) at

[Email redacted] daytime phone contact: [phone number redacted] and/or Dr Yongyang

Wang (co-supervisor) at [Email redacted], [phone number redacted]. Dr Wang can speak

Mandarin Chinese. Should you have any concerns about the conduct of the project, you are welcome to contact the Manager, Human Research Ethics, The University of

Melbourne, phone: 83442073 or fax: 93476739.

How do you agree to participate?

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If you would like to participate in the project, please indicate that you have read and understood this information by signing the accompanying consent form. The student researcher will then contact you for further arrangements regarding the research.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Bo Hu (PhD candidate), Professor Joseph Lo Bianco (Principal Supervisor) and Dr

Yongyang (Catherine) Wang (Co-supervisor)

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Appendix 2: Consent Form Sample

Parent Consent Form

Chinese Australian Multilingual Family Experiences

Name of participant:

Name of investigators: Mr Bo Hu, Professor Joseph Lo Bianco and Dr Yongyang Wang

I have read and understood the information about this research project provided by Bo

Hu from the University of Melbourne. A written copy of the information has been given to me to keep.

I have been informed that:

• This project is only for the purpose of research. • My participation in this project is completely voluntary. It is in no way related to any assessment or evaluation within the Chinese school or other bodies to which the school belongs. • I am free to withdraw my consent at any time during the study and to withdraw any unprocessed data previously supplied. • The confidentiality of the information that I supply will be protected subject to any legal requirements. • The student researcher will make every possible effort to reduce the possibility of me being identified, such as by ensuring my anonymity and using a pseudonym instead of my name in any publications arising from the research. However, I understand that since the number of participants involved in this project is small, it is possible that someone may still be able to identify me. • The student researcher will retain this consent form after I have signed it. • The results from this research will also be reported through journal articles, book chapters and/or academic conferences on language planning and Chinese language teaching.

I consent to:

• the student researcher’s monthly visit to my residence (approximately 12 times).

£ yes £ no (please tick)

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• participate in formal and informal one-to-one interviews/conversations with the researcher and in group discussions with other participating parents, which will be audio-recorded.

£ yes £ no (please tick)

• self-audio-record dinnertime interactions and other daily family interactions once a month.

£ yes £ no (please tick)

• suggest a family member as a co-researcher.

£ yes £ no (please tick)

• the student researcher’s monthly observation of my child’s language classroom interactions, which will be audio-recorded.

£ yes £ no (please tick)

• the student researcher’s collection of copies of my child’s Chinese schoolwork, such as homework, writing and examination papers.

£ yes £ no (please tick)

• the student researcher’s collection of copies of my child’s parent–teacher communication logs of the Chinese school.

£ yes £ no (please tick)

For my assistance in this research project, I would like to be acknowledged:

• by my name. £ yes £ no (please tick) • under a pseudonym. £ yes £ no (please tick) Do you have a preferred pseudonym? £ yes £ no (please tick)

If yes, please indicate the name:

If no, a pseudonym will be assigned by the student researcher in the final report.

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Signature of the participant:

Date:

Email:

Phone:

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Appendix 3: Interview Guideline Sample

Semi-Structured Interview Topics and Questions for Parents

Personal information

Tell me about yourself (e.g., age, years since immigration to Australia, professional experiences, educational experiences and language background)

About the Chinese school/school policies

Describe your typical weekday/weekend routine.

Tell me about your story with this school.

Do your children like going to the Chinese school?

What do you know about any of the school policies?

About students/student language/learning

Do you think they are more like Australian children or Chinese children?

How do you think they would identify themselves?

Do your children have a Chinese or English name? What is the meaning of the name?

Who named the children?

Why do your children learn Chinese?

Tell me about your children’s academic attainments.

What is the biggest challenge for your children in learning Chinese?

What are your expectations for your children’s future?

About English, Mandarin, varieties of Chinese and other languages

Some parents are worried that learning or even speaking Mandarin may slow down

English language learning, especially for newly arrived children. What is your opinion about this issue?

Do you think whether it is necessary to teach traditional Chinese characters?

Tell me about ‘standard Chinese’ and dialects of Chinese (e.g., Cantonese, Hakka and

Shanghainese).

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About teachers/teacher language/teaching

Do you know what and how your children are taught in the classroom? (e.g., teaching content, methods and instructional language)

What do you think teaching about Chinese culture should include? What do you expect your children to learn about ‘Chinese culture’ from the class?

Are you satisfied with the teaching? Why?

About relationship with China/other Chinese-speaking regions/relatives overseas

Do you have relatives in China or other Chinese-speaking regions?

About the Australian Government/context (macro-LPP)

Tell me about learning Chinese in Australia (including the status of English and Chinese and the role of the Chinese language in Australia).

What is the role of the Australian Government in Chinese language education?

About parents/home language practices

What is the role of parents in children’s Chinese language education?

Do you help your children with their Chinese learning?

Tell me about the use of language in your family (e.g., views on language varieties)

Do you have family rules?

Have you had different opinions from those of your spouse about how to raise children?

How did you solve the issue?

About day schools

What are the differences, similarities and relationships between day school and weekend school?

Do your children learn other languages at day school?

Does the Chinese school have an impact on their study at day school?

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Appendix 4: School Leader 1 Data

Chapter 4: Learning ‘Chinese’ in TCS

Section 4.1: Why was TCS Established?

Excerpt 1-SL1: ‘our future was left hanging in the balance’

Speaker Turn Utterances [SL1/INTW/02MAY15], Mandarin (S) (T) Bo 1 Could you recall the initial stage when establishing this school, and what you were thinking about—in terms of motivation? For example, you found your children’s Chinese ability declining or…could you briefly describe it? What motivated you to find a Chinese school? In terms of economic benefits, it’s really nothing…it’s a non-profit institute. What did you think about it? 您可以回忆一下学校创立之初噢, 您的这个想法是怎样的？就是动机。比如说看到自己的孩子, 比如中文能力退化, 或者是怎样, 您可以再简单的描述一下吗？是什么促使您去办一个中文学校？如果从经济角度来说的话确实也没有什么……完全是非营利的这么一种机构, 您是出于怎样的一种考虑？ SL1 2 Because that was a very special history. We came here after ‘June Fourth’; the people who came here around the time of ‘June Fourth’, at that time, our future was left hanging in the balance—we didn’t know whether we would stay in Australia or go back to China. 因为这是一段非常特殊的历史。我们“六四”以后来的, “六四” 前后来的这批人当时我们的前途未卜的, 我们不知道我们将来是留在澳洲呢, 还是我们将来要回中国。

Excerpt 2-SL1: ‘Going to their (early migrants’ or Taiwanese) schools is not suitable for our children.’

S T Utterances [SL1/INTW/02MAY15], Mandarin SL1 1 There were some local weekend Chinese schools when we arrived. They were founded by local early mainland Chinese or Taiwanese migrants. The schools were, first, the level was very low. [Bo: Right.] And that, some of them taught traditional characters, even Cantonese. [Bo: Right.] Going to their schools is not suitable for our children. [Bo: Ah, I see.] Not suitable, so we taught them by ourselves. [Bo: Right.] We taught them by ourselves, what set our school apart were Putonghua, simplified characters and Hanyu Pinyin. [Bo: Right.] Right? Because we were in line with the teaching of mainland China. [Bo: Right.]. But once we started to teach in this way, some of, especially those from Singapore, Malaysia, I felt very clearly [Bo: Yes?] Singaporean and Malaysian parents wanted to send their children to learn with us.

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我们来的时候, 当地有一些周末中文学校, 那是当地老华人办的, 或者是台湾人办的。他们一个呢, 就是他们的程度很低 [Bo: 对] 而且呢, 他们有的是教繁体字的, 甚至教广东话的 [Bo: 对] 我们的孩子到他们那儿去上学不适合 [Bo: 啊, 对] 不适合, 所以就我们自己教 [Bo: 对] 我们自己教, 所以我……我们的特点就是普通话、简体字、汉语拼音 [Bo: 对] 是吧？因为我们跟, 跟中国国内的, 大陆的教学是接轨的 [Bo: 对] 但是我们这么教起来以后, 有一些特别是新加坡、马来西亚, 我感觉很明显的 [Bo: 嗯？] 新加坡、马来西亚的这些家长就把,要求把他们的孩子送来跟我们一起学。 Bo 2 Right, gradually there were parents coming and making enquiries in our school? 对, 这时我们学校慢慢的就是有家长就来咨询？ SL1 3 Yeah, it didn’t take long before they sent children over since we started. [Bo: Oh.] [identifying information deleted] Parents said that the teachers were scholars from the mainland, and that their Chinese is very authentic. 对, 我们办了没多久就把孩子送来 [Bo: 噢] [identifying information deleted] 他们说他们是大陆来的学者, 他们的中文很正宗。

Section 4.4: To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese

Excerpt 3-SL1: ‘The more education parents receive, the more challenging children find it to learn the native ethnic language.’

S T Utterances [SL1/INTW/02MAY15], Mandarin SL1 1 The more education parents receive, the more challenging children find it to learn the native ethnic language. Why? Because at home you speak English with each other, native ethnic language isn’t passed down. 父母的教育程度越高, 孩子学习本民族语言的难度越大。它为什么呢？因为你们在家里是相互说英语, 把本民族的语言你们就没有传承下来。

Section 5.4: Regional Language vs Mandarin

Excerpt 4-SL1: ‘Nowadays Shanghai’s kids can’t speak Shanghainese, all speak Putonghua’

S T Utterances [SL1/INTW/02MAY15], Mandarin SL1 1 Nowadays Shanghai’s kids can’t speak Shanghainese, and all speak Putonghua, because they’re taught in Putonghua and have been since kindergarten. That’s why some people say Shanghainese has become a language that needs to be saved.

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现在上海的孩子不会说上海话, 都说普通话。因为他从幼儿园开始都是普通话教学, 所以他们说那个上海方言变成一门抢救性的语言了。 Bo 2 Yeah, you’re right, I think, the reason I’m interested in multilingualism is perhaps because I myself can’t speak my own dialect, I think, and because language is a valuable asset. 对, 真的, 我觉得, 我现在对多语制这些感兴趣, 可能是因为我自己是不会说自己的方言, 我就是觉得这个, 因为语言就是一个宝贵的财富。

Excerpt 5-SL1: ‘home language is used in a relatively enclosed, relatively enclosed environment, used within a family.’

S T Utterances [SL1/INTW/02MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 I found an interesting phenomenon among Chinese children here in Australia. For example, children who were born in China, let’s say, in Shanghai, they perhaps can’t speak Shanghainese [SL1: Correct]; however, our kids born here can probably speak Shanghainese. [SL1: Right.] Wuxi-born kids might not speak Wuxinese very well [SL1: Right] But Chinese kids here might speak Wuxinese very well. 我发现这边的孩子还有个蛮有意思的一个现象。就比如说在中国出生的孩子, 比如说上海出生的孩子吧, 他的上海话可能不怎么会说了 [SL1: 对] 但是咱们这边的孩子呢, 他反而会说上海话 [SL1: 对对对] 然后在无锡出生的孩子, 可能无锡话都说得不怎么好了 [SL1: 对对] 然后但是这边的华人孩子说无锡话, 反而是说得比较好。 SL1 2 Yes, yes, that’s why I told people who research linguistics that, I said community language and home language are the treasure house for linguistic studies. For instance, if you’d like to study 1930s Shanghainese language, you probably couldn’t get the resources in Shanghai. Because language is changing with the times, lack of such an environment, 1930s Shanghainese language, its intonations, pronunciations and vocabulary have disappeared. However, if you visit a Chinese community in San Francisco or Los Angeles nowadays, you might be able to find the existence of 1930s Shanghainese language. Because, because home language is used in a relatively closed communicative environment, it can be maintained. We have a 103-year-old lady living in our community, a 103-year-old, she told me, she fled to Malaya from Shanghai when Japanese were bombing Shanghai. Then, when the Japanese occupied Malaya, she came down here to Australia, and she’s been living in Australia for six or seven decades, right? [Bo: Right, right.] When I was talking with her in Shanghainese, I found that her Shanghainese was the 1930s’ Shanghainese, because she was in a relatively isolated environment, her mother tongue was preserved completely. It didn’t change with the times because it didn’t have the environment for the change, right? When you speak Shanghainese with her, you’ll find her pronunciation and intonation is the 1930s’ Shanghainese pronunciation and intonation.

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是的, 是的, 是, 所以我跟他们搞语言学研究的人我跟他们说, 我说那个社区语言和家庭语言是你们语言学研究的一个宝库。你比方说你现在要研究 30 年代的上海话, 你到上海去你可能没有这样, 这方面的资源。因为语言是与时俱进的, 没有这样一个环境以后, 30 年代的上海话, 它的语调、语音、用词都已经消失了。可是你到旧金山、洛杉矶,你去, 到一个华人社区里边, 你也许能找到。因为, 因为他的家庭用语, 在一个相对封闭的交流环境里边, 他的这个语言就保存下来了。我们这里有一个老太太 103 岁。诶, 103 岁的老太太, 她跟我说, 她是 30 年代日本人轰炸上, 炸上海的时候, 从上海逃到马来西亚的。然后日本人占领马来西亚的时候, 她又从马来西亚跑到了澳洲, 在澳洲生活了有六, 六, 也六七十年了对吧？[Bo: 对对对] 那么她, 现在我跟她用上海话跟她交流的时候, 我就发现她说的上海话是 30 年代的上海话, 因为她一个相对隔离的一个环境, 使她的原来的, 呃, 母语相对地保存下来了, 她没有与时俱进, 因为没有一个与时俱进的环境了.对吧？啊, 你跟她说, 你跟她说上海话的时候, 你会发现她的语音和语调是 30 年代上海话的语音、语调。 Bo 3 Which means another Shanghainese lady of her age in Shanghai would speak Shanghainese differently? 噢, 那就是说, 意思是不是就说跟她同样年纪的一个上海老太太, 如果她在上海的话, 她说话可能就不是一样的？ SL1 4 Of course, different, isn’t it? Of course, different. You go and find an 80- or 90-year-old lady in Shanghai, and you speak Shanghainese with her, her Shanghainese will be the ‘then and there’ Shanghainese, not the 1930s Shanghainese. 肯定不一样, 对吧？肯定不一样的。你到上海去找一个八九十岁的一个老太太, 你就跟她说上海话, 她说的是 ‘现时现地’ 的上海话, 而不会是 30 年代的上海话。 Bo 5 Oh, I see, that was a complete…a very special communicative environment. 哦, 对, 她那时候很完整的一个…很特殊的一个交流环境。 SL1 6 Right, that’s why I would say home language is used in a relatively enclosed, relatively enclosed environment, used within a family. It isn’t used in the wider society, is it? As a result, the vocabulary, the pronunciation and the intonation are maintained. 对, 我就说家庭语言是一个相对封闭的, 相对封闭的一个语言, 家里交流的时候用。它在社会上不交流的。对吧？所以它的词汇就保留下来了, 她的语音和语调也保留下来。

Excerpt 6-SL1: ‘they’ll feel a bit awkward’

S T Utterances [SL1/INTW/02MAY15], Mandarin SL1 1 I always hope that, because young parents nowadays normally can speak Mandarin, I told them that, don’t speak dialect to children, speak Mandarin, it’s much better for children. [Bo: To learn Mandarin?] Yes,

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it’s much better for children, by doing so, for some parents, some parents’ Mandarin is not very good [Bo: Right] Like, a couple has always been talking to each other in dialect, and all of sudden, if they start speaking Mandarin with each other, they’ll feel a bit awkward [Bo: Right] But for the sake of children, speaking Mandarin at home is good for kids to learn Mandarin. 我总是希望, 因为一般现在的年轻父母都会说普通话, 我说你在家里不要跟孩子说方言, 说普通话, 那会对孩子更有利 [Bo: 就是他学普通话有利?] 对对, 对孩子会更有利, 这样的话当然呃, 对, 对有些家长来说可能有些家长普通话说得不是很好 [Bo: 对] 对, 两口子本来都是用方言交流的, 突然为了孩子他们俩改成用普通话交流, 会觉得有点别扭 [Bo：对] 是吧？但是, 但是你为了孩子, 可能用普通话交流对孩子学习普通话会更有利些。

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Appendix 5: School Leader 2 Data

Chapter 4: Learning ‘Chinese’ in TCS

Section 4.4: To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese

Excerpt 1-SL2: ‘you can hardly have deep and substantial conversations’

S T Utterances [SL2/INTW/20MAY15], Mandarin SL2 1 Although they think that they are foreigners [i.e., Australians] or even Bananas, they don’t have real foreign [i.e., Australian] friends. You can ask them [i.e., Australians] to come out for dinner, but you can hardly have deep and substantial conversations. Can you talk about AFL players, and something like, their affairs? No, you can’t. Do you think you will become friends if you watch a few Hollywood blockbusters with Australians? Not really. [Bo: What do you think the problem is?] Only the second or third generation would be able to do it. 他虽然自己觉得是洋人, 甚至于像香蕉人, 他没有老外朋友圈的。你请他们吃饭他们来, 你没办法和他们坐下来能够谈得深的。你能跟他们讲 AFL 球星, 那个这些球星的那个绯闻啊什么的那种, 你讲得出吗？讲不出的。你以为你自己看了几个好莱坞大片, 你就好像跟他们一聊就是朋友了, 不是的 [Bo:你觉得这个问题还是在于那个什么地方?] 只有第二、第三代的人来才可能跟他们再有那个。

Excerpt 2-SL2: ‘the language that can fully express myself is still Chinese’

S T Utterances [SL2/INTW/20MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 In terms of learning Chinese, what’s the purpose of parents taking children here to learn Chinese? Is Chinese useful or how useful the language is? 您说学中文, 父母把孩子送来学中文的目的是什么呢？是说中文有用还是怎么个有用法？ SL2 2 As a parent myself, I didn’t think about any profound reasons; [Bo: Yeah] People like me, the language that can fully express myself is still Chinese [Bo: Right], which means no matter how good your English is, it fails to convey the meaning [Bo: Yeah] Or you just copy the way how they [native speakers] use English [Bo: Oh, right] Unless you were born here (in Australia), and went to school here [Bo: Yeah, right] Unless you don’t think in Chinese [Bo: Yeah] like, if they [Australians] read some funny things in the newspaper, they’ll giggle. [Bo: Yes.] Tell you straight out I wouldn’t find it that funny [Bo: Right] But when I hear a Chinese joke, I’ll burst into laughter, that’s the difference. 以我自己作为一个父母来讲呢, 我倒没有想到很远大 [Bo：嗯] 就觉得像我们这种, 这种人啊, 就是好像最能够表达自己那个意思的, 还是中文 [Bo：对] 就是英文你哪怕好, 也是词不达意 [Bo：嗯] 或者就是

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你照这样子来用人家的英文 [Bo：嗯, 对] 除非你是这边出生, 然后呢这边在那个小学中学这么长大 [Bo：嗯, 对] 就你的思维模式, 没有中国人这种思维模式的 [Bo：嗯] 好, 他看报纸他就会看这个报纸里边的, 里边的幽默笑话, 看得哈哈哈哈笑的 [Bo：嗯, 对] 而我可以跟你直说, 我看上去我还觉得没怎么觉得可笑 [Bo：对对对] 我可能看一个中文的幽默什么那个笑起来了 [Bo：嗯, 对] 差别就在这个地方。 Bo 3 Right, you think that Chinese is the language that can help you most fully express your feelings? 对, 您就觉得是中文是最能表达您内心感受的一种语言？ SL2 4 Yes, and that’s why I hope my children can still communicate with me in the future; [identifying information deleted] of course, we have a lot of relatives in China, and I hope that they can communicate with each other, right? [Bo: Right.] They can speak to their grandparents only in Chinese; otherwise, they won’t have any communication. 对对对, 对于我们来讲, 所以希望孩子能够将来跟你有这个交流。 [identifying information deleted] 当然你也有很多那个亲属关系在中国, 希望他们能够有沟通对吧？[Bo：对] 那他只能去跟他们, 他爷爷、奶奶, 他外公、外婆必须跟他讲中文嘛, 他讲不来他们就没交流啦。 Bo 5 Right, by ‘Chinese’, you mean Mandarin? [SL2: Right, we only speak Mandarin to the kids.] You only speak Mandarin to them [identifying information deleted]. 对, 你说的“中文”就是普通话噢 [SL2：对对, 我们只跟他们讲普通话] 你们只跟他们讲普通话 [identifying information deleted] SL2 6 I don’t agree with the idea of ‘learning Chinese can help you find a good job in the future’ and we shouldn’t push this sort of big idea; [Bo: Yeah] Also we can’t say that [Bo: Right] Because, everything you do, this tell us what? When you are too utilitarian, you are setting up a barrier against yourself. [Bo: Right.] You tell them that learning Chinese is for future employment, so you mean if their Chinese is not good, they won’t find a job? This is not logical [Bo: Right] Right? [Bo: Yeah.] Learning Chinese just means it opens a door for you; it just gives you another option, right? [Bo: Right.] 我不会认为就是说 “噢, 你学好中文以后找好工作什么的”, 这种大道理是不应该讲 [Bo：嗯] 也不能讲的 [Bo：对] 因为你做任何的就是什么意思呢？就是做任何事情, 当你目的性太明确了, 你也自己跟自己设置了障碍 [Bo：嗯] 你说你这个是为了以后找工作, 那他中文真得学不好了, 他以后就找不到工作啦？这个逻辑上推理也不成立的 [Bo：对对对] 对吧? [Bo：嗯] 意思是说给你一扇门了, 给你一条路了, 对吧？[Bo：对]

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Chapter 5: Speaking Regional Languages and/or Mandarin at Home

Section 5.4: Regional Language vs Mandarin

Excerpt 3-SL2: ‘Shanghai-style culture has lost its unique features’

S T Utterances [SL2/INTW/20MAY15], Mandarin SL2 1 When I went back (to Shanghai), I found that my niece couldn’t speak Shanghainese, and also a whole bunch of regional features are lost in today’s Shanghainese; they should have maintained it, for only then can Chinese language be enriched. They are now starting to save Shanghainese. To be honest, originally, when Shanghai was aimed to be built as an international metropolis, Shanghainese was abandoned, and people only spoke Putonghua and English [Bo: Oh, right, Putonghua and English] Alright, Shanghai-style culture has lost its unique features [Bo: Right, now they are starting to save it] Because humour in Shanghainese is lost when translated to Putonghua. 我回去我的侄女都不会说上海话了。然后现在的上海话语里边的很多地方特征的东西都没啦。应该保留这样, 这样才丰富了中文。他们现在开始抢救上海话了。说实话, 当初上海要打造国际大都市, 上海话不讲了, 就讲普通话, 讲英语。[Bo：噢, 对, 普通话和英语] 好啦, 海派文化的特色就没有了。[ Bo：噢, 对, 现在开始抢救了] 因为你很多上海话表达出来的幽默的东西到了普通话里边没有了。

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Appendix 6: The Li Family Data

Chapter 4: Learning ‘Chinese’ in TCS

Section 4.2: Which Chinese Language Should Your Children Learn?

Excerpt 1-F1: ‘Mandarin is serious and formal’

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 When we say the term ‘Chinese language’, I want to ask you, when you hear the terms ‘Chinese language’, what’s on your mind? {no responses} For example, Chinese language has many types, right? [Li: Yeah.] Chinese language has very different types of dialects. 说到 “中文” 这个词, 我想问您, 提到 “中文” 这个词, 您想到的是什么? {无反应} 比如说 “中文”有很多种, 对吧? [Li：嗯] 中文有很多不同的方言。 Li 2 So many dialects. 方言太多了。 Bo 3 Right, including Mandarin and Cantonese. For instance, if you’d like your children to learn Chinese, what kind of Chinese? 对, 包括普通话, 广东话, 等等不同的. 比如你让孩子学中文, 是要学怎样的一种中文? Li 4 Mandarin, that’s for sure. [Bo: Yeah, Mandarin, right?] Mandarin is serious and formal, I believe that, Chinese language, the most, most standard, the norms, in terms of speaking, should follow that of news presenters of China Central Television, that’s the most standard and the best. In terms of writing, People’s Daily is the most standard, the best, and its use of words is the most standard [Bo: The use of words] Also, sentences are the most standard. Because People’s Daily represents a country, it’s a national media and its use of language is tasteful. 普通话, 那是肯定的 [Bo: 嗯, 普通话, 是吧? ] 普通话是“正儿八经”的, 我的主张就是说, 中文, 最最规范的, 这个规范呢, 从口语来讲, 应该的话跟着中央电视台的那些播音员, 去听, 去讲. 这是最规范的, 最好的. 那从文字上来讲, 我们《人民日报》是最规范, 最好的, 最标准的那个用词 [Bo: 用词] 还有那个语句啊, 就是最规范的。《人民日报》因为它是代表国家的, 它是国家的这么一个媒体啊, 所以它这个用语啊, 他都有讲究的。

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Excerpt 2-F1: ‘I don’t allow them to read those written in traditional characters’

(Chinese written language varieties: simplified characters and traditional characters)

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 We just talked about children reading books, do both of them like reading books, or? 那刚才说到两个孩子看书, 他们平时都喜欢看书是吧? 还是? Li 2 The oldest one likes more than the youngest does. 还是老大喜欢看。老二的话, 相对而言看得少一点。 Bo 3 Books that the oldest one reads, I mean the books that he chooses for himself, are they in Chinese or English? 那老大看的书, 主动看的书, 是中文的还是英文的? Li 4 He, of course, likes reading English books, not many Chinese ones. 他当然的话, 老大喜欢看英文的, 中文的看的不是很多。 Bo 5 Are there Chinese books in your house? 家里面有没有中文书呢? Li 6 Of course, there are, because many of my friends gave me many Chinese books, my writer friends also gave me a lot, but I don’t normally allow them to read those books, I don’t allow them to read those written in traditional characters. 书当然有了。因为的话, 像很多朋友都送过来很多中文书, 还有我一些作家朋友也送过来很多, 但这些书我一般不让他们看, 那些 “繁写体” 的我不让他们看。 Bo 7 What? 什么? Li 8 Written in traditional characters. “繁写的”。 Bo 9 Oh, traditional characters, right? 哦, 就是 “繁体字” 是吧? Li 10 Correct, I don’t allow them to read traditional characters. Why? Because traditional and simplified characters are separated in VCE Chinese exam. 对, 繁体字不让他们看。为什么呢? 因为他们维省考中文的话, 他那个繁体和简体的话, 是分开的。 Bo 11 Two separated exams? 是分开的两种考试? Li 12 You’ll lose points for mixing them up in exams, I’m not sure if it’s still the case, I’m not sure, but I mean I want them to master or consolidate simplified characters first, then take it slowly, they can learn traditional characters afterwards.

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如果说你混淆在一起用的话, 是要扣分的。我不知道现在扣不扣分了, 我也不太清楚, 但是我现在就是说让他们先学会或者是巩固好简体字, 然后再慢慢来, 这个繁体字以后再让他们自己...... Bo 13 Are traditional characters important? 你觉得繁体字重不重要? Li 14 I think somewhat important, because they contain a lot of information, very rich in information. [Bo: Information of?] Especially of character-formation methods, pictographic characters, phonograms, they are very rich in information. 我觉得也挺重要。因为的话, 里面有很多信息, 信息量很丰富的 [Bo: 哪方面的信息? ] 尤其是造字啊什么的, 还有象形字啊, 这些形声字啊, 这些东西里面信息量很多的。 Bo 15 That means you asked your children to focus on simplified characters mainly because that’s one of the exam requirements? 那您让孩子关注简体字主要还是因为考试的需求? Li 16 For now, because they were born here, I don’t want traditional characters to get into their heads and confuse them. 目前来讲, 因为他们毕竟的话出生在这儿, 我不想让繁体字进来的话, 搅乱他们的思维吧。 Bo 17 Right, you’re afraid they will mix them up? 对, 就怕他们混在一起用? Li 18 Yeah, but it doesn’t matter once they finish the exams. 对, 等以后不要紧, 等他们考完了以后就无所谓。

Section 4.3 Do You Like Learning Chinese?

Excerpt 3-F1: Mandarin learning attitudes

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Looking through this journey of learning Chinese, do you think they’ve been forced to learn, or themselves have some interest in learning, or something else? 从他们学习中文整个的过程来看, 你觉得他们是被迫的, 还是说自己也有点兴趣, 或者是怎样? Li 2 This, they were consciously and subconsciously, they didn’t know whether they were forced or something, once they turned school age, they were sent here and teachers started to teach them. At the very beginning, they just came here for fun. [Bo: Right, right, right.] Just like, like, a Kinder, a local kindergarten. [Bo: Oh, right, they, they actually had no idea.] They had no idea.

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这个, 他们是自觉和不自觉地, 他们也不知道是不是被迫或者怎么的, 就是到了这个年龄, 他们到了这边来了, 就老师教他一点。那么刚刚开始的时候嘛, 就是呃, 到这边来玩嘛就是 [Bo: 对对对] 就跟他在那个, 那个幼儿, 当地的幼儿园一样嘛 [Bo: 噢, 对, 那他, 他其实没有什么概念当时] 他没有什么概念。 Bo 3 Right. Have they had a stage that they didn’t want to learn, or didn’t want to go to the Chinese school? 对, 那个就是他们有没有就是到一个阶段以后, 他们就特别比如说特别不想学, 或者是怎样, 就不想来, 有没有这种阶段? Li 4 They didn’t say that they didn’t want, they actually did want to go to the school, but not to come here to learn, but to play. [Bo: Oh, they wanted to come here to play.] But once they’re here in this environment, they’ll learn something more or less, that’s it. 他们倒也并不是说, 他们不想, 他们呢就是想来, 他来呢并不是要来学, 他们想来玩玩就是 [Bo:哦, 想来玩一玩]嗯, 但是到了这种环境当中的话, 能够学一点就学一点, 就这样。

Excerpt 4-F1: Mandarin learning attitudes

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you think that your children like Chinese lessons? 您觉得这两个儿子他们喜欢上中文课吗? Li 2 In principle, they don’t like it when you ask them to go to class. [Bo: Yeah.] But through these two, two Seeking Roots Trips, they think that it’s worth learning Chinese. [Oh, really?] Why? Because once they’re in China, they can communicate with people in Chinese. [Bo: Right.] 嗯, 原则上呢, 叫他们上的时候呢他们不喜欢 [Bo: 嗯] 但是通过这两次哦, 这两次就是寻根之旅, 他们就觉得的话这个中文学得就是很值的 [噢, 是吗?] 为什么呢? 他们一到中国, 他就可以用中文可以跟人家直接交流了[Bo: 对] Li 3 This is the fun part, but they, themselves, also think that learning Chinese is quite painful. [Bo: Quite painful.] 这个是大家, 就是比较开心的方面, 但是呢他们, 自己的话也, 也觉得的话, 学这个中文还是挺苦的 [Bo: 还是挺苦的哦] Then, Mr Li explains how he tries to change the children’s language attitudes. See Excerpt 7-F1 (The management of children’s language attitudes) for the rest of this segment of conversation.

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Excerpt 5-F1: Mandarin learning attitudes

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV-1/21FEB15], English Bo 1 Do you like Chinese school? {David shaking head.} No. Why not? {no response} It’s too difficult? David 2 Boring. Bo 3 It’s boring. In your day school, your English class, is it more interesting? {David nodding.} Why it’s more interesting then? David 4 More fun. [Bo: More fun?] Yeah. [Bo: In terms of?] In class, and breaks. Bo 5 Yeah. Why is your English class more fun? {no response} Because of your classmates? {no response} Teachers? {David nodding.} Your teachers? [David: Yeah.] What do they do in the class? David 6 They are funny. [Bo: They are funny? Do you learn other languages in your school?] Yeah. [Bo: Which language?] I just started; I’m learning French. Bo 7 How about your French class? Is it interesting? {David nodding.} It’s interesting. That’s good.

Excerpt 6-F1: The management of children’s language attitudes

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Li 1 If you keep nagging, he would tell you what his day school classmates do when they reach home, they don’t even learn this language. 你如果说得太多, 他说你看我们, 你看看我们班里同学他们回去怎么样, 怎么样, 他们说人家都不学这种语言的。 Bo 2 Yeah, and how did you respond? 嗯, 那你怎么说? Li 3 I said ‘We are Chinese, ‘Chinese have Chinese traditions’, I said, ‘If you want to learn the good stuff of the Chinese, you must understand this language, this language is just a tool, but it helps you to understand, or to find some good stuff about Chinese people, some cultural stuff, throughout the history. Without the help of characters, you won’t be able to learn the good stuff of China, Chinese culture or Chinese civilisation’. [Bo: Right.] If you use English to express all of these, you possibly couldn’t explain them clearly. I told him that although my English is not good, he must learn Chinese well. 我说我们是中国人, 中国人有中国人的传统, 我说这个, 你要把中国人好的东西学了去, 你必须的话要学会这个语言, 这个语言的话, 只不过的话呢是个工具, 帮助你去理解, 或者说帮助你去发现中国人从古到今一些好的东西, 一些文化的东西。唉, 你如果学中国好的东西, 学中国的文化, 或者学中国的文明, 这些东西啊, 你离开了这个汉字, 你根本的话没办法学的 [Bo: 对] 你用英文的话去表述的话, 你可能有些东西表述不清的, 虽然说我的英文不好, 唉, 你必须要把中文学好。

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Bo 4 Did this work? 这样做的效果怎么样? Li 5 It doesn’t, it doesn’t actually work, but I still hope that, when time goes by, they could keep learning Chinese on a long-term basis, just like the persistent stream of water. For overseas Chinese kids, I think we shouldn’t be too demanding, if too demanding, they might decide not to learn Chinese any more. Does it make sense? [Bo: Right.] 就是效果, 效果不是特别, 不会有什么效果, 但是呢我希望呢, 随着这个时间的慢慢地那个吧, 希望他们能够细水长流, 要求呢, 对于海外出生的孩子呢, 我觉得的话要求的话也不能太高, 如果太高的话, 可能的话会受到那种反弹, 反而到时候一刺激的话可能他们不学了, 你明白? [Bo: 对] Li 6 So, I, I always hope to bring some fun stuff to their learning, including Chinese literature and art, something like that, Chinese crosstalk and sketch comedy. I ask them to watch, to entertain them; they might pick up something from their laughter, that’s it. 所以的话呢就是说我, 我总是希望呢, 把一些带有乐趣的, 带有兴趣的东西穿插在里面, 包括的话中国文艺啊, 什么这些, 这些还有的话, 相声啊, 一些小品啊, 让他们看看, 弄弄的, 让他们说说笑笑, 在说说笑笑当中能够学到一个两个, 就是这样。

Excerpt 7-F1: The management of children’s language attitudes

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Li 1 {Following Excerpt 4-F1} This is the fun part, but they, themselves, also think learning Chinese is quite painful. [Bo: Quite painful.] 这个是大家, 就是比较开心的方面, 但是呢他们, 自己的话也, 也觉得的话, 学这个中文还是挺苦的 [Bo: 还是挺苦的哦] Li 2 But I said this stuff, I told them, told them, I said that Chinese couldn’t be learned overnight; the process of learning should be just like the stream flowing slowly in the mountains—a small stream of water, not much water, but it is always there, always flowing continuously. I said you should learn from this. 但是我说这个东西, 我跟他讲, 跟他们讲, 我说学中文呢, 你不是一阵子, 一下子能学会的, 就像山里面的那个小溪一样的, 那个它那个溪, 那个小溪呢水不多, 但是的话它永远有水, 它永远在流淌, 我说那你就要学它那样。 Bo 3 You said this to them, how did they react to this? 你跟他们这样说, 他们有什么反应吗? Li 4 They didn’t say anything; I said, I said to them ‘You are always like that’. [Bo: Right.] Yeah, but anyway, this was how I learned Chinese. 他们也不吭声嘛, 我就, 我说,“你们就是这样”[Bo: 对] 唉, 反正的话, 我以前的话学中文的时候就是这样。

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Section 4.4: To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese

Excerpt 8-F1: ‘learning Chinese is about maintaining the roots of oneself, that’s it’

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 Mr Li, I’d like to introduce my research to you a bit more. I focus on attitudes about language learning, including, your sharing your experience. I’ll transcribe today’s recording when I get back and then analyse it. I’ll talk to you later just in case there’s some information that is not clear. [Li: Of course.] If possible, we could talk about it back and forth, make sure I can truly understand your children’s language learning process, including the cultural aspects. 李老师, 我再给您介绍一下我的研究, 我关注的是语言学习的态度看法, 包括分享你们的经验, 我回去会把今天的录音打字出来, 去进行一个理论上的分析。我还会和您进一步交流, 比如有一些信息我还没有明白 [Li: 可以啊] 方便的话, 咱们就这样反复的沟通, 确保我能真实地知道孩子们中文学习的, 包括整个文化方面的, 一个过程。 Li 2 Actually, learning Chinese is about maintaining the roots of oneself, that’s it. [Bo: You think the roots…] Because the culture is our ‘roots’; language is simply a ‘tool’, but you’ll have to make sure this ‘keeping roots project’ runs well, right? You’ll have to keep the language; without language, everything is just castles in the air. 其实呢, 学中文就是要保持自己的一个 “根” 嘛, 就是这个 [Bo: 您觉得这个 “根”...... ] 因为这个文化呢是我们的 “根”, 语言呢只不过是一个 “工具”, 但是你要把这个 “留根工程” 做好, 对不对? 你必须要有这个语言, 没有语言等于是, 这个等于是空谈。

Excerpt 9-F1: ‘as Chinese, you should understand Chinese, whatsoever, this is a must’

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 If there’s no VCE exam, do you still want them to learn Chinese? 如果没有中文考试, 你们还会让他们学中文么? Li 2 Of course, they should learn, we didn’t know VCE exam at all back then, didn’t know they had this exam, didn’t know, but we had a guiding thought: As Chinese, you should understand Chinese, whatsoever, this is a must. I hope my children don’t become real ‘Bananas’. [Bo: Bananas?] It means following White people and their culture, and loses our ‘roots’. 当然要学, 我们当时根本不知道 VCE 考试, 不知道有这个考试, 不知道的, 但是我们有个指导思想: 既然是中国人的话, 不管怎么样的话, 要会中文嘛, 这是你必须的。我不希望自己的孩子成为真正的 “香蕉人” [Bo: “香蕉人”?] 就是那个跟着白人学, 都是他们的文化, 然后把我们 “根” 的东西给丢了。

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Excerpt 10-F1: ‘whether or not parents would like their children to learn Chinese is the most important’

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Li 1 Briefly summarised, first of all, learning Chinese is about parents; whether or not parents would like their children to learn Chinese is the most important. [Bo: Whether or not parents would like their children to learn…] If parents themselves do not value this…I mean a parent, a family, really values the language of Chinese culture, which is the most important {followed by Excerpt 11-F1}. 很简单的总结一下, 第一个, 学汉语首先是家长, 家长愿意不愿意让孩子学这是最重要的 [Bo: 家长愿不愿让孩子学…] 你如果家长的话, 本身的话, 对这方面不重视…就是要有一个家长一个家庭, 非常重视这个中华文化的语言, 这是最重要的。

Chapter 5: Speaking Regional Languages and/or Mandarin at Home

Section 5.1: The Wuxinese-Speaking Li Family

Excerpt 11-F1: ‘[taking children to visit Mandarin-speaking friends]…the results were not ideal’

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Li 1 {Following Excerpt 10-F1} Second, a good school and a good teacher in the school; then it relies on parents’ daily supervision. [Bo: Right.] Besides, creating an environment, a language environment, and this enables him to have an opportunity to practise. 其次, 要有好的学校, 在学校里面找到一个好的老师；然后呢就是慢慢地靠你平时的, 家长的督促 [Bo: 对] 还有, 为他创造这种环境, 语言环境, 让他有一个训练的这种机会。 Bo 2 How did you create the language environment? 那这个语言环境你是怎么创造呢？ Li 3 In terms of language environment, first of all, I took them to my friends’ house, so my friends can talk with them, say something like ‘Dinner’s ready…’ [Bo: In the house of your Mandarin-speaking friends’?] Right. Also, they normally had little ones of my children’s age and they could play together. 语言环境的话, 第一个的话, 就是我让孩子的话, 到我们朋友家里去, 让朋友的话跟我们的孩子交流、讲话, 如 ‘吃饭呐...... ’ [Bo: 就是说普通话的朋友的家里?] 对对对。然后呢, 他们呢家里一般也都有跟我们的孩子的年龄差不多大的, 他们互相之间也能够玩在一起。 Bo 4 How old were they? 那当时这是孩子几岁的时候？

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Li 5 Around Prep, four to five years old, or four to six. [Bo: You’re talking about the oldest one, aren’t you?] Yeah. The youngest one also had such a period. We took him out or something, but the results were unsatisfactory. 差不多是学前班的时候, 四岁到五岁, 四岁到六岁那一段时间 [Bo: 你现在说的是老大？是吧?] 对。老二也有这么一个过程的。带他出去啊, 或者什么的。后来呢主要就是, 但是其实这样呢效果很不好。 Bo 6 Unsatisfactory? 这样效果不好么？ Li 7 In terms of results, anyway, the results were not ideal. 效果呢, 反正呢效果不理想吧。 Bo 8 Why? I thought he would have more opportunities to speak Mandarin when visiting your friends? 为什么？我觉得他不是去你说普通话的朋友家里边, 孩子不是有更多的交流？ Li 9 He just got an opportunity to listen to it, he couldn’t speak… like, my friends could say ‘James, David, dinner is ready’ in Mandarin, they would only reply ‘Yes’ [Bo: Oh, he replies in English.] Yeah, they mainly spoke stuff like ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. 他只不过是听一听, 他不会讲...... ‘James 啊 David 啊, 你过来我们吃饭啦’, 他就跟你讲 ‘Yes’ [Bo 哦, 他说的是英文] 唉, ‘Yes’和 ‘No’, 主要是这些东西。

Excerpt 12-F1: ‘when I’m not happy or feeling lonely, I’ll think of it, it’s the sound of hometown.’

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 Teacher Li, we just mentioned that you and your wife can speak Mandarin, but why didn’t you speak Mandarin at home? To create an environment for kids. 李老师, 刚才说到就是, 你们本身是会说普通话, 为什么没有在家里说普通话? 给孩子创造一个环境。 Li 2 Habit. We just speak Wuxinese out of habit, nothing special, we didn’t think about kids, but they happened to pick up another language in this environment. 习惯了。我们就是习惯说无锡话了, 没有什么, 没有考虑到孩子, 但是呢, 孩子呢, 在这种环境当中呢, 他也学会了一门语言。 Bo 3 Is Wuxinese important? 那您觉得无锡话重要么? Li 4 I think Wuxinese, to me, is not that important, but sometimes when I’m not happy or feeling lonely, I’ll think of it, it’s the sound of hometown. You always, this stuff, it’s hard to explain, the more you want to explain it, or analyse it, the more confused you would be, that’s it. [Bo: Confused? In

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terms of?] It’s just hard to explain, this stuff, it comes with, with a kind of ‘homesickness’… especially when it’s raining, people like us, who studied liberal arts, sometimes can be quite sentimental and would like to write some poems. Wuxinese, or Wu Chinese, has been very helpful to me. 我觉得无锡话对我来讲, 也谈不上重要, 但是往往人呐, 在有时候不开心或者寂寞的时候, 就想起来它, 它是一个 ‘乡音’。你总是的话, 这个东西, 你说不清楚的, 你越是想说清楚的话, 想理清楚的话, 越理越乱, 就这样。 [Bo: 说不清楚, 是什么说不清楚? ] 就说不清楚。这种东西呢, 就等于是带有, 带有一种 ‘乡思’, 老乡的 ‘乡’, 或者说这种 ‘乡愁’…… 尤其是下着雨呀这样的, 我们这些人, 学了文科, 有的时候会动动感情, 写写小诗歌啊什么, 但是对于我来讲, 这个无锡话, 吴方言, 对我来讲帮助还是很大的。 Bo 5 Been very helpful? In relation to? 帮助很大? 是哪方面的帮助? Li 6 For one thing, we hung out with northerners, of course, their Mandarin was very good, right? But when we studied together, when it came to poetry, especially classical poetry, especially the arrangement of flat or deflected tone, we could distinguish them. Especially the deflected tone; plus falling– rising tone, entering tone and falling tone. Many northerners couldn’t differentiate between entering tone and falling tone. 一方面的话是, 我当时同样跟北方人在一起, 当然他们普通话很好, 对不对? 我们在一起学的时候, 当时学到诗词, 尤其是古典诗词, 尤其是平平仄仄的时候, 我们就能分的清啊, 尤其是那个, 仄音, 平平仄仄的 “仄”, 还有上声, 入声, 去声。入声和去声那个, 很多北方人呢就分不清楚。 Bo 7 Northerners couldn’t differentiate between them? 北方人分不清楚? Li 8 No. For southerners, for instance, as si in sixiang, or like other very short stuff, short sounds, are entering tone. 唉。南方人的话, 比如 “思想” 的 “思” 啊, 或者一些很短促的东西, 短促的那个音一般的话, 都是入声。 Bo 9 Is entering tone the fourth tone in modern Chinese? 入声就是四声? Li 10 Right, oh no, it’s part of the fourth one, but sometimes in Hanyu Pinyin it is pronounced in the first tone or second tone. Northerners may not distinguish them clearly, but we can, just by reading it out in Wu Chinese. 对对对, 也不是, 它属于那个第四声的, 但是的话, 它有时候在那个我们汉语拼音当中, 读成阴平或者阳平, 然后的话呢, 北方人呢不一定分的清。我们用吴语言一读就知道。

Excerpt 13-F1: Speaking Wuxinese and being Wuxinese

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin

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Bo 1 David and James can speak Wuxinese. What does this mean to them, you think? David 和 James 会说无锡话, 对于他们来说, 会说无锡话的意义你觉得是? Li 2 It’s a matter of inheritance. Wuxinese, seriously, we paid no attention to it, but they happened to speak it. [Bo: You didn’t pay attention, but they happened to speak it.] 就是 “传承” 的一个作用吧。无锡话, 真的, 我们一点都不在意, 他们就学会了 [Bo: 就是没在意, 他们就学会了] Li 3 Yeah, they did, at least when these two brothers walk on the street in Wuxi, people would think they are real Wuxinese. However, in some families in Wuxi, children can no longer speak Wuxinese. Our overseas-born children however have learned to speak it. Like some of others, born in Shanghai, but can’t speak Shanghainese, only speak Mandarin. 对, 就是啊, 最起码他们俩兄弟走在无锡街头上面, 人家就认为就是个地地道道的无锡人；但是反过来讲, 在无锡的有些家庭, 那些孩子的话, 已经不会讲无锡话了。我们在海外的这些孩子反而学会了无锡话；还有一些人, 在上海出生的, 不会讲上海话了, 只会讲普通话。

Excerpt 14-F1: Speaking Wuxinese and being Wuxinese

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Have they had any conversation with you about the identity of being Wuxinese? Or some conversations like this? 他们自己对自己 “无锡人” 的这种身份, 有没有和您进行过交流? 或者就是类似于这样的交流? Li 2 Their parents are Wuxinese, so then, they are too...you don’t even need to ask. Actually, there are benefits of being Wuxinese, they can help people because of this, I’ve told you last time. [Bo: Right, the story happened on the train, right.] They’re actually somewhere in between...if they walk down the street in Wuxi, local people would tell that they’re not Wuxinese, but once they start to talk to them, people would believe they are actually Wuxinese. 父母亲都是无锡人, 他也...... 这个也不用说啦。他做无锡人也有无锡人的好处, 他还能够帮助人, 我上次不是跟你说了嘛 [Bo: 对, 那个在火车上的故事, 对对对] 那个, 他那个, 反正的话他们介于...... 他们走在街上, 但是的话, 一看的话, 人家也知道他不是无锡人, 但是和他一交流又是无锡人。 Bo 3 Why wouldn’t people think they’re Wuxinese? 走在街上为什么不觉得他们是无锡人? Li 4 They were wearing t-shirt and shorts. [Bo: Oh, t-shirt and shorts?] Other people, like us, we would wear a lot of clothes in cold weather, wouldn’t we? [Bo: Yeah.] But they only wear shorts. [Bo: Right, they only...] So other people, Wuxi people, wouldn’t understand that. [Bo: Oh, you also allow

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them to just wear shorts, you’re not afraid of them being in the cold.] You can’t do anything if they don’t want to wear. [Bo: Oh.] 他们穿着 T 恤衫, 短裤 [Bo: 哦, T 恤衫, 短裤? ] 其他人的话, 像我们这样的话, 大冷天的, 要穿很多, 对不对? [Bo: 对] 他们就穿短裤 [Bo: 对, 他们就……] 那人家的话, 无锡人的话, 都没有办法理解 [Bo: 噢, 那就是你们也允许他穿短裤, 不怕他们冷] 他不穿你没办法的 [Bo: 噢] Li 5 You can ask them to wear warm clothes over and over again, but they just don’t want to do it, plus, they also only, only wear T-shirts with crew neck. [Bo: Oh, crew neck T-shirts.] Yeah, also their T-shirts are worn out and old. They’re not willing to wear brand new stuff at all, that, Wuxinese of the town centre would think, they’re from the countryside. 你再怎么叫他穿, 他不穿, 而且的话, 他那个 T 恤衫的话, 一定, 一定穿那个圆领的 [Bo: 噢, 圆领的 T 恤衫] 嗯, 而且是那种破的, 旧的, 他们根本不, 不希望穿得那种好的什么的, 就是那个, 就是在无锡城里人眼里看起来, 是从, 孩子就像农村里上来的, 就一样的。

Section 5.4: Regional Language vs Mandarin

Excerpt 15-F1: ‘some cousins can’t speak Wuxinese, but only Mandarin’

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Which language does he use with his cousins, or other kids of his age in Wuxi, between them? Mandarin or? 他和他那些在无锡的 cousin 啊, 家里边和他们这么大的孩子, 他们之间是说什么话? 普通话吗, 还是? Li 2 Generally, Wuxinese, definitely Wuxinese. [Bo: Very interesting, that kids…] However, as often happens, some cousins can’t speak Wuxinese, but only Mandarin. [Bo: Oh, really?] Yeah. 一般都是无锡话, 那肯定是无锡话 [Bo: 挺有意思的, 那那些孩子…] 往往是怎么呢, 有些 cousin 呢不会讲无锡话, 只会讲普通话 [Bo: 哦, 是吧?] 唉。

Excerpt 16-F1: ‘Our overseas-born children, however, have learned to speak Wuxinese.’

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Li 1 In some families in Wuxi, children can no longer speak Wuxinese. Our overseas-born children, however, have learned to speak Wuxinese. Like some of others, born in Shanghai, but can’t speak Shanghainese, only speak Mandarin.

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在无锡的有些家庭, 那些孩子的话, 已经不会讲无锡话了。我们在海外的这些孩子反而学会了无锡话；还有一些人, 在上海出生的, 不会讲上海话了, 只会讲普通话。

Bo 2 What are the reasons behind this? Is it because parents don’t speak it at home, or something? 这个里面原因是什么呢? 是家里面不讲, 还是? Li 3 I think the reason is that the State promotes Mandarin…is completely right. [Bo: You think it’s completely right?] I think promoting Mandarin is right, but on this right path, then, it leads to an extreme. 我觉得的这个原因是国家推广这个普通话……完全是正确的 [Bo:您觉得是正确的? ] 我觉得推广普通话是正确的, 但是就是你在这个正确的道路当中, 然后的话呢, 引到一个极端。 Bo 4 Leads to an extreme? 引到一个极端? Li 5 Yeah, and then, you’ve forgotten some languages of your own region. [Bo: Regional languages.] Why do they want to revitalise them now? Whether on radio or TV, there are local programmes delivered in regional dialect, actually it aims to maintain this language. 唉, 然后的话呢, 就是说忘了自己的, 自己的地方上面的一些语言 [Bo: 地方上的语言] 为什么现在要搞恢复? 现在不管是广播, 还是电视里面, 都有当地的方言节目, 其实就是想把这种语言延续下去。

Chapter 6: FLP and Children’s Multilingual/Multicultural Experiences

Section 6.1.1: Watching Chinese television as a de facto language policy

Excerpt 17-F1: FLP style

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15], Mandarin Bo 1 In your house, do you have a particular time that you sit down with your children and help them to learn Chinese? 您在家有没有说, 安排一个固定的时间坐下来, 帮他们兄弟二人辅导中文什么的? Li 2 No. [Bo: No?] No. 没有 [Bo: 没有啊?] 没有。 Bo 3 So mainly in the Chinese school? 主要就是在中文学校?

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Li 4 Yeah, in the Chinese, Chinese school, then, as long as they watch Chinese TV, that’s okay. 在中文, 中文学校, 然后的话只要他们看中文电视就可以。

Excerpt 18-F1: FLP style

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 Like, for example, at home, do you actually teach them, teach them the language, at home? 那你比如说在家里面, 有没有说真正地教他们, 教他们学语言, 在家里面? Li 2 Basically, haven’t actually taught them formally. [Bo: Haven’t actually taught them formally, have you?] No, no, no, no. 基本上没有正儿八经地教 [Bo: 没有正儿八经的教是吧?] 没有, 没有, 没有, 没有。 Bo 3 Neither does Mrs Li? 您太太也没有哦? Li 4 No, just help them a bit. [Bo: Just help them a bit?] Help them, something like, ‘How you should write this character’, ‘You shouldn’t reverse stroke orders’. 没有, 也就是辅导一下 [Bo: 就辅导一下?] 辅导, 你什么这个字应该怎么写, 你不能颠倒笔画, 这样的东西是有的。

Excerpt 19-F1: Television and naming

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Li 1 The principal wanted us to find a private tutor to help him [James] to improve his English, but we didn’t. We always thought, children were still young, the key point was how you guide them on a daily basis and how you help them. We didn’t mean they wouldn’t learn English; instead, we helped him. One of our methods was we often bought some children’s DVDs, like, the youngest one’s name, David, was given by his brother. We watched Channel 9 quite often back then. The name David was from Channel 9. There’s a guy called David. The oldest one named his brother David. I asked James what name his younger brother could have. He said ‘David’. I asked ‘why “David”?’. He replied, ‘There’s also a David on TV’. James was very little at that time. [Bo: How old was he?] Three or four years old, a little more than three years old. 校长就是希望能找一个家庭老师帮他提高他的英文水平, 但是我们没有这样做。我们总觉得的话, 孩子还小, 孩子的话, 关键问题还是在他平时你怎么去引导他, 怎么去帮助他. 英文不是不学, 我们也帮助他. 我们帮助的办法, 一个呢是说, 经常买一些儿童片, 像我们老二的名字 David, 就是我们老大起的. 那个九号台, 我们经常那个时候看的. David 这个名字呢, 是在九号台里面, 有一个叫 David 的名字, 我们老大呢就帮

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他起了一个 David. 我们问 James, 他弟弟应该叫什么名字, 他说 David. 我说为什么要叫 David, 他说电视里面也有, 那个时候他还小么 [Bo: 几岁啊那时候?] 三四岁吧, 三岁多一点点。

Excerpt 20-F1: Television and naming

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Li 1 The youngest one’s name was given by the oldest one. [Bo: Oh.] There was [the name of a boy band], a show on Channel 9, when he’s little, I often asked him to watch it. There, there were five people performing and one of them was called David, David is a guy, he performed really well. [Bo: Right.] Later, our James said his brother should be called David. [Bo: Oh, David.] He said he really liked David, so his brother should be called after this. 老二的名字是我老大起的 [Bo: 噢] 原来那个九号台不是有个[乐队] 嘛, 小时候我就让他, 也经常看看这个。那个他们那个五个人的话表演, 那么其中有一个人就叫, 就叫 David, 那个 David 的话是个男的, 他表演呃, 表现得非常出色 [Bo: 嗯] 后来那个我们 James 就说弟弟的名字应该叫 David [Bo: 噢, David] 他说他很喜欢 David, 所以的话就叫这个。

Excerpt 21-F1: Two Televisions and learning vocabulary

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 How about their Chinese level, their…? 老大的中文水平和老二的, 他们…? Li 2 Each has his own advantages. [Bo: Each has his own advantages.] Yeah, in terms of understanding and reading, the oldest one should be—is definitely stronger than the youngest. But the youngest, I guess, has a wider range of knowledge, because he has been watching quite a lot of Chinese TV since when he was very little. Some of his vocabulary was learned from TV. Some characters or words that the oldest can’t write, but the youngest can. Their help is mutual. 各有千秋 [Bo: 各有千秋] 唉, 老大在理解方面, 阅读方面, 应该是肯定比老二强, 但是老二的话, 应该算中文的方面的知识面也是比较广的, 他因为从小呢, 电视看得也比较多, 他有些词汇呢都是从电视里学到的。有些字老大不会写, 老二会写, 有些字词, 他们帮助也是互相的。 Bo 3 Is mutual. Do they play any game related to Chinese? 也是互相的。他们玩的那些游戏有没有和中文有关的? Li 4 The stuff that they play is all in English. I would say I definitely, definitely, definitely oppose this. But for their mother, as long as children like, she would help them to get.

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我看他们现在看的那些都是英文的那些东西. 我是绝对绝对, 或者说绝对反对。那么他妈妈呢, 只有孩子喜欢的, 她要为他们去准备啊什么的。 Bo 5 In terms of watching TV, you just mentioned they watched Chinese TV programmes when they were little; how about now? 那电视上, 你刚才说他们小时候看中文电视什么的, 那现在还有没有看? Li 6 We have, one side is Chinese, the other side is English. We definitely put Chinese, if he found the Chinese one interesting, he would turn his head to it [Bo: You have two televisions in your house, right?] Yes, two televisions. He watches English programmes, in terms of English programmes, there’s more interesting and entertaining stuff. [Bo: Entertainment programmes?] Right, right, right. Apart from that, our oldest one likes informative stuff, like, stuff like quiz, our oldest one quite likes it. [Bo: Right, that’s in English.] Right, getting prizes, quiz show. Sometimes someone got an answer wrong and our oldest one would give the correct answer straight away, our oldest one. 我们是一边是中文的, 一边是英文的. 我们把肯定是中文, 他看到那个中文的很好就把头歪过来了 [Bo: 家里是有两个电视, 是吧?] 对, 两个电视。他那看英文, 他英文的话, 就是那些趣味性的东西比较多, 娱乐性的东西 [Bo: 娱乐性的节目是吧?] 对对对。那还有呢, 我们老大呢, 比较喜欢那种知识性的东西, 比如讲那个几秒钟那个抢答题啊什么的, 我们老大比较喜欢 [Bo: 对, 就是英文的那种] 对, 得奖啊, 抢答啊。有的时候人家回答错了, 他的一个正确的答案已经出来了, 我们老大。 Bo 7 What kind of questions they would ask in those game shows? 那些节目大概是什么内容的? 那些问题。 Li 8 I rarely watch them, something informative, including, it’s all-inclusive, everything. 我都很少看, 都是一些知识类的, 包括, 它有些东西也是四大洲五大洋的, 什么都有。

Excerpt 22-F1: Two Televisions and learning vocabulary

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Li 1 David, what are his characteristics? His academic performances are actually quite average, but if his teacher asks him questions, he might answer the questions by using some of the words he learned from outside classrooms. [Bo: Yeah.] He doesn’t entirely rely on textbooks, he would mix some words learned from outside classrooms, like from TV, mainly from TV. [Bo: From TV?] Yeah, some words from TV. [Bo: Very interesting, Chinese TV?] Yeah, Chinese, right. [Bo: Yeah.] He also watches English TV. David 呢, 他的特点是什么, 他学习成绩呢, 也确实是一般性。然后呢, 但是呢他老师如果提问啊什么, 他可能会用一些他课外学到的一些单词来回答老师的问题 [Bo: 噢] 他不是书本上的, 当然也有书本上的, 然

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后他会夹杂一些那个课外的, 比如你像电视里面, 主要是电视里边 [Bo: 电视里边] 唉, 电视里边一些单词 [Bo: 他很有意思, 是中文的是吗?] 唉, 中文, 对 [Bo: 嗯] 英文的他也看。 Bo 2 How about his brother? Is the oldest one the same? 他哥呢? 老大也是吗? Li 3 The oldest one watches two televisions, at the same time. [Bo: Right, two televisions in your house, you told me before.] Two televisions, the oldest one mainly watches English TV, but he knows what’s going on, over there, if he finds something interesting on the Chinese TV, he turns his head, watches the Chinese one. 老大是看两个电视, 同时看 [Bo: 噢, 你们家有两个电视, 你以前说过] 两个电视, 老大呢是以英文为主, 唉, 他那个知道的, 那么看呢, 往那边, 中文那边有什么精彩的, 他就头伸过来, 就可以看中文的。

Excerpt 23-F1: Television and Mandarin proficiency

Excerpt 24-F1: Watching television and the Li family (David’s essay ‘My Family’) (translation left, original right)

Excerpt 24.1-F1: Television programmes (sentences 7–11, para. 2)

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Excerpt 24.2-F1: Television and Mandarin proficiency (sentences 9–11, para. 4)

Excerpt 24.3-F1: Television and vocabulary/Mandarin proficiency (sentences 5–12, para. 6)

Excerpt 25-F1: Television and cultural knowledge

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV-2/09MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 How did you know Mr. Dongguo should be wearing this kind of clothes? [David: It’s ancient.] And also, also have this hairdo? 你怎么知道东郭先生穿着这样子的衣服? [David: 古代的] 还有这样的, 还有这样的头发? David 2 Ancient.

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古代的。 Bo 3 Ancient? How did you, did you know what kind of clothes ancient Chinese people used to wear? [David: Eh.] Ah, how did you know? 古代的? 你怎么知道的古代人穿什么衣服? [David: 呃……] 啊, How did you know? David 4 Watching Chinese TV. [Bo: Oh, watching Chinese TV?] Yeah. 看中文的电视 [Bo: 噢, 看中文的电视?] Yeah.

Section 6.1.2 David’s and James’s multilingual and multicultural experiences

Excerpt 26-F1: Being Wuxinese—family bonds

S T Utterances [Fieldnotes/24MAY2014], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you like Beijing or Wuxi? 你喜欢北京还是无锡? David 2 Wuxi. [Bo: Why Wuxi?] Because Grandma is there. 无锡 [Bo: 为什么是无锡?] 因为外婆在那里。

Excerpt 27-F1: Being Wuxinese—regional food

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV/21FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 When was the last time you had a holiday in China? 你上次是什么时候去中国度假的？ David 2 Ah, a year ago. [Bo: A year ago?]. But only a few months left before going to China. 啊, 一年前[Bo: 一年前] 但是还有几个月就去中国了。 Bo 3 Ah, you, do you want to go to China? {David nodding his head.} You go to China, why do you want to go to China? 啊, 你, 你想不想去中国? 你去中国, 你为什么想去中国? David 4 Delicious! [Bo: Delicious. What cuisine do you like?] Ah, Wuxi’s. 好吃 [Bo: 好吃, 你是喜欢吃哪里的食物?] 啊, 无锡。 Bo 5 Wuxi? What’s the most delicious food in Wuxi? 无锡? 无锡最好吃的是什么啊? David 6 Sweet and sour spare ribs. 糖醋排骨。

Excerpt 28-F1: Being Wuxinese—regional food (David’s essay ‘Visiting Henan’) (translation left, original right)

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Visiting Henan

On 31 March, my whole family went to China. We went to Wuxi first and stayed there for four days. We tasted the authentic Wuxi Lingdeling Steamed Buns.

Fieldnotes/22NOV2014: Connection with Wuxi via regional food

Mrs Li: James likes going back to Wuxi. An important reason is liking Wuxi’s tasty food, like Wuxi steamed buns. Our steamed buns have a sweet taste. You northerners are not used to it. Bo: Is that because you always cook such Wuxi food at home here in Australia, James likes them? Mrs Li: Actually, I can’t make steamed buns...perhaps because cuisine in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, especially in Wuxi, is put in a lot of sugar; they are used to such taste from a very young age.

Excerpt 29-F1: Being Wuxinese and VCE

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-2/19APR15], Mandarin Li 1 I often told him, I said my mother often saw Abing back then. 我跟他经常讲, 我说我母亲那个时候的话, 经常见到阿炳的。 Bo 2 Oh, your mother often saw Abing—the real person? 哦, 您母亲经常见到阿炳的真人? Li 3 That’s true, yes, so I especially took him to a few places and took photos— that’s where my mother saw Abing. [Bo: During the Seeking Roots Trip this time?] Right, as far as I remember, some places where my mother told me Abing performed. 真的真的真的, 对, 所以的话, 我就特地带他到几个地方去拍照了嘛, 在什么地方见到的 [Bo: 就是回去的这个寻根之旅?] 对对对, 我就是凭我的记忆, 我母亲跟我说的阿炳他在一些活动的场所, 就是说他拉的。

Excerpt 30-F1: Food habits and lifestyle

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-1/14FEB15], Mandarin Bo 1 Would they think themselves as Chinese or Australian? 他们现在有感觉自己是“中国人”, 还是“澳大利亚人”么? Li 2 Should be ‘half–half’. Because, you see, they really like going to China. [Bo: They really like going to China?] Yeah. Why? For one thing, is to ‘taste’, to ‘eat’. Chinese food culture is very cool. They wouldn’t resist the temptation. [Bo: Would they.]

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应该属于“一半一半”吧. 因为呢, 你看嘛, 他们特别喜欢到中国去 [Bo: 他们很喜欢去中国] 嗯。这是为什么? 一方面是去“品尝”, “去吃”。中国饮食文化很厉害, 对他们的诱惑力太大了 [Bo: 是吧] Li 3 Another thing is the tourism culture. Like, visiting some classical sites or climbing mountains would widen their horizons. 还有一个旅游文化。像一些古典的, 或者到哪个山上去玩玩啊, 开开他们的眼界。 Bo 4 In terms of food, your two children, are their palates more Chinese or Western or? 说到吃, 这两个孩子, 您觉得他们的口味更偏中式还是西式, 还是? Li 5 So far, they’re more ‘Western’. [Bo: More Western?] Yeah, the oldest one cooks more Western. Of course, sometimes combines the two, it happens. 目前来讲, 他们还是偏 “西” [Bo: 偏“西式”?] 唉, 我们老大做出来的东西是“西”多一点。当然呢也会两种结合起来做, 也会有的。 Bo 6 We talked about this before, that the oldest one learned to cook. Where did he learn his cooking skills from? 我们以前也聊过, 老大自己也学做饭, 他这个烹饪的技术是从哪里学的? Li 7 He borrows something from the library, or watching TV, he especially likes that Australia’s, that young British guy, Jamie Oliver. He really likes watching his programmes. [Bo: Right.] Every cooking show, as long as he has time, he would definitely watch it. 就是自己从图书馆借点东西, 或者电视里面, 尤其他喜欢澳大利亚那个年纪比较轻的英国的那个 Jamie Oliver. 他特别喜欢看他的节目 [Bo: 对] 任何一个烹饪的节目, 只要他有时间, 他肯定会看。

Excerpt 31-F1: Food habits, lifestyle, learning attitudes and family dynamic

S T Utterances [Parent-1/INTW-3/09MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you think they are more like Australian kids or Chinese kids? 您觉得他们更像这个澳洲的孩子, 还是更像中国的孩子? Li 2 Belong to that, belong to, belong to something in between. [Bo: Something in between?] Yeah, in between, because they’re growing up in two cultures. We’ve consciously and subconsciously brought previous habits to our home or to the society, the habits are possibly a kind of our culture. [Bo: Right.] This would definitely influence them more or less, definitely. 属于那个, 属于, 属于两者之间 [Bo: 两者之间] 嗯, 两者, 他们因为的话在两种文化当中长大的. 我们就是自觉不自觉的, 把以前的一些习惯, 这种习惯可能就是我们一种, 一种文化, 就带到这个家庭, 也可能带到这个社会 [Bo: 对] 对他们来讲肯定是多多少少, 肯定绝对有影响的。 Bo 3 Right. You said they were something in between, right? They have both characteristics of Chinese kids and Western kids. For characteristics of Chinese kids, can you give me some examples?

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对, 您说您觉得他们是属于两者之间, 对吧? 既有中国孩子特点, 也有西方孩子特点。那他们中国孩子的特点, 具体体现在哪些方面呢? Li 4 The Chinese kids part, like, like food, in terms of study, they are quite self- disciplined [Bo: Yeah.] For Australian kids, some of their families don’t ask them about study at all. [Bo: Oh.] As parents, we normally attend to their homework. [Bo: Yeah.] Yeah, must attend to it. [Bo: Right.] Yeah, always need to supervise them a bit. [Bo: Right.] Also, in our family, for instance, during Chinese New Year or other festivals, we sometimes tell them something behind the celebration, like why do we celebrate New Year. [Bo: Right.] Also, like Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-autumn Festival or solar terms, when there’s something on TV, we’ll talk to them parenthetically. 中国孩子嘛就是说你比如, 比如讲的话, 像饮食呐, 学习还是比较自觉的 [Bo: 嗯] 你像澳洲孩子的话, 他们有些家庭根本不问孩子的 [Bo: 噢] 作为大人来讲的话, 我们一般的话抓他作业 [Bo: 嗯] 唉, 这是肯定要抓的[Bo: 对] 唉, 总是要督促一下 [Bo: 对] 那么还有一个呢, 就是作为我们的家庭, 比如说过年过节, 为什么要过年, 把这个道理有时候给他讲一讲 [Bo: 对] 还有端午节呀, 什么中秋节呀, 逢到这个节气, 电视里在播的时候我们呢顺便也跟他讲一讲。 Bo 5 Yeah. Can you give me some examples about their part of being Australian kids? 嗯, 那你觉得, 他澳洲孩子这一方面体现在哪方面呢? Li 6 Australia, so for example, I said to him, ‘If you don’t finish your homework, I won’t be nice to you, I might spank you with a short bamboo rod or something’. He said, ‘Our teacher told me, parents were not allowed to beat children’. [Bo: Oh.] He’s like this. He said you couldn’t beat children, otherwise you’ll break the law in Australia, that’s illegal. That’s it, he would tell you this directly. 澳洲, 那么就是说比如讲啊, 我说的话如果你不完成这个作业的话, 我说我对你不客气啦, 可能的话我要拿个小竹板或者什么的啊, 你这个臀部啊可能要跟你抓抓痒啊, 他说我们老师跟我们讲了, 父母亲不能打孩子的 [Bo: 噢] 他就是这样。他说, 你不可以的, 你打的话, 在澳洲就违法的, 违法的。就这样, 就直接跟你讲。 Bo 7 Is this the oldest one or the youngest one? [Li: The youngest one.] 这是老大还是老二？[Li: 老二]

Supplementary Excerpt: James’s culinary skills

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV/21FEB15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Does your dad cook? {David shaking his head.} He doesn’t. How about your big brother? {David nodding head.} He does, what kind of dish? 爸爸做不做饭? 不做哦, 你哥哥呢? 他做饭哦, 他做什么菜啊? David 2 Pasta.

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Bo 3 Pasta. How to say Pasta in Chinese? Pasta 的中文怎么说? David 4 eh...Yidalimian.

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Appendix 7: The Guo Family Data

Chapter 4: Learning ‘Chinese’ in TCS

Section 4.2: Which Chinese Language Should Your Children Learn?

Excerpt 1-F2: Mandarin is Chinese language

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Which language do you speak at home? 你们在家是说什么话? Guo 2 We speak Guoyu at home. [Bo: That is?] Chinese. 我们在家是讲国语 [Bo: 就是?] 中文。 Bo 3 Chinese? 中文? Guo 4 Yes. [Bo: Is that Putonghua?] Putonghua. [Bo: Putonghua, you speak Putonghua with kids?] Yeah, I speak Putonghua with kids. 对 [Bo: 就普通话吗?] 普通话 [Bo: 普通话, 是你和孩子们之间讲普通话?] 噢, 我和孩子们之间讲普通话。 Bo 5 Which language do you speak with your husband? 就是那你和你的老公说什么话? Guo 6 Also, Guoyu. [Bo: Oh, also Guoyu?] Yeah, also speak Guoyu. 也讲国语 [Bo: 噢, 也是国语?] 对, 也是讲国语。

Excerpt 2-F2: Chinese language is Mandarin

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-3/21MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 We just talked about Mandarin, Fuqingnese, Southern Min and Cantonese, they all belong to China’s languages, right? [Guo: Right, right.] If I say the word ‘Chinese language’ [Guo: Yeah], if I say Chinese language [Guo: yeah], Chinese language, what’s your first reaction? [Guo: Eh] Which language? [Guo: Mandarin.] Your reaction is Mandarin, Putonghua, right? [Guo: Yes.] {followed by Excerpt 15-F2} 刚才说得比如说普通话, 福清话, 闽南话和粤语, 它其他都是属于中国的语言对吧? [Guo: 对, 对!] 那现在就比如说我说 “中文” [Guo: 嗯] 比如说我说 Chinese language 这个词 [Guo: 嗯] 中文, 你第一反映是什么? [Guo: 呃...] 是哪种语言? [Guo: Mandarin] 你觉得是 Mandarin, 就是普通话对吧? [Guo: 对啊]

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Excerpt 3-F2: ‘the authentic…the Putonghua that Beijing people speak’

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-5/23MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold)

Bo 1 What do you think standard Chinese looks like? It’s like, standard Chinese? 你认为标准中文是个什么样子? 就是比较 standard 的 Chinese? Guo 2 Standard Chinese? [Bo: Yeah.] Their listening, speaking, reading and writing should not have problems, I reckon, this should be a basic requirement. 标准的中文啊? [Bo: 嗯] 听说读写应该是没问题的我觉得, 这个应该来说是一个基本要求吧。 Bo 3 Yeah, for example, you want your children to learn Mandarin, Mandarin, what type of Mandarin you want them to learn? Like, in terms of writing, simplified or traditional characters. [Guo: Yeah, right.] Also, accent is another aspect. [Guo: Yeah.] Right? [Guo: Yeah.] As well as the use of vocabulary, like people from the south and the north may be different, the language uses between people of mainland China, Taiwan or Southeast Asian Chinese communities are different. [Guo: Yeah.] What type of language you want them to learn, the type of Chinese? 嗯, 比如说你, 你说你让孩子们去学习中文, 中文, 你希望他们学到哪种类型的中文呢? 比如说, 简体, 繁体, 这是一种字体上的这样 [Guo: 嗯, 对对对] 还有这个口音也是一方面 [Guo: 嗯] 对吧? [Guo: 嗯] 还有词汇的表达, 比如说, 南方, 北方可能不太一样, 中国大陆和台湾, 或者是东南亚华人社区也不同 [Guo: 嗯] 就是你希望他学的这个语言形式, 中文这个形式? Guo 4 I think the ‘authentic’, the correct pronunciation, like the Putonghua that Beijing people speak [Bo: Right], the kind with clear and accurate articulation. [Bo: Right.] Right. 我还是觉得我还是以 “正” 的, 正确的发音, 就是像北京人说的普通话 [Bo: 对] 字正腔圆的那种 [Bo: 对] 对。 Bo 5 By the mainland Chinese standards? 就是以中国大陆为这个标准的? Guo 6 Yes, by the Chinese standards. [Bo: Yeah.] Right, because Southeast Asian Chinese people are the early immigrants, I think that their Chinese language might have been changed and integrated into their local environment. [Bo: Right, it might have become a unique language variety.] Right, and hence, it may not be suitable for education. 对对对, 以中国人的这个标准 [Bo: 嗯] 对, 因为东南亚华人应该是以前早期移民的, 我认为他们可能已经把华文已经变得跟他们融入到他们当地生活的那个环境中去 [Bo: 对, 可能是一种独特的一种语体啊] 对, 可能不是那么适合用在教育方面。

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Excerpt 4-F2: ‘there’s no need to learn, to learn traditional characters’

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-5/23MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you think it is necessary to teach traditional Chinese characters in the Chinese school? 你认为就是在中文学校有没有必要去教一些繁体字什么的? Guo 2 I don’t think so, I think it’s very unnecessary. [Bo: Unnecessary.] I didn’t learn traditional characters either at school, but I can automatically, if I read some news written in traditional characters, I can understand them automatically, I’m able to simplify those characters automatically, I never learned them, I think there’s no need to learn, to learn traditional characters. [Bo: Not necessary to learn?] Correct, having been able to be simplified, which means it works, why do we need to go back and learn traditional forms? 那我不觉得, 我觉得很没有必要 [Bo: 没有必要] 我之前在学校也没有学繁体字啊, 可是我就很很自然而然, 现在我如果看到一些比如说一些繁体字的报道啊什么的, 我自然而然我就会认识那些个, 我就会把它简化过来, 我们也没学啊, 我觉得不需要去学, 去学繁体 [Bo: 没必要去学哦?] 对, 既然它能演变到简体, 那就证明它有, 它有被演变的这个功效在, 所以我为什么要再回头去学繁体呢?

Section 4.3 Do You Like Learning Chinese?

Excerpt 5-F2: Mandarin learning attitudes and attitude management

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Your two kids come and study in the Chinese school. Do you think they are happy or not? Do they want to go? 这两个孩子他们来中文学校学, 你觉得他们开不开心? 想不想来? Guo 2 Not very happy [Bo: not very happy], they complain, saying ‘Why do we always have so much homework?’; even, even during the holidays, Mum would ask them to…like, during the holidays of the first term, I would say ‘Memorise all the four texts that you’ve been taught in the first term, dictation and making sentences’. Sometimes, they’ll have to write a diary every day. 不是很开心 [Bo:不是很开心?] 抱怨, 说 “哎呀, 为什么, 诶, 我们, 我们, 我们的功课老这么多呢?”, Even, even holiday 妈妈都要再把老师, 比如说第一学期 holiday, 我就会说啊, “把老师教得第一学期四篇课文全部背诵, 听写, 造句”. 然后有时候还要再每天写一篇日记。 Bo 3 Oh, a diary every day? 噢, 他们一天还要写一篇日记? Guo 4 Yes, that’s why they would complain during the holidays, but they know, I would talk to them through reason and empathy: ‘For whom Daddy makes

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money? For whom Daddy bought the house in such a nice area?’ [Bo: Right.] ‘For your school and for your study, why would Mum chase after you every day? Driving you here and there?’ They fully understood that, saying, ‘Okay, okay, stop nagging, I’ll do it’. [Bo: Oh, they would…] They would copy me and say ‘Dad is hardworking, and Mum is also hardworking’. [Bo: Oh, right, they copied you?] Yeah, ‘Mum, stop nagging, I know exactly what you are going to say’. 对, during holiday, 所以他们, 但是他们会抱怨, 但是他们知道, 我还会以, 我还是晓之以理, 动之以情地跟他们讲, “爸爸赚钱为了谁?爸爸买房子为了谁? 买了那么好的区” [Bo:对] “为了你们的学校, 为了你们的学习, 妈妈天天这样跟在你们屁股后面为了什么? 开车送这送那为了什么?”, 那他们很感同身受, “好啦, 好啦不要讲啦, 我会啦” [Bo:噢, 他们也会就是…噢] 然后要么就是 “爸爸很辛苦, 妈妈也很辛苦”, 他们就学我的样子在那里 [Bo:噢, 噢, 对, 他们还学你的样子噢?] 对, “不要讲了, 妈妈, 你讲的东西我都会背了”。 Bo 5 Oh, really? Have they ever reacted against you…like very strongly? 噢, 是吗? 他们有没有反抗你, 就比如说很强烈的… Guo 6 The oldest one wouldn’t, she could only quietly… [Bo: Be very upset?] sadness in her eyes [Bo: sadness]; my son would sometimes break things, like, make a big noise when moving a chair; then, I would say, ‘Zhang [xx], whom you are throwing a temper tantrum to! Pulling a long face in front of me!’ [Bo: Did he, did he talk back?] He said, ‘I’m not allowed to have a break even during the holidays, keep asking me to do this and that’. ‘Am I not doing this for you?’, I said; then, he said, ‘Stop nagging, stop nagging, I got it!’ 老大不会反, 老大不会反抗, 只会默默地…[Bo:很生气?] 哀怨的眼神 [Bo:哀怨] 老二呢? 会, 有时候会摔东西, 比如说扶椅子的时候扶得特别大声, 比如说 “嘎” 的声音, 然后我就说 “张 xx, 跟谁生气啊你！跟, 跟我掉脸子看” [Bo:他有什么, 他, 他敢顶嘴吗?] 他说 “holiday 也不让我好好 holiday 休息, 还要让我做这个做那个”, 我说 “那不是都为你好吗?”, 然后又开始噢, “不要说, 不要说, 我知道了!”.

Excerpt 6-F2: Mandarin learning attitudes and attitude management

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Do you think the kids like to go to the Chinese school? 你觉得孩子喜欢不喜欢到中文学校来读书呢? Guo 2 Honestly, they don’t like it. [Bo: Honestly, they don’t like it.] They even asked me today, ‘Mum, can I not come to the school next year?’ [Bo: Was this the oldest one or the second one?] The second one, he asked ‘Can I not go to the Chinese school next year?’ ‘No, you can’t’ I said. [Bo: I see.] Because while other kids are playing he has to study. [Bo: Right.] 实话是不喜欢 [Bo: 实话是不喜欢] 今天还说 “妈妈明年我能不来吗?” [Bo: 嗯, 老大还是老二?] 老二说, 他说 “我明年可以不上中文学校了

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吗?”, 我说不行的 [Bo: 哦, 那, 那] 因为别人的孩子在玩的时候他在学习啊 [Bo: 对] Guo 3 He thinks that’s not fair, then I’d say, ‘When you grow up, what kind of car do you want to drive? What kind of house do you want to buy? So, you must make the effort right now, no pain, no gain’. [Bo: Did he say anything?] He said, ‘Okay’. Because I have been saying this since they’re little; I would compare, I would compare family members. I said okay someone’s life is like this, another one’s life is like that, and asked, ‘What kind of life do you want in the future?’. [Bo: Right.] He would say, ‘I want this one’. [Bo: Right.] I told him if he wants that person’s kind of life, that person was actually like this when little. [Bo: Right.] Even if that person was not, I would still say it. 他会觉得 not fair, 然后我就跟他说, 啊, “你想要长, 长大你要开什么车呢?”, “你要买什么房子呢? 所以你现在必须要付出努力, no pain, no gain” [Bo: 然后他说什么?] 他说 “好吧”. 因为一直从小到大我一直在跟他讲这个事情, 我会 compare, 我比如我会拿我们家里人的事情跟他 compare, 我说 Okay 怎么怎么样, Okay 谁谁怎么样, 那你觉得你, 你想要选择哪种生活? [Bo: 对] 然后他会说 “我想要这种” [Bo: 对] 我说想要这种, 那某某人小的时候他就是这样子的 [Bo: 对] Even 他不是这样的, 但我还是跟他这样子说。 Bo 4 Okay, this is the second one. How about the oldest kid, what kind of attitude does she have towards going to the Chinese school? 对, 那个就是老二, 老大对学中文, 到中文学校来是个什么态度? Guo 5 She doesn’t like it either [Bo: doesn’t like it either], no. [Bo: But they know they have no other option?] No other option. I told her, ‘If you want a better life, you need to make the effort’. [Bo: Oh, right.] I told her ‘Mum believes you would know more things than Mark and Rose (Johnson family cousins) in the future’. 也是不喜欢嘛 [Bo: 也是不喜欢噢] 对 [Bo: 但是他们都知道是没有办法的?] 没有办法.我跟她说: “你要 better life, 你现在就要付出” [Bo: 嗯, 对] 我跟她说, “妈妈相信你以后跟 Mark, 跟 Rose 比起来, 你们可能以后会懂得更多的东西”。

Excerpt 7-F2: Teaching practices in The Chinese School

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-5/23MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Kids learning in the day school and in the Chinese school, are they the same? What are the similarities and differences? Could you compare the day school and the Chinese school in terms of the overall teaching methods? 你认为这个日校噢, 和中文学校, 就他们孩子在日校学习的状态, 和中文学校的状态一样吗? 相同点在哪里? 不同点在哪里? 还有就是从你对日校整个教学的这种方式和中文学校的教学整个的方式之间, 你能不能做一个简单的对比? Guo 2 Similarities? I don’t think there are similarities.

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嗯, 相同点啊? 我不觉得他们有相同点。 Bo 3 I see, how about the differences? 哦, 不同点在哪儿呢? Guo 4 In terms of differences, taking my kids as an example, kids would think the day school is their home field [Bo: right], you know what I mean? Here in the Chinese school, they just… first of all, it’s not their… it’s far away from our house, so they don’t think it’s a formal school. [Bo: Oh, I see.] Right. [Bo: They wouldn’t think…] they know this is a coaching school, they wouldn’t, like, they would say, [the name of mainstream school], is their alma mater or something, with which they have a more emotional connection. But here in the Chinese school, they just come to learn and leave, don’t have the sense of belonging. [Bo: Oh, right, the sense of belonging is vague, they think their day school…] Have completely no sense of belonging. [Bo: Oh, right, have completely no sense of belonging, they still think their day school is their…] Is closer to them, quite close. 不同点啊, 就, 我就说孩子的, 我就说孩子的吧, 孩子就觉得在日校他, 啊, 他觉得那个是他的主场 [Bo: 嗯] 你懂我意思? 就在这里他只是来… 第一首先这不是他…这, 这离我们家很远, 所以他不认为说这, 这算是一个正规的学校 [Bo: 噢, 对对对] 对 [Bo: 他可能不觉得…嗯] 他, 他知道这是一个 coaching school, 所以, 嗯, 他并没有, 可能讲起, 比如说噢, 他比如说 [the name of mainstream school] 是我的, 比如说是我的母校或者是什么样, 他比较有感情一点, 但是在这里他说, 噢, 学完了就走了, 就没有那个归属感 [Bo: 噢, 对, 归属感还是弱一点, 他还是觉得他的 day school…] 完全, 完全没有归属感 [Bo: 噢, 完全没有归属感, 他觉得还是他 day school 是他…] 亲的, 比较亲的。 Bo 5 Right, plus most of their friends are there too? 对, 而且他的主要的朋友是不是都在那边? Guo 6 Yeah, they are all there. Also, in day school, they are not in the same classroom all day [Bo: I see], they have to go to different classrooms, like, they have art class in the art classroom, and have science in the science classroom and have sport. [Bo: Right.] Different classes in different classrooms [Bo: right, different classes in different classrooms], but here in the Chinese school, you only learn one subject. [Bo: Yeah.] In the morning just learn Chinese, in the afternoon learn another one, that’s why they find it boring. [Bo: they find it boring?] 嗯, 都在那儿. 而且他, day school, 他可以, 他不是每天都在同一个 room 里面学习 [Bo: 噢] 他一定要去不, 很多个不同的地方, 比如, 对, 比如说他有, 啊, art room 里面学 art, 他要在 science 的地方学 science…sport [Bo: 嗯] 然后就, 就跟我们就是上不同课去不同的 room [Bo: 对, 上不同课上不同的教室] 对, 但是在这里他就只能, 啊, 就是得, 就是学这一科 [Bo: 嗯] 早上也就学, 每次来就是学这科, 然后下午在这里, 这一科, 再下午就学那一科, 所以他就很 boring [Bo: 他会觉很 boring?] 对。 Bo 7 Why do they find the Chinese school boring? 你觉得他们觉得这个中文学校比较无趣的原因?

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Guo 8 Because they find the lessons here more difficult. [Bo: Right.] They wouldn’t like us, like parents, who would think, like ‘because it’s challenging, you’ll make progress’ [Bo: right] right, that’s why they think Mum is just making trouble for them [Bo: I see], right. 他会比较, 因为他会觉得这里的功课比较难 [Bo: 嗯] 他不会像我们, 家长想得这么系统, 就说 “噢, 因为由于有挑战性, 你才会有进步啊” [Bo: 对] 对, 他就觉得是妈妈在给他制造麻烦 [Bo: 噢] 对。 Bo 9 They didn’t find day school boring, did they? 他们上 day school 不觉得烦吗? Guo 10 They didn’t, they like it a lot [Bo: like it a lot?] even during the holidays, they just can’t wait for school to start back. [Bo: Oh, really?] Yeah. [Bo: You mean even when they are on holiday, they want school to start again?] They want school to start again, they find it fun. [Bo: Very fun, very interesting.] Very interesting. 他不觉得, 他很喜欢 [Bo: 很喜欢?] 而且他们, even 他们 holiday 的时候, 他们就 can’t wait 那个 school, school start [Bo: 噢, 是吗?] yeah [Bo: 就是说真的就是说即使他们在日校放假的时间, 他也很期待赶紧开学去? ] 赶紧开学去上学, 他觉得就很 fun [Bo: 很 fun, 很有意思?] 很有意思。 Bo 11 How about the Chinese school? It’s only once a week. 那你觉得中文学校呢? 一周才一次。 Guo 12 It’s only once a week, but they don’t any excursions, they only have one classroom, and they have to stay in the room and listen to the teacher carefully, that’s it. [Bo: Right, sit down and listen, right?] Right, the way they are educated is very different from ours, it’s very interactive, hands on and exploratory. Even when you have some crazy ideas, you tell your teachers of day school, they would say ‘Oh, yeah, you find a good way to say, to express your idea’. [Bo: Oh, right.] They are more supportive [Bo: I see], you understand? [Bo: Kids find the way of teaching in the day school is more interesting, more interactive, right? Teachers are more supportive.] Yes, teachers would not lock you in a ‘cage’ and… [Bo: yeah] restrict your imagination, they wouldn’t. 一周才一次, 但是第一他就没有 excursion, 他就是有一个 room, 你必须呆在这个 room 里, 你必须要认真听课, that’s it [Bo: 对, 在这个地方坐下来听是吧?] 对对对对对, 他本身就跟我们从小受的教育方式就不一样, 他是多动性的, 动手啊, 能力很强, 开发性. Even 你有一些很 crazy idea 啊, 你讲给 day school 的老师听, day school 老师说 “oh, yeah, you find a good way to say, to express your idea” [Bo: 噢, 对] 他就是他会很 more encourage [Bo: 对] 你懂吗? [Bo: 他是觉得就是, 日校的这种教学方法更加的有意思, 活跃是吧? 老师也会更加的鼓励] 对, 老师不会吧你关在一个笼子里面去…[Bo: 嗯] 啊, 限制你的框, 你想象的空间, 他不会。 Bo 13 Right. Do you know, how literacy, English literacy is being taught in their day school?

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对, 那日校比如说他的 literacy, 就是英文的那个, 你知道学校是怎么个教法吗? Guo 14 They don’t have textbooks, they don’t have any textbooks. [Bo: Oh, don’t have textbooks.] They go to day school every day, and a big difference is, going to the day school only with a lunch box, there’s only a lunch box in their bags, some water, fruit and snacks. But for the Saturday school, full of books, I carried my two kids’ bags this morning, each bag at least weighing six kilos. [Bo: Six kilos?] Wow, so heavy. [Bo: What’s in here? Just textbooks?] Textbooks. [Bo: Right.] Workbooks, textbooks and dictionaries. 它没有教材, 它完全没有教材 [Bo: 噢, 没有教材] 他每天去上学, 很大的不同就是来 day school, 去上学的时候他们只有装一个饭盒去上学, 整个书包就装一个饭盒, 水, 水果. 点心. 但是来 Saturday School 全是书本, 好, 哇, 我早上拿我两个孩子的书包. 一个书包应该有, 至少有六公斤重吧 [Bo: 六公斤? ] 哇, 好重啊 [Bo: 他装得是什么? 就是课本? ] 课本 [Bo: 对] 练习册, 书, 字典。 Bo 15 Is it possible to change teaching methods of the Chinese school to the Western style? 你认为中文学校这种教学的方法有没有可能变成像西方那种? Guo 16 I don’t, I don’t think so. First, teaching time is limited, a teacher has to deliver the knowledge in a very short time. There’s a time restriction, as well as a space restriction. People come from different areas, like, I drove more than 30 km to come here. [Bo: More than 30 km?] Right, time and space restrictions, right? [Bo: Right.] Also, you can’t teach for a really long time, here is still the Western culture, the place of Westerners, so… [Bo: right, you still think…] it’s not possible to be like the day school. 我不, 我不认为它能变, 第一他们的时间就很有局限性, 所以他们要在很短的时间内把老师要教的知识要马上装进去, 时间上就有一个限制, 空间也有限制。这是从不同地方来的, 像我就开了三十几公里来到这个地方 [Bo: 三十几公里] 对, 时间, 空间对吧? [Bo: 对] 而且你也不能长时间教, 这边还是西方文化, 西方人的地方所以……[Bo: 嗯, 你就觉得还是……] 它没有办法像 day school 那样子。

Section 4.4: To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese

Excerpt 8-F2: ‘because we are Chinese’

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15] Bo 1 Why do they have to learn Chinese? 就是你觉得他们为什么要学中文啊？ Guo 2 I still don’t want them to forget, because we are Chinese, don’t forget about characters and also don’t forget that this is a country with a long history.

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我还是不想让他忘记, 因为我们是中国人, 不要忘记汉字, 也不要忘记这个悠久历史的一个国家。

Chapter 5: Speaking Regional Languages and/or Mandarin at Home

Section 5.2: The Fuqingnese-Speaking Guo Family

Excerpt 9-F2: General home language use: Mandarin and English

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Your home language is? [Guo: Mandarin.] Mandarin. [Guo: Right.] You and your husband also speak Mandarin with each other? [Guo: Mandarin.] Between you and your children is also Mandarin? [Guo: Mandarin.] 你们家庭里面说的话就是? [Guo: 国语] 国语 [Guo: 对] 包括你和你老公也说国语 [Guo: 国语] 你和孩子们之间也说国语? [Guo: 国语] Bo 2 Right, how about among the kids? 对, 那就是那孩子们之间现在是个什么状况? Guo 3 They communicate with each other in English. [Bo: English?] Right, once they see Mum or Dad, they would speak Chinese, then among them, it’s very natural, over the dinner table, after talking with us, they could switch to English: ‘Sophia, what happened in school?’ and blah blah, they speak more English automatically. 孩子们之间就是他们之间的交流就是英语啊 [Bo：英语啊?] 对, 他们只要一看到妈妈, 或者爸爸他们就讲那个中文, 然后他们自己就很普通的就, 就是在饭桌上吃饭的时候, 他们跟我们讲完之后, 他们就“Sophia, what happened in school?” 什么什么, 他们就是很自然而然地会讲, 会偏讲英语多一点。

Excerpt 10-F2: Language shift and MT confusion

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 The language you use with the kids since they were born is? 您从他们一出生下来你跟他们交流就是…… Guo 2 Use Chinese. [Bo: Is Chinse, Guoyu or Mandarin, right?] Right. [Bo: Oh.] So, their mother tongue should be Chinese, because back then, from birth to three years of age, their mother tongue was completely from their mum and dad. [Bo: Right.] 用中文啊 [Bo: 就是用中文, 就是国语, 普通话是吧?] 对对 [Bo: 噢] 所以他们的 mother tongue 应该算是中文, 但因为那时候, 因为从他们出生到三岁我想, 因为他们完全接触的母语就是来自于他妈妈跟他爸爸 [Bo: 对]

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Guo 3 And then their grandparents, but their contact with grandparents was limited because grandparents had business to look after. [Bo: Right.] They didn’t have much time at all, just one or two hours in the evening after work, they could communicate with the kids, but for most of the time they just spoiling kids, like held them, gave them something to eat. 然后他爷爷奶奶, 但就是跟爷爷奶奶交流的还是有局限的, 因为爷爷奶奶要生意要顾 [Bo: 对啊] 他根本没有多少时间, 一天可能一两个钟头晚上回家, 跟他们交流一下, 但是那大多数也只是宠爱孩子啊, 比如说抱着玩耍啊, 给点东西吃啊。 Bo 4 What language do grandparents speak to them? 爷爷奶奶跟他们说的是什么? Guo 5 Mandarin. [Bo: Oh, also Mandarin?] Yeah, because kids only spoke Mandarin to me, that means they could only talk to people in Mandarin [Bo: yeah] but nowadays I find out that the things that they could not express in Chinese can be well expressed in English. Although they think their mother tongue is Chinese, but they realise English has become their mother tongue, in other words, Chinese has been ‘covered’ by English. Since they went to child care after they were three years old. [Bo: Right, went to child care.] Child care, their English started to become really good, when they turned five or six years old, Chinese had been completely ‘covered’, because…[Bo: so, you think, yeah, you continue] because of the time they spent outside, and the people that they contact, many of them speak English, as a result, they naturally think speaking English may enable them to get information from more people. However, Chinese is the one that Mum uses more when looking after them. 国语 [Bo: 噢, 也是普通话?] 对, 因为小孩跟我只讲国语啊, 所以小孩等于他能跟人家交流的也只能是国语 [Bo: 噢] 但是现在我就发现就现在他们, 我问他们, 就是他们会很多中文表达不出来的东西, 他们用英语很好表达, 所以他们觉得说虽然他的 mother tongue 是中文, 但是他觉得英语是他的母语, 就是中文被英文 “盖掉” 了. 三岁之后去 child care 了 [Bo: 对, 去 child care] child care, 他们的英文就开始相当好了的意思, 就是五六岁的时候他们已经完全就是把中文盖掉, 因为……[Bo：那你觉得他们, 嗯, 你说] 因为我可以理解, 因为在外面玩耍的时间, 还有接触的人, 很多他们都讲英文, 所以他们自然而然地觉得说可能英文能得到更多人的, 就是 information, 从他们那里得到一些, 但中文只是妈妈就照顾你的时候说得比较多一点, 对。 Bo 6 Oh, right, in terms of learning English, you actually didn’t deliberately… 噢对, 那就是, 他们学英文其实你也没有刻意去…… Guo 7 I didn’t deliberately, before three years old, I simply didn’t…they never had any contact with English, because at that time, even I didn’t like watching English TV, I thought that kids’ stuff, programmes from ABC-2, ABC for Kids, I didn’t like them. Actually, I felt repelled, that’s why did I come here. 我没有刻意去, 我完全没有在他们三岁之前……完全没有接触到任何的英文, 因为那时候我都不喜欢看英文电视, 因为我觉得那个儿童的什

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么, ABC-2, ABC for Kids 那个节目, 其实来说我那时候我, 我也不太喜欢。我自己其实有点心理排斥我为什么来这里。 Later in the interview… Guo 8 Actually, I should not have said Sophia had zero English before three years old, because Uncle Dan and cousins were around, she could have heard English more or less. 其实 Sophia 也不算是完全三岁之前也不能算说是完全零基础, 因为 Uncle Dan, Cousin 都在一起啊, 她多多少少会听一点, 对。

Excerpt 11-F2: Other home languages: Fuqingnese, Cantonese and Southern Min

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-3/21MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 We just mentioned, like, your family communicates with each other during dinner time… 刚才咱们说到了就是比如说你们晚餐时候的交流…… Guo 2 Yeah, their grandma, over dinner may, their grandma may talk to their dad a bit more. 噢, 基本上跟奶奶晚餐可能, 奶奶可能会跟爸爸, 奶奶会找话题跟爸爸多聊一些。 Bo 3 Which language do they use? 他们说的是什么语言? Guo 4 They speak local language, [Bo: Local language?] Yeah, speak Hokkien. [Bo: Fujian?] Yeah. [Bo: Is it Fuqingnese?] Fuqing, Fuqing, Fuqingnese is made up of languages of different towns of Fuqing, they’re different. [Bo: Oh, right.] Right. [Bo: I see, which type of Fuqingnese do they speak?] I can understand the language that they speak. [Bo: But you can’t speak it?] Eh, I can. [Bo: Is your Fuqingnese the same type as theirs? Or?] Should be the same type, my family is only a few minutes’ drive away from theirs, they were living in the town, but the language is different across the street, that’s where the country is [Bo: right, they were living in the town] if you cross the street, and then walk a few minutes into the countryside, where people speak Southern Min, but their Southern Min is again different from the Southern Min that my grandma speaks. [Bo: Yeah.] I lived in the town, while my grandma lived in the countryside, grandma’s Southern Min is different from the Southern Min of my husband’s grandma. [Bo: Yeah, how about the Taiwanese Southern Min (Taiwanese Hokkien)?] Hokkien, I might understand. [Bo: You can understand?] Yes, I can, but I might not be able to speak it, because me and my grandma, I was brought up by my grandma. [Bo: Actually, you can speak Southern Min?] I can. [Bo: Okay.] But I don’t know, is my grandma’s Southern Min the authentic one? [Bo: I think because a language has different varieties, right? In terms of the standards…] I think it might soon die out. [Bo: Yeah.] Yeah. 他们说的是地方话 [Bo: 地方话? ] 对, 讲福建话 [Bo: 福建? ] 对 [Bo: 是福清话吗? 是...... ] 啊, 他们福清, 福清, 就是福清那个话又分好, 好几个城镇的话, 又不一样 [Bo: 噢, 对吧] 对 [Bo: 哇, 那他们讲的是福, 福

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清哪个地方? ] 他讲的话我可以听得懂 [Bo: 但是你不会讲? ] 呃, 我会讲 [Bo: 也跟他们是一种类型的吗? 还是? ] 噢, 算是一种类型的, 但是就离他们家可能就几分钟车, 就几分钟路程吧, 对面马路讲的就是 different 的话, 就是乡村的那个, 就是他们算是在镇上 [Bo: 对, 他们在镇上] 然后对面马路再走几分钟进去就是乡村, 然后他们讲的就是那个闽南语, 但是他们的闽南语跟我外婆的闽南语又不一样 [Bo: 嗯] 我住在镇上, 然后外婆住在乡下, 然后去外婆家, 外婆那里讲的闽南语就跟老公这边外婆讲的闽南语的话就不一样 [Bo: 噢, 那比如说, 你知道台湾的那个闽南语] 闽南语, 我可能我会听得懂 [Bo: 您会听得懂? ] 对, 我会听得懂, 但未必我会讲, 因为我跟我外婆, 我小时候跟我外婆带大的 [Bo: 哇, 其实你是会讲闽南语的对吧? ] 我会讲 [Bo: Okay] 但是我不知道我外婆的闽南语算是正宗的闽南语吗? [Bo: 其实我就觉得就是因为一直语言它不是有不同的类型嘛对吧, 就是没有说, 因为标准都是...] 但我想可能快消匿了[Bo: 嗯] 噢。 Bo 5 For you, what are all the languages including dialects you can speak? For example, Mandarin is definitely one of them, right? [Guo: Yeah.] Then, you just mentioned Southern Min. [Guo: Yeah.] Then… [Guo: Hokkien, Fujian.] Right, like, can you rank all the languages according to the proficiency, start from the most proficient one to the least proficient one? 对你来说, 你所会说的所有的语言, 包括方言有哪一些呢? 比如说普通话算一个了对吧? [Guo: 嗯] 然后呢, 你说的闽南语 [Guo: 嗯] 就是你从...... [Guo: 福建话, 福建] 对, 比如说你说从你最熟练的到你最不熟练的开始？ Guo 6 Mandarin is definitely the most proficient. [Bo: Mandarin is the most proficient.] Right. [Bo: That is…] Then, is my Hokkien, local. [Bo: The language of Fu, fu, fu…] Should be the language of Fuqing, Fuqingnese. [Bo: Fuqingnese, Fuqingnese of which part? Fuqingnese of…] Yuxi. [Bo: Yuxi, is it a place?] Yeah, it’s a little town where I used to live. [Bo: How do you spell it?] Yu, as Yu in Yuren (Fishman). [Bo: Yu, Yu, what?] Yu in Yunren (Fishman), Yu in Buyu (Fishing). [Bo: I see, as Yu in Buyu (Fishing).] Correct, three dots water radical (氵). [Bo: Yu 渔 (Fishing).] Right, then, Xi, as Xi in Xiaoxi (a small stream). [Bo: Such a beautiful name, Yuxi, right?] Yeah. [Bo: Yuxi is a?] A little town. [Bo: The town of Yuxi, correct?] Yes. [Bo: In terms of administrative division, to which county or city does Yuxi belong?] It should be Fuqing city. [Bo: Ah, Fuqing city, right?] Yes, Fuqing city, then Yuxi town. [Oh, it is under the jurisdiction of Fuqing city.] Yuxi is the level down. [Bo: Yuxi town.] Yeah. [Bo: So, you speak Yuxi Fuqingnese?] It’s just Fuqingnese. [Bo: It’s Fuqingnese?] Right. [Bo: Is there a big difference between Yuxi Fuqingnese and Fuqingnese of the Fuqing city?] There might be no big difference. [Bo: No big difference.] 普通话肯定是最熟练的 [Bo: 普通话最熟练的] 对 [Bo: 那就是...] 然后就是我的那个福建话, local [Bo: 福, 福, 福, 哪的话? ] 应该算是福清, 福清话 [Bo: 福清话, 那福清话它是哪一个地方的福清话呢? 福清话是...] 渔溪 [Bo: 渔溪, 是一个地方? ] 噢, 就是我生活的一个小镇 [Bo: 是怎么写? ] 呃, 渔, 渔人的渔 [Bo: 渔, 渔, 什么? ] 渔人的渔, 捕渔的渔

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[Bo: 噢, 捕渔的渔] 对, 三点水 [Bo: 渔] 对, 然后溪, 小溪的溪 [Bo: 哇, 这个名字很好听, 渔溪是吧? ] 噢 [Bo: 渔溪是一个? ] 小镇 [Bo: 渔溪镇是吧? ] 对 [Bo: 那渔溪镇是在行政上它是属于哪个县还是市的一个? ] 它应该是啊, 福清是一个市 [Bo: 啊, 福清市对吧? ] 对, 这是福清市, 然后隶属, 然后就渔溪镇 [Bo: 噢, 福清市下的, 县的] 下来的渔溪镇 [Bo: 渔溪镇] 嗯 [Bo: 那你所说的福清话就是说是渔溪镇的? ] 就是福清话 [Bo: 就是福清话? ] 对对 [Bo: 那比如说你渔溪镇的福清话和福清市的福清话区别大吗? ] 区别可能不大 [Bo: 区别不大] Guo 7 No big difference, but it’s very strange, for example, people of Gaoshan town, they have their unique accent, you understand? [Bo: Oh, Gaoshan town?] Yes. [Bo: Gaoshan (lit: high mountain) town, is Gaoshan ‘high mountains’?] Yeah, yeah, people of Haikou have Haikou accent. [Bo: Is Haikou, ‘hai’ as in ‘dahai’ (ocean)?] Yes, Haikou. [Bo: Haikou town.] Yes. [Bo: Is Haikou town also, eh, Haikou town and Gaoshan town are both under the jurisdiction of Fuqing city?] Both under Fuqing city. [Bo: Yeah, they have the same administrative level with Yuxi county?] Yeah. [Bo: You mean Fuqingnese of Gaoshan town and Haikou town…] Is totally different, but you can understand, the accent [Bo: Accent, accent], yes, the accent is different. [Bo: Oh, right.] So, once you hear someone speaking Gaoshan Fuqingnese, you’ll realise ‘they’re from Gaoshan’. [Bo: Right.] 区别不大, 但是很奇怪, 比如说如果是高山镇, 那高山镇它讲的话就有他们的那个腔调, 你懂吗? [Bo: 噢, 高山镇?] 对 [Bo: 高山镇, 就是那个高山的高山是吧? ] 嗯, 然后海口镇又有海口镇的一种腔调 [Bo: 海口就是那个, 嗯, 大海的海? ] 对对, 海口 [Bo: 海口镇] 对 [Bo: 海口镇也是, 呃, 海口镇和高山镇都是福清市下面的?] 全部都是福清市下面的 [Bo: 嗯, 就是和那个渔溪镇相当于是平行的这种镇?] 嗯 [Bo: 但是呃, 您的意思是说高山镇和海口镇他们的福清话] 他们又有 totally different, 但是你可以听得懂, 但是就是那个 accent [Bo: accent 口音] 对, accent 不一样的 [Bo: 噢] 所以你, 你一听到高山人讲的福清话你就 “哎呀, 这是高山的” [Bo: 噢] Guo 8 Yeah, also there’s Sanshan. {Ms Guo’s pronunciation of the second character Shan is very close to San.}. Quite a few, there’re many other towns under Fuqing city. [Bo: Right, did you say Shan?] Sanshan, Sanshan, San as in yi, er, san (one, two and three). [Bo: San, yes.] Then, Shan (Mountains). [Bo: Oh, Sanshan (Lit: Three Mountains).] Yeah, Sanshan, right. [Bo: Is Shan mountain?] Ah, right, Sanshan, you see, even myself can’t pronounce it well. [Bo: Right, Sanshan is another town, right?] Yeah, Honglu town, my husband was from Honglu. [Bo: He’s, which Hong?] Eh, Hong as in Hongwei (magnificent). [Bo: Hong as in Hongwei.] Lu, is, lu, eh, as in Dalu (highway). [Bo: Lu as in Dalu.] Honglu town. [Bo: Honglu town.] [Bo: Hong as in Hongwei, Lu as in Dalu.] There are still many, many other towns, I can’t remember. [Bo: Oh, right, your hometown is…] Yuxi town. [Bo: Yuxi town, and your husband is from Honglu town, right?] Right. [Bo: Can I say your parents-in-law speak Honglu Fuqingnese?] It should be, yeah. [Bo: Right?] Yeah. [Bo: Does that mean, like, during your family gathering, your parents-in-law and their son, your husband, speak Honglu Fuqingnese?] Right.

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嗯, 还有三山的. 就是好多, 就是福清市下面还有好多镇 [Bo: 对, 你刚才说的是山? ] 三山. 三山, 就是一二三的三 [Bo: 三, 嗯] 然后山 [Bo: 哦, 三山] 噢, 三山, 对 [Bo: mountain 那个山?] 啊, 对对, 三山, 你看我自己都讲不好 [Bo: 对, 三山镇, 那也是一个镇对吧? ] 噢, 宏路镇, 我老公是宏路的 [Bo: 他是哪, 宏是哪个宏? ] 呃, 宏伟的宏 [Bo: 宏伟的宏] 路, 就是呃, 路, 呃, 就大路的路 [Bo: 大路的路] 宏路镇 [Bo: 宏路镇] 嗯 [Bo: 宏伟的宏, 大路的路啊] 还有好多, 还有好多镇, 我不太懂 [Bo: 啊, 噢, 对, 你老家是在那个] 渔溪镇 [Bo: 渔溪镇, 然后你老公是宏路镇对吧? ] 对 [Bo: 那就是, 就是你的公公婆婆他们的福清话是不是就是宏路镇的? ] 应该算是吧, 嗯 [Bo: 对, 是吧] 嗯 [Bo: 那意思是说, 比如说在你们家庭聚会, 那个在一起聊天的时候, 吃饭的时候, 那你公公婆婆和你, 和他们的儿子, 就是你老公说的就是宏路镇的福清话? ] 对对。 Bo 9 Okay, Mandarin is your most proficient, including listening, speaking, reading and writing; it’s the language that you use the most in everyday life, right? [Guo: Right, use the most.] And then, Fuqingnese? [Guo: Yeah.] Fuqingnese, your competence…what do you normally do using Fuqingnese? [Guo: Talk with my mum on the phone.] Talk with Mum on the phone, right, including your relatives? Like… [Guo: Oh, yes, with relatives, also speak Fujian, ah, speak Fuqingnese.] Fuqingnese, you speak the Yuxi Fuqingnese, right? [Guo: Correct.] 噢, 那就是普通话是你最熟练的, 这个包括你的听说读写什么的, 包括你日常生活中使用最多的是吧? [Guo: 对对对, 使用最多的] Bo: 然后再下来的就是福清话? [Guo: 嗯] 福清话, 你的能力是...... 用福清话你一般是做什么呢? [Guo: 跟我妈妈讲电话] 就是和, 和你的...... [Guo: 跟我妈妈讲电话] 和妈妈讲电话, 嗯, 包括, 那你们家亲戚呢? 比如说 [Guo: 噢, 亲戚也是, 也是讲福建, 啊, 就是讲这个福清话] 福清话, 就是你说的这个渔溪镇的福清话对吧? [Guo: 对对对] Bo 10 Which language do you use with your husband’s parents, I mean your parents-in-law? [Guo: Ah, I speak Mandarin with my father-in-law, but Fuqingnese with my mother-in-law.] Oh, you speak Fuqingnese with your mother-in-law? [Guo: Fuqingnese.] Then, with your [Guo: Father-in-law, speak Mandarin] why? [Guo: Eh, don’t know why, I don’t know why.] Eh, let’s see a scenario, this is very interesting. [Guo: Yeah.] For example, if I ask you to, like, ask you to talk to your father-in-law in Fuqingnese, how would you feel? Like, you normally speak Mandarin with each other, but if I ask you to switch to Fuqingnese, how would you feel? 那你和你老公的爸爸妈妈, 就是你的公公婆婆是说什么话? [Guo: 啊, 我跟我公公我会讲国语, 但是我跟我婆婆我会讲福清话] 噢, 对, 你跟你婆婆说的是福清话 [Guo: 福清话] 然后跟你...... [Guo: 公公讲的是国语] 这是为什么呢? [Guo: 噢, 不知道为什么, 我也不知道为什么]就是...... 呃, 那举个例子吧, 这很有意思的一现象 [Guo: 噢] 比如说我现在让你拿, 比如说你跟你公公交流, 你变成福清话跟他交流, 你有什么感觉? 比如你们一般是拿国语来交流, 我让你们拿福清话去交流, 你会变成一种什么感觉呢?

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Guo 11 We also speak Fuqingnese, but my father-in-law and I often talk about what’s on the news, we would discuss about politics and world affairs. [Bo: Yeah.] How could I possibly talk about these things with my mother-in- law? She only gossips about what’s going on between other people. [Bo: Right, okay, does that mean, you and your father-in-law talk more about political news and the like, and you and your mother-in-law mainly talk about everyday trivial matters?] Right, right. [Bo: Actually, the content of your talk decides which language you would use, can I interpret like this?] Ah, I don’t know, it’s imperceptible…I don’t know why I am able to clearly distinguish them. [Bo: It’s imperceptible, you, you, you naturally…] Yes, I would say something like ‘Dad, did you know, which country with which country, like Thailand fights with some country, like, like Burma army’ very naturally in Mandarin, then he would reply, like ‘Yes, I know…’ and we start to talk, talk, talk…[Bo: you are very interested in politics and world affairs] to cater to his pleasure. [Bo: Oh, right, is that because he was a primary school Principal? You told me before.] Right, right [Bo: Right.] Also, generally guys like talking about these, my husband also talks about this, he likes watching programmes on military affairs, he watches them every day. [Bo: Right, he likes.] He would say ‘Did you know, our country just invented something’, ‘Which country bought which weapon from our country’ in Mandarin, blah blah blah, he’s very ‘violent’, I found, he really likes action movies, Kungfu movies, he wouldn’t watch the movie if it’s not ‘violent’ {laughing}. 也会讲福清话, 但我跟我公公很, 经常交流就是今天, 呃, 发生了什么新闻啊, 我们会讨论时事政治啊 [Bo: 嗯] 然后我跟我婆婆哪有办法讨论这个? 她就是讲, 她就讲邻里之间谁七大姑八大小发生什么事情啊 [Bo: 对, 好, 其实那就是说, 你和你的公公其实讲的内容, 是时政方面的新闻跟消息什么的, 然后跟你婆婆讲的是这种日常的生活琐碎] 对对 [Bo: 那其实就是你们讲话的内容决定了你使用哪种语言, 我可以这样去解释吗? ] 啊, 我也不知道, 我潜移默化地……我就不知道, 我, 我, 我会分得这么清楚 [Bo: 就潜移默化, 就是你, 你, 你就很自然地? ] 噢, 对, 我很自然地说“诶, 爸你知道吗? 今天那个什么什么国家啊, 泰国跟什么, 什么缅甸军啊打仗啊什么”, 然后他就说 “啊呀!” 然后这时候我们就会讲讲 [Bo: 噢, 那你还挺关心时事政治的] 投他所好嘛 [Bo: 噢, 对, 因为他是小学校长对吧? 以前你讲的] 对呀, 对呀 [Bo: 对对对] 而且男生都喜欢聊这些嘛, 然后我老公也会跟我说, 我老公喜欢看军事啊, 天天晚上都要看军事 [Bo: 对, 他喜欢] “你知道嘛, 我们国家又发明了什么”, “诶, 谁谁谁跟我们国家买什么武器什么什么” 他好暴力哦, 我发现, 他好喜欢什么动作片, 武打片, 不暴的不看{笑}。 Bo 12 Besides Mandarin, Fuqingnese [Guo: Yeah] okay, any other languages you use? You just mentioned Southern Min. [Guo: Southern Min, with my grandma, I speak it with my grandma when I got back to China.] Right, let’s review all the languages you use, think about your social network, and which language you would use with which group of people. [Guo: Yeah.] You use Southern Min with… [Guo: Only with my maternal grandpa and grandma.] Only with your maternal grandpa and grandma. [Guo: Yeah.] You and your dad and mum speak Fuqingnese with each other? [Guo: Fuqingnese.] You use Mandarin with your husband? [Guo: As well as

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children, it’s actually ‘Once you meet someone, you use the corresponding language’.] ‘Speak the corresponding language once you see someone’, yeah, okay, Mandarin, Hokkien (Fuqingnese), Southern Min and then English? [Guo: English, correct.] 那除了普通话, 福清话 [Guo: 嗯] Okay, 那你下面使用的还有其他语言吗? 你刚才说明了还有闽南话 [Guo: 闽南话, 跟我外婆, 回到, 回中国看到我外婆会讲] 是吧, 就是你现在就是, 比如说我在引导你回顾你使用的语言, 你就想一想你所有的整个的你这个人际关系当中, 你遇到什么样的一群人说的是哪一种话 [Guo: 嗯] 对, 比如说你和, 你的闽南话那就是和你的...... [Guo: 就只和外公、外婆讲] 就你的外公、外婆是吧? [Guo: 噢, 噢] 那你跟你的爸爸妈妈是讲? 诶, 福清话? [Guo: 福清话] 那你的普通话那现在就是跟, 跟你的老公是吧? [Guo: 还有小孩, 小孩, 其实就是一个, 就是你, 等于是 “你看见某人就说某话”] 对, “看见某人说某话”。嗯, 那, Okay, 普通话, 福建话, 闽南话, 然后下面有一个就是英文了吧? [Guo: 英文, 对] Bo 13 Besides English, any other languages? Think about it… [Guo: Ah, I also speak some Cantonese, Hong Kong speech, with my husband.] Oh, right, you told me before. [Guo: Right.] Yeah. [Guo: When we were joking with each other.] Oh, really? [Guo: Yeah.] You speak Hong Kong speech with your husband sometimes? [Guo: Yeah.] When talking about what kind of topics? [Guo: Like, something that we don’t want kids to hear, for example, talking behind someone’s back {laughing}.] Oh. [Guo: Right.] What is the level of your Cantonese? [Guo: I can fully understand it.] You can fully understand it, right? [Guo: Right.] Can you put all the things that you want to say into…[Guo: Cantonese?] Right, Cantonese. [Guo: I should have the capability because I lived in Hong Kong for three months, I mastered Cantonese in three months. I was able to go out to buy stuff, go shopping.] Oh, you lived in Hong Kong for three months? [Guo: Correct.] You completely…that was really quick. [Guo: I think it is very similar to my Fuqingnese.] You think Cantonese and Fuqingnese are quite similar? [Guo: A little bit similar, so I felt it was so easy to learn, I watched Hong Kong TV at home every day, to watch their TV, I could copy it very quickly. But you can’t say slang to me, I wouldn’t understand slang.] Right, but you think Cantonese was not a big barrier for you, right? [Guo: I don’t think it’s a barrier, I think languages from different parts of China, because I’m Chinese, I think the languages are interlinked.] 除了英文还有其他的吗? 想一想, 就是...... [Guo: 啊, 也会跟我老公讲一些粤语, 香港话] 噢, 对, 你说过 [Guo: 对] 嗯 [Guo: 就是我们之间开玩笑时候会讲] 噢, 是吧? [Guo: 对] 那这个, 嗯, 香港话, 那这个是和老公有的时候会去讲? [Guo: 对] 那说到哪种话题的时候? [Guo: 比如说比较, 不想让孩子听到的一些话, 比如说讲某人的坏话 {笑} ] 噢! [Guo: 对] 那你的这个粤语的水平是怎么样的一种水平? [Guo: 我可以完全听得懂] 完全可以听得懂是吧? [Guo: 对] 那可以, 嗯, 完全把你想说的话变成... [Guo: 粤语吗? ] 对, 粤语 [Guo: 我, 我应该有这个能力, 因为我在香港呆过三个月, 我三个月就把那个粤语拿下来了。我就已经出去买东西啊, 去 shopping 啊] 噢, 香港呆了三个月? [Guo: 对] 就已经完全就...噢, 那你其实很快的 [Guo: 就, 我觉得它很 similar 跟我的福清话

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啊! ] Okay! 你觉得就是这个粤语和福清话是比较相似的? [Guo: 有点相似, 对, 所以我觉得我学起来好简单哦, 然后我就天天在家里看那个香港电视台啊, 就什么, 就看他们电视啊, 很快就能 copy 下来。但是你不能说一些俚语哦, 你说俚语我就听不来啦] 对, 但是你就觉得这个对你障碍不是特别大是吧? [Guo: 我觉得不是障碍, 我觉得应该中国的应该各个地方的, 因为我是中国人嘛, 我觉得应该是语言是能相通的]

Excerpt 12-F2: Evelyn’s language practice, MT

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-3/21MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold), the Guo family is having lunch together at the Chinese school Evelyn 1 Finish Mummy. Guo 2 Good. 很好。 Bo 3 What did she just say? ‘Finish, Mummy’? Oh, she wants more? 她刚才说什么? “Finish Mummy”? 哦, 要再吃? Guo 4 ‘Finish, Mummy’; it means she’s finished; actually, I found that children who grow up here, would have ‘English’ as their mother tongue [Bo: Yeah] because people who are around them, who they have contact with, all speak ‘Galagalagala’. ‘Finish Mummy’, 证明她吞下去了, 其实我发现这边长大的孩子他可能会以 “英文” 为母语啦 [Bo: 嗯] 因为身边的人, 接触的人都会是在讲 ‘嘎啦嘎啦嘎啦’, 所以… Sophia 5 Galagalagala {laughing}. “嘎啦嘎啦嘎啦” {笑} Bo 6 Sophia, do you speak English with Evelyn or something else? 那 Sophia 你跟她说英文还是说? Sophia 7 English. [Bo: English. Is Chinese easier or English easier?] I like speaking Chinese, but I just speak English out of habit. [Bo: Speaking English out of habit.] 英文 [Bo: 英文, 你觉得中文简单还是英文简单, 对你来说?] 应该中文是我比较喜欢说, 就是我习, 就习惯说英文了 [Bo: 习惯说英文了]

Excerpt 13-F2: ‘Don’t speak English to Grandma, Grandma doesn’t understand English’

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold)

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Guo 1 I need to pick up other two from school at 3.30, when I get back home, I would FaceTime my mum, then I start to cook. 3 点半要接另外两个大一点的, 接完回来, 我又说, 我就跟我妈妈聊一下视频, 然后就开始做饭了。 Bo 2 Oh, right, your mum lives in China, and you FaceTime her? [Guo: Yes.] Evelyn would also chat with her grandma, wouldn’t she? [Guo: Yeah, they also chat.] by using which language? 噢, 对, 你跟你妈妈, 噢, 你妈妈在国内, 你跟她聊视频是吧? [Guo: 对] 那个 Evelyn 会和那个她外婆, 她们也会聊是吧? [Guo: 对, 也会聊] 就是聊什么话呢? 是用什么语言呢? Guo 3 Ah, English and Mandarin {laughing}. [Bo: English and Mandarin.] Hearing Evelyn speaking English, my mum would say, ‘Don’t speak English to Grandma; Grandma doesn’t understand English’. Then, Evelyn would try to use Mandarin; eventually, my mum got quite confused, ‘Ah, okay, okay, I know’. [Bo: Grandma didn’t quite understand Evelyn?] Right, didn’t quite understand her, especially sometimes the video call wasn’t that smooth, it’s stuck. [Bo: Right, it got stuck and no sound came out?] Right. 啊, 英文跟中文 {笑} [Bo: 英文和中文] 当我妈一听到她说英文的时候, 我妈就说 “你不要跟外婆讲英文, 外婆不懂英文”, 然后她, 她就会 try, 用用她所知道的中文跟她讲, 然后我妈妈就听她讲得稀里糊涂的, 我妈就说, “啊, 好啦, 好啦, 我知道啦! ” [Bo: 外婆也, 也不是听得很懂是吧?] 对, 不太懂, 关键你有时候视频吧, 它还有时候没那么顺畅, 它会卡啊! [Bo: 对] 对 [Bo: 对, 卡住了也出不来声音是吧? ] 对。

Excerpt 14-F2 [Fieldnotes/01NOV2014] (Swearing in Fuqingnese, not English)

Conversation with Ms Guo about swearing (language practices and attitudes)

Ms Guo’s language practices—swearing in Fuqingnese

My question to Ms Guo was about the difference between swearing in English (F-word) and swearing in mother tongue: Fuqingnese

Reasons for swearing in Fuqingnese rather than English at home:

Second, Ms Guo does not want her children to understand the swearwords. If she uses English, the swearwords will be too strong for her children.

Excerpt 15-F2: Attitudes to Mandarin, English and esp. Fuqingnese/MT

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-3/21MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold)

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Bo 1 {Following Excerpt 2-F2} Across all the languages that you speak, from your perspective, which language is the most important? What kind of emotions are attached to each language? [Guo: The deepest?] Yeah, I mean, eh… [Guo: Or through which one myself can be better, better expressed?] Yes [Guo: It should be Chinese, Mandarin.] Which is… [Guo: Putonghua (Mandarin).] Putonghua? [Guo: Right, because many of my dialects sometimes can’t fully express what I mean, so that’s why, when I speak Chinese, I can play the language a bit more exciting, which means I can express myself better.] Right, that is Putonghua. [Guo: Right.] {Following Excerpt 2-F2} 你觉得这几种语言, 对你个人来说哦, 哪种语言是, 就是最重要的? 就是你的感情, 你和每种语言的那种感情是什么? [Guo: 最深的?] 对, 就是...... [Guo: 就还是说更能, 更能表达我想要的东西? ] 对 [Guo: 那应该是中文, 就是国语] 就是...... [Guo: 普通话] 普通话? [Guo: 对, 因为我好多方言有时候它完全不能表达出我的意思, 所以 that’s why, 我, 我, 我讲, 我讲中文我会比较 play 地更精彩一点, 就是, 对, 表达得更好] 对, 就是普通话 [Guo: 对] Bo 2 How about your current English level? [Guo: Ah, really bad {laughing}.] Really? But you have no trouble dealing with everyday communication? [Guo: Yeah, everyday communication shouldn’t be a problem, but don’t talk with me about technical terms, they’re horrifying {laughing}.] 那就是, 那你的英文的水平现在是一个怎样的水平? [Guo: 哎呀! 好差啦! {笑}] 是吧? 就是日常的交流是没有问题的? [Guo: 噢, 日常的交流应该是没有问题的, 但你别跟我交流什么专业术语, 那个好可怕, 那种 {笑}] Bo 3 When you are entertaining yourself, like, watching TV, reading books or newspapers, which language do you use? Through the medium of? [Guo: Of course, Chinese.] Right, more Putonghua? [Guo: Right, right.] 那比如说你休闲娱乐的时候, 使用比如说嗯, 看电视啊, 读书, 看报是用哪种? 是哪种媒介的多一点? [Guo: 那当然是中文] 对, 对普通话的多一点? [Guo: 对, 对] Bo 4 Okay, what would you feel…for example, when it comes to Fuqingnese, if you walk on the street and hear Fuqingnese all of a sudden, how would you feel? [Guo: Laoxiang (People from the same hometown).] Laoxiang (People from the same hometown). [Guo: Yeah, I often, like, going shopping, to get Chinese, Chinese goods, then, I could hear people from the same hometown speaking hometown language…because I don’t normally speak hometown language, people wouldn’t think we are from the same place.] Right. [Guo: So, when I hear they were talking, I would concentrate, I would look at them, ‘Oh, they are a young couple’, ‘Oh, a mum with her daughter went shopping’…] Right. [Guo: Right, I would pay more attention to it.] Right, how about when you hear Mandarin? [Guo: Hearing Mandarin is so normal.] So normal? [Guo: So normal.] Right, like, which language you would find closer to you? We’re now living in an English-speaking country. [Guo: Yeah.] Like, you are in Australia, you are very familiar with this environment. [Guo: Yeah.] Let’s imagine if you were in another country, where another language is spoken. [Guo: Yeah, yeah, should also be Fuqingnese.] Fuqingnese? [Guo: Right, it makes me

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very…maybe not here in Australia, in, like, Italy or somewhere else, if I hear people speaking Fuqingnese, I would definitely go and say hi to them ‘I’m also from Fuqing’.] Right, you would …[Guo: Yeah, yeah.] You think, like, Mandarin, Fuqingnese, Southern Min, Cantonese, English [Guo: yeah] among all the languages that you can speak, which language is the closest to your heart? [Guo: Close to my heart?] Right. [Guo: It also should be Fuqingnese.] Fuqingnese? [Guo: Yes.] Yes. [Guo: Like, like I go to an unfamiliar country, I hear people speaking Fuqingnese, if, I’m guessing, if I haven’t had my own family, I only go there to study, maybe I would go closer to these people.] Ah right. [Guo: Because I assume they grew up in the same environment as mine, eh, the food they eat may also be the same, I mean their taste preference.] Yeah, right. [Guo: They are people from the same hometown, so they won’t harm me {laughing}.] 好! 那你就觉得……比如说说到福清话, 比如说你走在大街上, 你突然间听到了福清话, 你, 你内心是一种什么样的感觉? [Guo: 老乡啊] 老乡 [Guo: 噢.我很经常, 比如说去一个地方买中国, 中国货的时候, 然后我会听到就是我们家乡的人在讲家乡话, 然后...... 因为我是不太讲家乡话, 所以人家也不太觉得我是他那里的人] 对 [Guo: 所以, 当我听到他们讲的时候我会很, 我会 concentrate, 就是啊, 我会看一下他们, 是一对年轻夫妇, 啊, 是一个妈妈跟女儿出来采购啊什么的] 对 [Guo: 对, 就会多留意一下] 对, 那你一下子听到普通话呢 [Guo: 普通话太正常了] 太正常了? [Guo: 太正常了] 对, 那比如说你跟哪种语言听起来你觉得更加亲切? 比如说现在咱们是在英语的国家 [Guo: 噢] 比如说现在澳洲, 因为你已经对这个环境比较熟悉了 [Guo: 嗯] 我们设想如果你是在另外一个国家, 这个国家可能说啊一种其他语言的, 对吧 [Guo: 嗯, 嗯, 嗯, 应该还是福清话] 福清话? [Guo: 对, 会让我很...... maybe 不在澳洲这个地方, 在, 或者在呃...... 意大利或什么, 如果我看到对方讲福清话的话, 我肯定会凑上跟前去跟他打招呼, “我也是福清的”] 对对对, 就有这个...... [Guo: 对, 对] 嗯, 你就觉得这个, 比如说这几种, 你刚才说的普通话, 福清话, 闽南语, 粤语, 英文啊 [Guo: 嗯] 你就所有, 所有你会掌握的语言, 你觉得哪种语言是最贴近你内心的? [Guo: 贴近我内心啊?] 对 [Guo: 那应该还是福清话吧] 福清话? [Guo: 对] 对 [Guo: 就, 就好像我去一个陌生的国度, 我听到了人家讲福清话, 如果我设想, 如果, 如果我现在还没组成家庭的话, 我只是一个人去哪里留学的话, maybe 我就会跟这些人走得比较近一点] 啊, 对! [Guo: 因为我想那些人他跟我有共同的成长环境, 呃...... 就吃的东西可能也是八九不离十, 就是那个偏好] 嗯, 对! [Guo: 而且他是家乡人, 应该不会害我 {笑}]

Excerpt 16-F2: Discussion of Evelyn’s language practice—use of mother’s swearwords

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 Can Evelyn speak the dialect of your mum? Fuqingnese, is she able to speak? 那 Evelyn 会不会说你妈妈的那种方言? 福清话, 孩子会说吗?

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Guo 2 She, she can’t, she can’t speak it at all. [Bo: She can’t speak it at all?] Right, but she knows swearwords {laughing}. [Bo: Oh, swearwords? From whom did she learn the swearwords?] Eh, sometimes, I would swear, when very angry, I would swear in hometown language. [Bo: So, she learned from that?] Correct. 她, 她不会, 她应该完全不会 [Bo: 她完全不会? ] 对, 但骂人的话她会 {笑} [Bo: 噢, 骂人的话, 她是跟谁学得骂人的话?] 呃, 有时候嘛, 我也会骂啊, 就很, 很生气的时候我就会用家乡话骂人 [Bo: 她就会啦? ] 对。

Excerpt 17-F2: Evelyn’s language practice—use of Fuqingnese responding to a strong parenting behaviour

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-2/14MAR15], Mandarin, Fuqingnese (in Italics) and English (in Bold) Guo 1 I know you educators may not support this, but I think it is very necessary. 我知道你们教育工作者可能不会支持说这样, 但是我觉得很有必要。 Bo 2 How did you do it, smack on the bum? Smack on the hand? 你是怎么个打法的, 打屁股? 打手? Guo 3 Smack on the hand. [Bo: Smack on the hand.] Eh, use that… [Bo: A pointer?] The cane [Bo: The cane?] {laughing} Grab the cane, yeah, hand, including Evelyn, she’s older, I also do, but only in the worst-case scenario. I rarely hit them, but if I do, they’ll have to raise their hands high, if I say three hits, I will definitely smack them three times, and not gently, it must be very hard. 打手 [Bo: 打手] 呃, 打就是拿那个呃……[Bo: 教鞭? ] 藤条 [Bo: 藤条啊?] {笑} 藤条, 拿一个, 嗯, 手, 包括 Evelyn 现在她现在已经懂事了, 我也会, 只有就是非常坏的情况下, 妈妈很少打, 但是打的时候就一定要把手升高, 说了打三下, 就是一定要打三下, 而且不会轻轻地打, 一定是重重地打。 Evelyn 4 Yes, Mum don’t do that, throw away the chui, chuiyang (the cane)! 就是, 妈妈不要这样子, 扔掉这个 chui, chuiyang! Guo 5 Throw away the chuiyang (the cane), she said throw away the cane. 扔掉这个 chuiyang! 她就说她扔掉这个 “树枝”。 Bo 6 Ah, she, what did she say? Throw away the… [Guo: Chuiyang.] Chuiyang? 啊, 她, 她刚刚说了什么? 扔掉那个……[Guo: Chuiyang] chuiyang? Guo 7 That was Fuqingnese. 是那个福清话。 Evelyn 8 That was the stick. 就是那个 stick。

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Chapter 6: FLP And Children’s Multilingual/Multicultural Experiences

Section 6.2.2 Sophia’s, Henry’s and Evelyn’s multilingual and multicultural experiences

Excerpt 18-F2: ‘Benjamin is a White guy. He’s bad.’

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Evelyn now goes to? Evelyn 现在是上什么? Guo 2 She goes to Kinder. [Bo: She goes to Kinder, is she four years old? When did she start Kinder?] In February this year, the beginning of February. [Bo: Oh, not long ago.] Right, she got to know a boy called Benjamin, Benjamin, on her first day there, she told me he was an ‘English guy’. 她现在上 Kinder [Bo: 她现在上 Kinder, 她现在是 4 岁? 她什么时候去的 Kinder] 就今年 2 月份吧, 2 月初的时候 [Bo: 噢, 就是刚刚?] 对, 她第一天她就认识一个男生叫 Benjamin, Benjamin, 她跟我说那个是 “English guy”。 Bo 3 Right, she already had this kind of reaction at that time, it’s really… 对对对, 她那个时候就, 就已经有这样的反应了。噢, 那真的是非常得… Guo 4 Kids, she is able to, is able to, she would think ‘We are different from them’—they are, they are ‘English people’. At home, she called them ‘English people’. [Bo: She didn’t say ‘Australian people’?] She didn’t, she might mean, mean that he speaks English. [Bo: Oh, right, he speaks English.] 小朋友, 她会分, 她会, 她会觉得 “我们跟他们不一样”, 他是, 他是 English people, 但是在我们家她就讲 English people [Bo: 她没有说 Australian people?] 她没有, 她可能就是意思是 mean 他是讲英语的人 [Bo: 噢, 对, 他是讲英语的人] Guo 5 Also mean…she also called him ‘White guy’, calling him ‘White guy’. Her Uncle Dan, after one week, we, after one week in Kinder, her White foreigner Guzhang’s (uncle’s) birthday. [Bo: Foreigner who?] Guzhang (uncle), means uncle. [Bo: Oh, uncle, uncle.] Yeah, uncle, he asked her, ‘Evelyn, how’s your Kinder?’, then she said ‘Benjamin is a White guy. He’s bad’. Then she started to gossip with him, this boy is very naughty. When she said ‘White guy’, Uncle Dan’s whole family was there, so was our family. When they heard this little girl say ‘White guy’, all of those English people burst into laughter {laughing}. [Bo: They burst into laughter.] Burst into laughter. [Bo: Because she’s, she’s so little but already has this…] Right, she has this consciousness, she is able to distinguish people who speak English, as well as they are ‘White people’.

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而且还 mean……还叫他 “White guy”, 叫他 “White guy”, 然后他的 Uncle Dan 就, 第一个礼拜她就, 我们就, 就是她上完了第一个礼拜她, 她那个鬼佬的姑丈过生日嘛 [Bo: 就是鬼佬的什么?] 姑丈, 就是 uncle [Bo: 噢噢, uncle, 姑丈] 嗯, uncle, 然后他就问 “Evelyn, how’s your Kinder?”, 然后她说 “Benjamin is a White guy. He’s bad”。她就开始讲他不好, 这个男生很 naughty. 然后当她讲 “White guy” 的时候, 因为那个 Uncle Dan 他整个 family 也过来嘛, 那我们这边 family 也过去, 当他们听到她这个小女生讲 “White guy” 的时候, 那些 English people 都大笑了 {笑} [Bo: 都大笑了哦] 大笑 [Bo: 因为她这么, 她这么小就有那个……] 对, 她有意识, 她会分这是 “讲英语”的人, 而且他是 “白人”。

Excerpt 19-F2: Sophia’s classroom encounter

S T Utterances [Student-2/CONV/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold)

Guo 1 ‘If a baby girl was born, they would basically get killed’, I said, ‘What the hell is the teacher talking about?’ [Bo: Your, your teacher said this in the class?] Right, her teacher told the kids. 如果生的是女生的话基本上都是被杀掉, 我说这老师说的是什么呀 [Bo: 哦, 就是你, 你的老师是上课, 是这样说?] 对, 她的老师告诉他们孩子。 Sophia 2 Then she said, ‘Boys are important to Chinese’. [Bo: Right, boys are more important, then?] Then she said, ‘in China, because you could only have one child, because there were too many people’. [Bo: Yeah.] Then she said, ‘if the first one was a girl, she’ll get killed. If was a boy, like, he could survive. Then, if you want more kids, you’ll need to pay the government’. [Bo: Yeah.] 然后她说, 男生对中国人来说很重要 [Bo 对, 男生更重要, 然后…] 然后她说就是中国, 因为就是只能是 one child, 因为太多人了 [Bo: 嗯] 然后她说第一个如果是女生的话, 就会被杀掉, 如果第一个是男生的话, like, 就是, 就是会活嘛, 然后, 就是, 还要再生的话你要付钱给 government [Bo: 嗯] Guo 3 That’s right, but I’ve never seen ‘killing the girl’ [Bo: Right] Like, Mum’s generation, I’ve never seen people doing that, maybe in some backwards areas, like villages. 是这样, 但是前面说 “杀掉女生”是, 我没有见过 [Bo: 对] 就是, 妈妈那个 generation, 我没有见过人这样子做, maybe in 一些很落后的啊, 或山沟沟里边。 Bo 4 Yeah, she said ‘killing’, what’s… [Sophia: Yellow River.] Yellow River, Huanghe? [Guo: Yellow River area, it might be… are you talking about people of that region? Or?] [Sophia: I don’t know, might be, because the teacher, we were learning the Yellow River that day.] Oh. 嗯, 她说杀, 她说是杀掉是怎么……[Sophia: 是 Yellow River] Yellow River, 黄河? [Guo: 黄河一带的, 那可能是说..你说是那个地方的人

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吗？还是？] [Sophia: 我不知道, 好像, 因为老师, 那天我们学的就是 Yellow River] 噢。 Sophia 5 The teacher said something about China, blah blah blah, somehow she said a lot about kids. [Guo: Talking about this stuff.] I think that made me feel really bad [Guo: There exists, exists certain prejudice, you understand?] Made me feel like… all of classmates know I’m China, they pulled a face {distorts facial features} so that kind of feeling. [Guo: But I, I think your teacher should not have said that.] [Bo: Right, did you say anything?] No. 老师好像说了一个什么 China, 什么什么, 老师说了一大堆孩子的事 [Guo: 就是有时候讲这些东西] 我觉得然后让我 feel 很 bad [Guo: 存在, 存在有某种偏见你懂吗? ] 让我感觉很多东西...... 全班上的人都知道我是 China, 然后他们就这样子 {奇怪的表情}, 所以那种感觉 [Guo: 但是我, 我觉得你们老师是不应该讲这个] [Bo: 对, 那你当时有没有说什么?] 没有。 Guo 6 You should have said ‘My Mama was the first girl in her family and she didn’t killed’. [Bo: Yeah.] [Sophia: She didn’t ‘get’ killed.] [Bo: Yeah yeah.] My aunty also, Mum’s cousin, still [Bo: Yeah] you can’t say all of them, just maybe one or two accidents, who knows. [Bo: Yeah.] In Australia, there was a crazy father who threw his three kids off the Westgate bridge. [Bo: Oh, right, this was a long time ago.] Why didn’t you say that? How crazy is that? Chinese people would definitely not do it. [Sophia: Why, why did he throw off kids?] So, you should, you should have asked Malinda why the father did that. [Bo: Is she the teacher?] She is the teacher, should, should not have said that, kids were killed, this was very, very {inaudible} this shouldn’t have appeared in the classroom. [Bo: Yeah.]

你应该你那时候就应该说 Mama is the first girl in her family and she didn’t killed [Bo: Yeah] [Sophia: she didn’t get killed] [Bo: Yeah yeah] My aunty also, Mum’s cousin, still [Bo: Yeah, yeah] you can’t say all of them, just maybe one or two accidents, who knows [Bo: Yeah]在澳洲上次不是有个有个疯狂的父亲, 带着三个孩子从那个 Westgate 那边了把他们推了下去嘛 [Bo: 噢, 对, 就是很早以前] 你们为什么不说那个事情啊? 这个是多么疯狂的一件事情啊, 中国人绝对做不出来 [Sophia: 为什么, 为什么要把 kids 推走啊?] 所以你要, 你要问 Malinda, 他为什么会这样子做呢? [Bo: 是那个老师是吗?] 是她的老师呀, 应该, 应该不能这样讲噢, 他们会把小孩子杀掉, 你觉得这比较, 比较很{inaudible} 一般在课堂上不应该出现这个[Bo: 噢, 就是]

Sophia 7 I feel like she’s picking on people, I think it’s like they were picking on me, it’s unfair, it’s so rude. [Bo: Did you speak out in the class?] No. [Guo: You should, you should at that time, then they would understand, oh, they’ve touched upon your bottom line, right? That’s why sometimes you should speak out.]

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I feel like 就是她就是 picking on people, 我就觉得他们好像在 picking on me, it’s unfair, it’s so rude [Bo: 那你有没有就是跟他课堂上说话?] 没有 [Guo: 你那时候就应该说, 你那时候就应该说, 说了他就知道, 噢, 他 touch 到 some bottom 对吧? 所以因为你没有说, sometimes 就是要说]. Bo 8 How did your classmates respond to that? [Sophia: My, my classmates knew, because I’d told them.] Oh, you told them. Oh, what did you tell them? [Sophia: That was not true.] Right. [Sophia: But they, they said they also heard that from the news.] About what, ‘get killed’? [Sophia: Yeah.] Something about abortion? [Guo: Ridiculous.] [Sophia: They would, they would kill…the teacher said they would kill the baby girl.] Oh. [Guo: There are many different ways of getting killed, maybe just abandonment or something.] This wasn’t nice, saying such thing. [Guo: Right, this would influence…] Also, in your class you are the only… [Guo: The only one] the only Chinese kid, right? 那其他同学是什么反映? [Sophia: 我, 我同学都很知道, 因为我告诉他们了] 噢, 你告诉他们说这是, 噢, 你告诉他们什么? [Sophia: 就是这不是 true] 对 [Sophia: 但是他, 他们说他们也在新闻上面听到] 说是, 说的是就是 “杀掉” 吗? “get killed”? [Sophia: 嗯] 是不是说什么 abortion 什么的? [Guo: Ridiculous] [Sophia: 就是他们会, 就是把他们杀……就是…他们会, 老师就说他们会把她 killed] 噢 [Guo: Killed 有很多种方式, maybe just abandon or something] 那这样很不好哦, 这样地去讲 [Guo: 对, 她这样子讲会很影响……] 而且你是你们班里边的……[Guo: 唯一的一个]唯一的一个中国同学是吧? Sophia 9 Yes, I really hate people saying… [Bo: Right.] [Guo: Every country has its own problems.] [Bo: Yeah.] She’s keeping on saying it. [Bo: Oh, your teacher is keeping on saying that?] Yeah, even if, even if it’s not true, she’ll still say it. I don’t like that. [Bo: What class is she teaching?] Eh, Reading. [Evelyn: Reading.] [Bo: Oh, she’s teaching Reading.] [Guo: But still, it can’t be helped, it’s a very common phenomenon.] I’m pretty sure, many people know China, why didn’t they say something, some other countries that I haven’t heard of, she seemed to have to talk about China, I don’t know why. [Bo: She always talks about China, right?] Yes, she does. [Bo: Oh.] 对, 我很讨厌人家说就是……[Bo: 对] [Guo: 每个国家都有不好的事情] [Bo: 是] she’s keeping on saying it [Bo: 噢, 是, 是你老师 keep on saying that?] 嗯, 就是如果, 就是不真实的话她还是会说, 我不喜欢 [Bo: 她是上什么课的?] 嗯, 上 Reading [Evelyn: Reading] [Bo: 噢, 上 Reading] [Guo: 但是这, 这也, 这也没, 没办法, 这很, 会存, 很普遍存在这种现象] 那个 I’m pretty sure, 很多人都知道中国, 为什么不讲一些, 讲一些别的, 我都没听说过的一些 countries, 她就必须要讲中国, 不知道为什么 [Bo: 他总会讲中国是吧?] 对, 就是 [Bo: 嗯] Guo 10 Because China attracts worldwide attention. [Sophia: She didn’t talk about other countries at all, like France or somewhere.] No, no, no, Sophia, sometimes when you hear something unpleasant, you should comfort yourself, because our China grows strong and attracts worldwide

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attention, sometimes people are jealous, you can only comfort yourself like this. Actually, Australians don’t really like Chinese, because Chinese are so rich, once they came in, the real estate, house prices are driven up by Chinese people. 因为中国现在是受世界瞩目的一个国家 [Sophia: 她什么国家都不会讲, 还有 France 啊, 什么地方] 没有, 没有, 没有, Sophia 有时候听到这些不好的东西你就安慰一下, 因为我们现在中国发, 发展太强大了, 太受世人瞩目了, 所以有时候会有一些 jealous, 只能够这样子告诉你自己. 不过确实澳洲人不太喜欢中国人, 因为中国人太有钱了, 进来就把房地产, 把全部房地产的, 基本上都房价被中国人推高了。 Bo 11 I see. Sophia, are there any other things like this at school? 嗯, 那 Sophia 就是在学校还有没有这样的事情发生过? Sophia 12 Yeah, sometimes, sometimes, some people, some kids, they would say something about China, I don’t know, it’s racist. [Bo: Yeah.] Being racist is like if I, they say Chinese people are too…like, it’s racist. [Bo: How old are these kids? They even had…] The same age as me. [Bo: The same age as you, which year group?] Grade 6 [Bo: Grade 6] but they are my friends, just sometimes they would say some stuff like that, say something [Bo: I see] [Guo: It, it can’t be helped] then, then they said ‘oh, not being rude to you’, it’s like, deliberately, because it’s rude. [Bo: Yeah.] I hate people saying ‘no offense, because not being rude’, but you are being rude. [Bo: Yes, no offense, but actually they are being very rude.] 嗯, 有时候有, 有时候, 就是有些人会, 有些小朋友, 小朋友他, 他们会就是说关于中国的, 我不知道, 就是 racist [Bo: 嗯] racist 就是那种就是像我如果在那个什么, 他们说什么中国人好那个什么… 然后就, 就是 racist [Bo: 嗯, 这是, 这是很, 这些是很多大的小朋友呢? 会竟然用这样的…] 跟我一样大 [Bo: 跟你一样大, 是几年级? 相当于?] 六年级 [Bo: 六年级] 可是就是他们是我朋友, 只是有时候就是他们就会用到这些东西, 就是会说一些 [Bo: 嗯] [Guo: 这个, 这个没办法 ]然后他们就在, 然后他们就在旁边说 “oh, not being rude to you” 就是 like, 为了要, because it’s rude [Bo: Yeah] 我很讨厌就人家说 “no offense, because not being rude”, but you are being rude [Bo: yes, no offense, but actually they are being very rude] Guo 13 We would often come across these later throughout our whole life. Sometimes, we need to adjust our mindset [Bo: Yeah] or sometimes you could refute it immediately and let them know they have touched your bottom line, so… [Bo: Right] so did Mum, I came across these when I went to the language school. [Sophia: That was bad] The teacher then said sorry to me. [Bo: Right.] [Sophia: They like talking about China.] Yes, they often talk about China, because China is the biggest immigrant- exporting country [Bo: Right] right, when your immigration department was welcoming us to come here, they only see our money [Bo: Right] but when we are here, your citizens are racist. [Bo: Yeah.] 这个在我们的 whole life 当中, 以后还会经常遇到, 但有时候要调整一下自己心态 [Bo: 嗯] 或者有时候你可以就当场回驳, 就回过去啊,

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有时候就让他们知道, 原来你已经 touch 到我的 bottom line 了, 所以...... [Bo: 对] 欸, 妈妈上次也是, 因为我上次去语, 语言学校上学时候也就遇到过嘛 [Sophia: 那是不好吧] 然后老师跟我说对不起 [Bo: 噢] [Sophia: they like talking about China] 真的, 他们会经常提到中国, 因为中国是世界移民最大的一个国家 [Bo: 对] 对, 但你们的移民局欢迎我们进来的时候, 你们是看到我们白花花的银子 [Bo: 对] 可是到, 等到我们进来的时候, 你们的国民就 racist [Bo: 嗯]

Excerpt 20-F2: Speaking Chinese in child care

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Guo 1 There was a Taiwanese teacher in the child care, a Taiwanese teacher came later. [Bo: A Taiwanese teacher?] Right, she was very helpful to Sophia. Child care 里面有个台湾的老师, 后来来了一个台湾老师 [Bo: 台湾老师] 对, 所以她对 Sophia 的帮助很大。 Bo 2 Right, the Taiwanese teacher came to the Kinder when Sophia was… [Guo: should be four years old] oh, four years old [Guo: Should be] that means the Taiwanese teacher came when Sophia had been in the child care for one year, right? [Guo: Right.] How did she help Sophia? 对, 台湾老师是在 Sophia 幼儿园几...... [Guo: 应该是 4 岁的时候吧] 4 岁的时候, 噢 [Guo: 应该是] Sophia 是已经相当于是在那个 child care 待了一年以后来了一个台湾老师是吧? [Guo: 对对对] 那这个台湾老师是怎么帮助她, 你觉得? Guo 3 Eh, maybe sometimes when Sophia couldn’t do something by herself, the Taiwanese teacher may like talking to her in Chinese [Bo: Oh] to help her. [Bo: I see.] Right. 呃, maybe 有时候她可能解决不了的事情能, 但是台湾老师可能会愿意用中文跟她讲 [Bo: 噢] 就帮助她 [Bo: 对] 对。 Bo 4 Actually, after one year, her English had been… 其实她也, 一年以后, 就是其实她的英文已经是... Guo 5 Had been really good, there was no problem when she was playing with other kids, she could totally follow teachers’ instructions, like what they are going to do next… but she was very strange, the Taiwanese teacher told me that ‘Your Sophia starts talking to me in Chinese once she sees me’. [Bo: Oh, really?] Yeah, the teacher then told her ‘I can speak English, you speak to me in English’. She didn’t want Sophia to speak Chinese to her [Bo: Oh, right] because this was not helpful for Sophia’s English, also not helpful for her to communicate with other kids. [Bo: Oh, that means…] That means, only when Sophia could not understand anything, she would help her by using Chinese. 她已经是相当好了, 就跟小朋友玩啊都没有问题, 然后听老师给她发出来的指令啊, 比如说我们现在要做什么, 她都完全能 follow, 但就是诶...... 但是她很奇怪, 她台湾老师跟我讲, “你家的 Sophia 只要一看到我她会跟我讲中文” [Bo: 噢, 是吗?] 对, 然后她会出来告诉她 “我可以讲

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英文, 你跟我讲英文” , 她不想 Sophia 还跟她讲中文 [Bo: 噢, 对对对] 因为对 Sophia 的语言没有帮助, 对她跟小朋友交流没有帮助 [Bo: 噢, 就是说...] 就是到她, Sophia 什么时候完全听不懂的时候她会帮她, 然后这个是什么她会讲给她听。 Bo 6 That means once Sophia saw this Taiwanese teacher, she automatically spoke… [Guo: Chinese] but the teacher wanted to help her learn English. [Guo: Yeah, she said ‘You’d better not speak Chinese to me, I can speak English’.] 噢 , 就是说 Sophia 其实一看到这个台湾老师她自然而然地就是……[Guo: 她会跟她讲中文] 噢, 然后台湾老师是为了帮助她学英文 [Guo: 噢, 她说你最好不要跟我讲中文,我会讲英文哦]

Excerpt 21-F2: ‘Saving face’ for teacher

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-5/23MAY15], Mandarin Guo 1 The other day, the teacher wrote a character, even I could tell that she got the character wrong. [Bo: Ah.] Right, because possibly. [Bo: The teacher wrote a character wrong?] Right. [Bo: Yeah.] Later on, some kids noticed it, they have noticed it. When I got back home, I asked my children. My son didn’t notice the character, but my daughter did. She said, ‘Mum, I knew she got a character wrong, I just didn’t say it’. [Bo: Oh, she…] Yeah, because, because she is teacher, we should save her some face. 那天老师在写一个什么字的时候, 我都知道那个她那个字写错啦 [Bo: 啊] 对, 就可能 [Bo: 老师的一个字写错了?] 对 [Bo: 嗯] 后来, 后来就是下面的孩子已经意识到了, 下面有小孩意识到了, 对, 然后我后来回去我有问我家两个孩子, 我家那个小儿子他就没有观察到, 但是我家女儿知道, 她说 “妈妈那个字写错了, 只不过我没有说” [Bo: 噢, 她…] 对, 因为, 因为她是老师嘛, 总得留点面子。 Bo 2 Oh, this was what Sophia said? 噢, 就是这是 Sophia 说得是吧? Guo 3 She told me when she’s back, she said, I asked whether you noticed what’s wrong with the character? Henry said no. [Bo: Right, your son didn’t realise there was an error.] No, but my daughter did, she just didn’t say it because my daughter said that was teacher. [Bo: Right, she thought it would be embarrassing if she directly pointed out the teacher’s error?] Correct. 她回去告诉我的, 她说, 我说你有没有观察到刚才那个字错在哪里? Henry 说没有啊 [Bo: 噢, 儿子没有观察到老师写错那个字] 对, 但女儿有, 但是女儿没有说, 因为女儿说那是老师 [Bo: 对, 她还是觉得这个老师, 她不好意思在课堂上直接提出老师的错误噢 ] 对对。

Excerpt 22-F2: Identity influence through naming

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Your husband’s surname is?

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你老公的姓... Guo 2 Ah, it’s Cheung. [Bo: it’s Ch…] Cheung. [Bo: Cheung?] Yeah. [Bo: Is…] Is the Hong Kong’s Romanisation of Zhang, that’s it. [Bo: Oh, I see, it’s Cheung.] Yes, Cheung, when I went to their school, like filling out some forms, they asked me ‘Should we call you Ms Guo, or Mrs Cheung or Mrs Zhang?’ I said ‘Call me Ms Guo’ {the English pronunciation of Guo}. G-u-o, because my surname is Guo. [Bo: Ah, that’s right.] My surname is Guo. [Bo: The spelling of your surname is the mainland Pinyin, Guo?] Right, then, they asked me ‘Are you from a reconstituted family?’ I was a bit confused, they said ‘Why your children have one surname, surname, your husband has another one, and yours follows neither of them?’ [Bo: This is so interesting.] I said I must follow my father’s name, because… [Bo: right] right, I said I wouldn’t change [Bo: Like, the change of surname after marriage in the West] I would not change my surname, my life was given by my parents, so I should follow the surname of my parents. 啊, 他是 Cheung [Bo: 就是他是 Ch...] Cheung [Bo: Cheung?] 嗯 [Bo: 就是, 就是...] 就是那个香港对那个 Zhang 的译音, 它是这样子的 [Bo: 噢, 就是, 就是这个 Cheung] Cheung, 对. 所以很多人我去他们学校, 比如说就写一些, 就是填一些表格, 他们就问我: “我应该叫你 Ms Guo or Mrs Cheung or Mrs Zhang?”, 我说 “Call me Ms Guo” {Guo 的英文发音}. 就是 G-u-o, 因为我姓郭嘛 [Bo: 啊, 噢, 对] 我姓郭嘛 [Bo: 噢, 像, 像, 像你的姓就是咱们大陆的拼写噢, 就 “郭” 噢] 对, 对！然后他问我说你为什么, 诶, “你们是重组的家庭吗?” 然后我就有点糊涂, 他说 “为什么你一个小孩一个姓, surname, 你的老公一个姓, 然后你又不随他们任何人一个姓?” [Bo: 噢, 太有意思了] 我说我, 我一定会跟我爸爸姓, 因为这... [Bo: 对] 对, 我说我不会, 我不会因为跟谁, 就是… [Bo: 结, 对, 他们西方结婚改姓] 要改姓, 我不会, 生命是父母赐予的, 就要姓父母的姓。 Bo 3 Oh, where did this happen? Like… 哦, 那这件事情是在哪里发生的? 就是... Guo 4 Like…when I was filling out a school form, like when I fill out the form because they need to know the details of students’ family…my kids also asked me why didn’t I adopt their dad’s name. [Bo: How did you explain it?] I said, I said that in a funny way, I said ‘Because your grandfather gave me life, I should of course take grandfather’s name, why should I adopt your father’s name?’ [Bo: Yeah.] They said but here in this country, people would take the boy’s surname after they get married. [Bo: Yeah, they would change the surname, surname.] Yeah, yeah, I said that behaviour lacked personality, I’m not part of that. [Bo: Yeah, very interesting.] Then, I was joking, what if the girl broke up with the boy, and got married to another guy, she had to change another surname, wasn’t that wasting money? Because they need to go to that institution in the city… [Bo: The place for name change?] Yeah. [Bo: Change of name or something.] It costs 80 dollars to change a name, I don’t like that, I think, I think myself is conventional, I would never change my surname that was given by my father. 就是嗯...... 填那个学校的资料的时候, 比如说 form 的时候, 他要了解学生的家庭状况 detail 的时候, 就会, 然后他会...... 因为我家小孩回来也会

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说为什么你没有姓爸爸的姓 [Bo: 那你是怎么解释的?]我说呃...我说, 我会说得比较好玩一点, 我说因为, 因为那个外公赐给我生命了, 我当然要姓外公的姓, 我干嘛要姓你爸爸的姓 [Bo: 噢] 他说但是这里每个人只要跟某某男生结婚的时候, 他就会冠以那个男生的 surname [Bo: 姓, 噢, 对, 对, 他会改, 改姓] 对, 对, 我说这个太没性格了, 妈妈不是这样的 [Bo: 嗯, 挺有意思] 然后, 我就开玩笑说, 那要是这个女生跟那个男生的关系 broken down 的时候, 又结了一次婚, 她又要再改一次 surname, 我说这不是很浪费钱, 因为去那个有个登记部门嘛, 在 city, 就是那个...... [Bo: 要改名的那个哦?] 对 [Bo: Change of name 什么的] 你改一次名 80 块, 我不喜欢, 我觉得, 我觉得我还是比较传统, 我觉得我爸爸赐给我的姓我永远不会改掉。 Bo 5 How did they respond to that? 那他们有什么反映? Guo 6 They, they said, they thought I was right too. [Bo: Right.] They thought your life was given by your parents, taking their surname was very normal, that’s why my daughter said maybe she would do the same thing. 他们, 他们就是说, 他们就是意思就是觉得我说的也是对的 [Bo: 对] 他们觉得你的生命是你父母给的, 你冠以他的 surname 是非常正常的一件事情,所以我的女儿也是说 maybe 我也会做同样的事情。

Excerpt 23-F2: Personalities

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-4/16MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Do you think your kids are more like Chinese kids or Australian kids? 你觉得就是你们孩子更像中国的孩子, 还是像澳洲的孩子? Guo 2 More like Australian kids. [Bo: More like Australian kids.] They don’t like Chinese, Chinese kids. 更像澳洲的孩子吧 [Bo: 更像澳洲的孩子] 不像中国, 中国孩子。 Bo 3 In terms of which qualities, you think they are more like Australian kids…or what are your kids’ characteristics? Like, comparing with kids of their age in China? 你觉得他们像澳洲孩子这种哪些特质特别…或者是你认为你们家孩子特质是什么? 比如说比较一下和他在中国的一些同龄的孩子? Guo 4 I think they understand more about respecting other people. [Bo: Yeah.] Then, their thoughts are relatively a bit more independent. [Bo: A bit more independent.] They would know what are the things that they shouldn’t let Mum know, it’s privacy. [Bo: Oh, they would do this…] Actually, my kids wouldn’t, but they show respect for others, like, for their classmates, they’re very respectful. [Bo: Right.] I think, you asked me to compare those Western kids with Chinese kids, I think our kids are relatively, relatively in the middle, they are standing in the middle of the line. [Bo: In the middle.] Right, they’re not extreme, Western kids are too independent, too private, like my sister-in-law’s children, if they don’t want to show Mum something, they will not. But our kids…

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我觉得他更懂得去尊重别人 [Bo: 嗯] 嗯, 然后思想比较, 相对来说比较独立一点 [Bo: 独立一点] 对, 他会觉得什么东西不应该给妈妈看, 就 privacy [Bo: 噢, 他还会有这样子的……] 但是我的小孩不会这样, 但是他会很尊重别人, 比如说他的同学这样子, 他会很尊重他 [Bo: 对] 我觉得相对啊, 你说啊, compare 这个西方的孩子, 跟中国的孩子, 我觉得我们的孩子算是比较, 比较中庸的, 站在中庸这条线 [Bo: 中间的] 对, 都不极端的, 像西方的孩子太独立, 太过隐私了, 就像我大姑的孩子, 就是不给妈妈就是不给妈妈, 但是我们小孩… Bo 5 For example? 什么不给妈妈? Guo 6 For example, Western kids would spend all of their pocket money on themselves. [Bo: Right.] Right, they wouldn’t be very generous, like ‘Mum’s birthday is coming, what does Mum want?’ I’m comparing my kids with hers. For example, my kids would say ‘Mum’s birthday is coming, we should give Mum a very nice gift because she likes it’, understand? {laughing} [Bo: Yeah.] So, they might find their pocket money not enough, and they ask Dad for help. [Bo: Right, they are preparing Mum a gift.] Right, right, they are very…Western kids may also do this, but, my sister- in-law said her oldest son was slightly self-centred, he would spend a lot of money on himself. [Bo: They are similar in age, aren’t they? Six days difference?] Six days difference. [Bo: Oh, right.] Right, they are very different. [Bo: Right.] He would, after watching football, he asked his dad to buy him an 80-dollar footy vest [Bo: Yeah], a top [Bo: Right], that kind of vest (football guernsey) [Bo: Right, vest], that kind of top. [Bo: The footy one?] Right, right, it’s too expensive, 80 dollars. My son said he would spend 80 dollars on things that are more meaningful. [Bo: You are talking about your son?] Yeah, yeah. [Bo: He knew his cousin bought an 80-dollar footy guernsey?] Right, right, we saw the football match together [Bo: Oh, I see], I invited them to watch the match. [Bo: Oh, right.] Right. 比如说他会很多时间把父母给的零花钱他会完全花在他自己身上 [Bo: 噢] 对, 他不会说很慷慨地比如说妈妈, 觉得妈妈生日要到了, 妈妈喜欢比如什么东西, 就是可能也是我拿我的家的孩子跟她的家的孩子 compare, 就是比如我的孩子就会 “欸, 妈妈的生日要到了, 要给妈妈送一件很好的礼物, 因为妈妈喜欢” 明白吗? {笑} [Bo: 对] 所以他们会说这些钱可能不够, 找爸爸去凑 [Bo: 噢, 他就准备要给妈妈送一个礼物] 对对, 然后他会很那个, 但鬼佬小孩也会这样去做, 但是他, 我大姑就说她可能她的大儿子比较自私, 会把很多钱花在自己身上 [Bo: 他们年纪都差不多大是吧? 呃, 6 天?] 就差 6 天 [Bo: 啊, 对] 对呀, 就很不一样 [Bo: 对对对对] 他可以, 像他爸爸看完球赛, 让他爸爸给他买一件 80 块的球衣 [Bo: 嗯] 就上衣 [Bo: 对] 就, 就那种 vest [Bo: 对, vest] 那种上衣 [Bo: 就是那个 footy 对吧?] 对, 对, 我就觉得好贵哦, 80 块钱. 噢, 我, 我的儿子会说他会拿 80 块钱去做更有意义的事情 [Bo: 噢, 你儿子说是吧?] 嗯嗯 [Bo: 他知道那个他的 cousin 买了 80 块钱的球衣啊?] 对, 对呀, 我们一块看得球赛嘛 [Bo: 噢, 对, 对] 我请他们去看球赛 [Bo: 噢, 对对对] 对。 Bo 7 Are your kids interested in Australian sports?

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您两个孩子就是对澳洲这些运动感不感兴趣啊? Guo 8 Yes, my daughter, she’s very athletic [Bo: Right], she participated in the District Cross Country, that, it’s like, some sort of autumn sports meeting, she was chosen. [Bo: District Cross Country.] Right [Bo: Oh], every primary school, possibly secondary school would be part of it. 有啊, 我女儿, 她的运动细胞非常好 [Bo: 嗯] 嗯, 她参加什么 District Cross Country 那个, 就相当于那个, 相当于什么秋季运动会这种什么, 对, 她被入选 [Bo: District Cross Country] 对对 [Bo: 噢] 他每个小学, 可能中学都有。 Bo 9 Right, you just said they are more like… 对对对, 那刚才就说到他们更像, 就是…… Guo 10 Very much standing in the middle. [Bo: Right, they have both characteristics of Western and Chinese kids.] Right. 特别中立 [Bo: 对, 就是属于兼有中方, 东方和西方孩子的这个特点噢] 对对。 Bo 11 Just like you mentioned, like, ‘taking good care of Mum’ etc., they are more like Chinese kids? [Guo: More like Chinese kids, yes, filial piety.] Right. [Guo: To be good to family members.] Yeah, how about their Western characteristics? 那你就觉得刚才你说他, 比如说, “对妈妈好” 啊等等, 你觉得他更倾向于中国的孩子? [Guo: 更倾向于中国的孩子, 对, 有孝心] 对 [Guo: 懂得疼家里的人] 嗯, 那西方的这方面的特点就是? Guo 12 For example, they respect other people’s privacy [Bo: Yeah] and respect their ideas [Bo: Right] and will not impose their own beliefs on others. [Bo: Yeah.] Right. 比如相对会尊重别人的隐私 [Bo: 嗯] 然后啊, 会尊重别人的想法 [Bo: 对对] 不会把自己的想法强加给别人 [Bo: 嗯] 对。 Bo 13 Right, do you think how kids would identify themselves? Like, they would think of themselves as Chinese kids, or Australian kids or who? 对, 那你觉得他们自己是如何来认识自己的? 比如说他们就是这方面, 比如说我是一个中国孩子, 还是一个澳洲孩子, 还是怎样? Guo 14 Themselves? They may say ‘We are Chinese’. [Bo: They would say that?] Yes. [Bo: How did you know?] Probably because we also eat more Chinese food. [Bo: Yeah.] At home, I normally cook, cook Chinese food. Also, since they were little, we’ve been watching Chinese TV. 他们自己啊? 他应该会说我是一个中国人 [Bo: 他会样子说?] 对 [Bo: 你是怎么推断出来的?] 可能我们吃的偏多的也是中餐啊 [Bo: 嗯] 我在家里基本 cook, cook 中餐, 然后打他们懂事以来我们就一直看中文电视啊。 Bo 15 Chinese TV? 中文电视? Guo 16 Right. [Bo: Right.] After she started primary school, she sometimes watches, but she, might, might, because our TV antenna is broken, she’s

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watching a bit more English TV, but she told me Chinese TV is more interesting. [Bo: Oh, they would say that?] Yeah. [Bo: Which kid are you talking about?] Both of them said this [Bo: Oh, both of them said this] because we watched the children’s channel, CCTV children’s channel, they have paper cutting and many other different types of programmes, but programmes here are a bit boring, you know, like Sesame Street, and something called what ‘school’, I don’t know, I can’t remember. [Bo: Right] Then, some craft programmes, they think they don’t have many choices. [Bo: They think the programmes are not as many as the Chinese ones.] Right. 对 [Bo: 对] 是后来她上了小学之后, 然后对她偶尔看一些, 但现在她会, 可能, 可能, 现在我们家卫星坏了, 所以她看, 看多一点英文, 但她会跟我讲说中国的电视会更有趣 [Bo: 噢, 他还会这样说?] 嗯 [Bo: 这是哪个孩子?] 两个都这么说 [Bo: 噢, 两个都这么说] 因为以前看, 看那个少儿频道, CCTV 少儿频道, 那里边就有剪纸啊, 就有什么, 就是会有很多, 很多不同的类型的节目, 这边就有点 boring 你知道, Sesame street 然后那个什么什么什么 school, 我不知道那个叫什么 school, 忘记了 [Bo: 嗯] 然后什么, 嗯, 就也有一些手工, 但是就是他觉得频道太少 [Bo: 他觉得没有那个中国的电视那么丰富?] 丰富, 对。 Bo 17 Oh, right, when you talk with your kids, did they show something about their identity recognition, like they are Chinese or Australian? Like, have they said ‘my Aussie classmates’ or something, like in our conversation, for example, when we said Australians or Westerners, this has actually implicitly indicated we identify ourselves as Chinese. [Guo: Correct.] Right? [Guo: Right.] Do they have similar categorisation? 嗯, 对, 那平时比如说孩子跟您聊天过程当中, 有没有说就是您觉得从侧面体现出他们的这个身份认同, 比如说是 Chinese 还是 Australian, 比如说他跟同学说, 交流的过程当中有没有说, 噢, 他是, 就是我的澳洲同学或者怎样的, 比如像咱们这样的交流, 举个例子, 当咱们说那个澳洲人或者是西人怎样, 那这样的话其实潜移默化地说明, 我们认为我们自己是华人 [Guo: 对] 对吧? [Guo: 对] 他们有没有类似这样, 这种区分呢? Guo 18 Yes, they would have said ‘Mum, two Asians come to our school, then I knew they were Chinese’. [Bo: Oh, right.] They sometimes help people interpret, because the kids’ parents don’t speak much English or just came to this country, I’ve helped them interpret, so did my kids, help their Chinese classmates translate. [Bo: Right, they just came, came to Australia, be an interpreter.] Right, be an interpreter, their teachers would also come and ask them to help. My daughter is the school captain. [Bo: Right, you mentioned last time, she’s great, was elected.] Right. 有啊, 他会有说 “妈妈, 今天啊, 我们学校来了两个 Asian 的, 后来我知道他是中国人” [Bo: 噢, 对对对] 然后他有时候会帮人家做翻译, 因为有时候他们父母英语不好, 刚刚进入这个国家, 所以我有帮他们做过翻译, 然后我的小孩也帮助跟他同班的中国人小孩, 会帮他们 translate [Bo: 对, 就是刚来的, 就是刚来澳洲, 做, 做翻译] 对, 做翻译, 对, 而且老师也会去找到他们。我女儿是那个 school captain [Bo: 对对对, 你上次也说过, 很优秀, 是被选出来的] 对。

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Bo 19 Oh, you know, what’s the background of their best friends? 噢, 你说他们那个, 他们最好的朋友是哪国的人呢? Guo 20 Basically, they’re all White. [Bo: Right.] Right, my daughter has two best friends, from Kinder to Year 6, they are really close. [Bo: With Sophia, right?] Yeah. [Bo: Oh.] They’ve always been in the same class till now. [Bo: Wow, that’s great!] Very good. [Bo: How about Henry?] Henry, boys like being naughty, but he has one friend, they are close and get along, all of Henry’s friends are ‘bad kids’ {laughing}. [Bo: ‘Bad kids’? They are playful?] Playful, but also very bright, that bunch of kids are very clever, they can answer questions without even going to class. Our kid is the same. [Bo: Right, he plays with White kids.] Yeah, all White kids. [Bo: Right.] He can help Chinese kids, but they can’t really get along, I don’t understand why. [Bo: Right, he can help them.] Yeah, he can help them. [Bo: Because of his language advantage.] Yeah, he can help them, he thinks he should be helpful when they don’t understand English, because ‘we are Chinese’, but in terms of hanging out together, they never did. 基本上都是白人吧 [Bo: 是吧?] 对, 两个女儿特别好的朋友是从 Kinder 一直到六年级, 到现在, 所以感情特别好 [Bo: 就是和 Sophia 是吧? ] 对对 [Bo: 噢] 同一个班, 一直到现在, 一直到现在 [Bo: 哇, 那很好啊] 很好 [Bo: 噢, 那 Henry 呢?] Henry, 男生会比较打打闹闹, 但是他有一个, 也比较好的, 聊得比较来的, 但是 Henry 的那些同学全是班上的坏孩子 {笑} [Bo: 坏孩子? 都是比较爱玩得那种] 很爱玩, 但是很聪明, 那群孩子非常聪明孩子, 不上课都能回答问题那种, 我们家孩子也是那样的 [Bo: 对, 噢, 都是那个白人小孩哦] 对, 都是白人小孩 [Bo: 对对对, 就是, 嗯] 他会帮助中国小孩, 但是好像玩不到一块去, 我就不懂得 [Bo: 是吧? 他会帮助] 对, 他会帮助 [Bo: 他有这个语言的优势] 对对, 他会帮助他, 觉得我应该要帮他, 因为我们都是中国人, 他听不懂, 但是玩呢, 真的没有玩到一块去过。 Bo 21 Oh right, how did you know this? 是吧? 就是你是怎么知道的这个事情? Guo 22 My daughter also helped a girl who is older than her, she found the Chinese kid was difficult to deal with. [Bo: Yeah.] Like, a teacher asked my daughter to tell her don’t do certain things, but the girl just ignored her, and continued to use the internet, like talking with her previous Chinese classmates on QQ. This was not allowed at school because you can only use school computer to do schoolwork-related things, but she didn’t follow the rule. My daughter told me ‘Mum, I really don’t want to do this work anymore. She really annoys me’. [Bo: Right, she didn’t follow the school rule.] Correct, my daughter kept asking her not to do it but she said to my daughter ‘stop hassling me’. [Bo: Oh, right.] Right, so my daughter doesn’t like her. [Bo: Right.] She thinks Chinese kid… ‘Mum, is every Chinese kid like this? And impolite?’ [Bo: Oh, she would say this?] My daughter said ‘I helped her, why she didn’t say ‘thank you’ to me? But thinks I was hassling her and controlling her?’. The Chinese kid said that to my daughter. 因为我女儿曾经帮助过一个那个女生, 但是她年纪比我女儿大, 她就发现那个中国小孩很难搞 [Bo: 嗯] 就是老师上课跟她说你可不可以跟她说不要这样子做, 但是她就不听, 然后上网, 她可以上什么其他的网, 上

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她的 QQ 去跟中国的同学聊天. 然后这是不允许的在学校, 因为只能允许你用这个学校电脑去摄取相关的有关学习的东西, 但是她不听, 所以我女儿跟我说 “妈, 我很不想再去做这个工作. 嗯, 我觉得那个人很 annoying 我” [Bo: 噢, 她没有遵守学校的纪律] 对对对, 而且她, 我女儿一直跟她讲, 但是她就会说我女儿 “你怎么这么烦啊!” [Bo: 噢, 是吧?] 对, 然后我女儿很不喜欢她 [Bo: 对对对] 对, 就觉得中国小孩……“嗯, 妈妈, 中国小孩每个人都会这样, 这么没礼貌吗?” [Bo: 噢, 她会这样说] 她说, “我帮助她, 为什么她 didn’t say ‘thank you’ to me? 会说我很烦, 为什么你老管着我”, 她那个大的孩子, 跟我家大女儿这样子讲。

Excerpt 24-F2: Food preferences

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-3/21MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Guo 1 In those days, I often called my mum and asked ‘Mum, what should I cook for dinner tonight’. I asked how to cook, and my mum would tell me how to do it. [Bo: I see.] Yeah. 我那时候经常打电话问我妈, 说 “妈啊, 我今天晚上要做什么菜, 饭...”, 我问要怎么做, 然后我妈就会告诉我怎么做, 怎么做, 就会告诉我 [Bo: 噢] 嗯。 Bo 2 You normally cook Chinese food, right? [Guo: Yes.] Have you ever cooked Western food or? 你现在一般就是中餐为主对吧? [Guo: 对] 你有没有就是做过一些西餐或者是? 有没有? Guo 3 They never ate the Western food I cooked. [Bo: Really? You have?] I cooked it really badly, I never baked a cake successfully. [Bo: Oh, really?] I didn’t even cook Chinese food. My mum can’t even cook Western food, how am I supposed to know how to cook? 我做的西餐他们都不吃啊 [Bo: 是吗? 你做过?] 我做得太烂啦, 我烤的蛋糕基本上都没烤成功过一次 [Bo: 噢, 是吗?] 你说我中餐以前又没做, 西餐我妈都不做, 我怎么会做呢！ Bo 4 Right, how about your kids’ food preferences? 对, 那你觉得孩子们现在的口味是怎样的? Guo 5 They can eat both Chinese and Western food. [Bo: Both Chinese and Western food?] Yes. [Bo: Where do you think their Western food habits come from?] The environment where they grow up, like, in the school, people would ask them ‘Do you know what Bolognese is?’ [Bo: Ah, Bolognese.] Then I took them out to have Bolognese, so they would know what it was. But for me, isn’t that just beef, plus boiled spaghetti. 他们中西餐都可以吃 [Bo: 中西餐都可以吃?] 对 [Bo: 那你觉得他们吃西餐这方面的这个习惯是从哪里来的?] 应该是跟这边的生长环境, 就是去学校啊, 然后人家会问什么, 你知道什么是 Bolognese 吗? [Bo: 啊, Bolognese] 然后我就会带他们去吃 Bolognese, 噢, 原来就是这个样子。对我来说不就是牛肉, 水煮那个意大利面嘛。

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Excerpt 25-F2: Television-watching preferences

S T Utterances [Parent-2/INTW-1/07MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Oh, right, in terms of learning English, you actually didn’t deliberately… 那就是他们学英文其实你也没有刻意去… Guo 2 I didn’t deliberately, before three years old, I simply didn’t…they never had any contact with English, because at that time even me didn’t like watching English TV, I thought that kids’ stuff, programmes from ABC-2, ABC for Kids, I didn’t like them. Actually, I felt repelled that—why did I come here? 我没有刻意去, 我完全没有在他们 3 岁之前, 完全没有接触到任何的英文, 因为那时候我都不喜欢看英文电视, 因为我觉得那个儿童的什么 ABC-2, ABC for Kids 那个节目, 其实来说我那时候我, 我也不太喜欢, 我自己其实有点心理排斥我为什么来这里。 Bo 3 Before three years old, they didn’t have contact with English? [Guo: No.] Including English TV? 那就是当时他 3 岁之前几乎就是他们, 没有接触过英文的环境? [Guo: 没有] 包括英文电视啊什么都没有? Guo 4 No, no, because we had a satellite TV, it was all in… [Bo: Chinese.] They watched Chinese TV, CCTV children’s channel. [Bo: I see.] Right. [Bo: Did they like it? Three years old?] They liked watching TV very much [Bo: Very much] because Chinese TV channels had more programmes than that of here. [Bo: Chinese channels, are you talking about Chinese kids’ channel or?] Children’s, children’s. [Bo: Children’s.] CCTV was 24 hours, I don’t know about evening, we wouldn’t watch TV that late anyway, but whenever I turned on the TV, there were some programmes, like crafts or something else, a lot of options. [Bo: Right.] 没有, 没有。因为全是, 我们家装了卫星, 应该全是...... [Bo: 中文的环境] 看得中文的, 对. 看 CCTV 的少儿频道啊 [Bo: 噢] 对 [Bo: 他们那时候喜不喜欢, 3 岁?] 他们很喜欢啊 [Bo: 很喜欢啊] 因为中文的电视频道的节目啊比这边丰富太多了 [Bo: 中文的噢, 那中文电视频道是儿童的吗? 还是?] 儿童的, 儿童的 [Bo: 儿童的] CCTV 它是全天, 它晚上我不知道, 也不会看那么晚, 但是当我打开电视机的时候, 它一会儿是比如说是一个节目, 然后另外又有一个手工节目, 然后再有个就是它节目比较多样 [Bo: 对]

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Appendix 8: The Tan Family Data

Chapter 4: Learning ‘Chinese’ in TCS

Section 4.2: Which Chinese Language Should Your Children Learn?

Excerpt 1-F3: ‘China’s Chinese is relatively standard’

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 What does standard Chinese look like? Standard Chinese, what kind of Chinese is standard Chinese, what kind of Chinese is standard Chinese? {no response} Like people speak Chinese in Malaysia, right? [Tan: Yeah.] Also has Chinese schools there. [Tan: Yeah.] In mainland China, people also speak Chinese, speak Mandarin, right? [Tan: Yeah.] In Hong Kong, they also have Chinese, right? [Tan: Yeah.] People call it Guoyu, or in Singapore, in Southeast Asia, there are also various Chinese varieties, for example, you want Luke to learn Mandarin, what type of Chinese you wish him to learn? What kind of Chinese you think is the standard one? 你认为比较标准的这个华文是什么样子的? 就是 standard Chinese, 你觉得 what kind of Chinese is standard Chinese 中文, 怎样的一种中文就是 standard Chinese? {无反应} 比如说在马来西亚也是讲华文的对吧? [Tan: 嗯嗯] 也有华校 [Tan: 嗯] 那在中国大陆也有中文, 也是在说普通话对吧? [Tan: 嗯] 在香港的地区也是中文, 对吧? [Tan: 嗯] 他们叫国语, 或者新加坡, 东南亚也是有很多的华语的样态, 比如说你现在让 Luke 学中文, 你希望他学得是怎样的一种中文, 怎样的一种中文你认为是标准的? Tan 2 Of course, China’s Chinese is relatively standard. [Bo: China’s Chinese.] Yeah, am I right? The Chinese language is originally from China. 当然是中国的中文比较标准喽 [Bo: 是中国的中文] 嗯, 是嘛? 中文本来就是中国的。 Bo 3 Like, you see, like Australia’s Chinese school, there are Chinese schools run by Taiwanese people [Tan: Yeah], and schools of mainland Chinese [Tan: Yeah] and also schools of Southeast Asian Chinese. [Tan: Yeah.] Southeast Asian Chinese schools probably have the longest history. 比如说在, 你看比如说, 在澳洲的中文学校, 那比如说台湾人开的中文学校 [Tan: 诶诶] 和中国大陆来的中文学校 [Tan: 诶诶] 还有东南亚华侨开的中文学校 [Tan: 诶诶诶]可能, 而且他们的历史比如说特别是东南亚华侨的开的中文学校, 可能要还要更长的历史噢。 Tan 4 But I think, it seems that, in Malaysia, if you lean Chinese in Malaysia [Bo: yeah] yeah, I’ve read their primary school Chinese books, they seemed rather boring. [Bo: They’re boring?] I think, it could be more difficult to learn, like, comparing them, I don’t know about China, but compare Chinese books of this school with those in Malaysia, I think Chinese books in here are more interesting. [Bo: Oh, the Chinese they are learning here is more interesting.] Yeah, more interesting and the content that they learn in

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here, is more… [Bo: What do they teach in Malaysia? You think it’s boring, in terms of what?] I think, I think Chinese, eh, I don’t know, because I browsed through their books, they seemed not very lively, that’s it. 但是我觉得好像说, 在马来西亚, 如果你在马来西亚读中文的话 [Bo: 嗯] 嗯, 好像我看到他们好像小学的课本啊, 嗯, 就比较好像枯燥喽 [Bo: 他们枯燥的噢] 我觉得学起来会比较难, 如果好像说 compare 他们跟这里他们所读的课文啊, 因为我不知道中国的怎么样嘛, 但是如果是说马来西亚的跟这里的来比较的话, 我觉得他们学得中文其实比较有趣 [Bo: 噢, 就这边学得中文更有趣] 诶, 比较有趣, 而且他们所要学的东西我觉得这里是比, 这里学中文会比较有...[Bo: 那个就是马来西亚的中文, 它是讲什么? 你觉得枯燥是枯燥在什么地方?] 我觉得, 我觉得中文, 呃, 我也讲不出来, 我也什么, 因为我翻过他们的课本, 但是好像都不是那么生动那样子。 Bo 5 Do you think it is necessary for them to learn traditional Chinese characters? [Tan: Ask him to learn?] Yeah, to ask Luke. [Tan: To learn traditional characters?] Yeah, is it necessary? [Tan: I don’t think so. It’s enough if he can only read them.] You mean, as long as he can recognise those characters? [Tan: Yeah, yeah, I haven’t tested him, I haven’t tested if he can recognise those characters, I think he might not, he might sometimes have to just guess.] Yeah, just guess. [Tan: Some characters he could guess, I haven’t tested him, I should do it and see if he can.] Right, anyway, you think it is unnecessary to learn traditional characters. 你觉得有没有必要让他们学繁体字啊? [Tan: 让他们?] 对, Luke 他们 [Tan: 叫他学繁体字?] 嗯, 你觉得有没有必要去学? [Tan: 我觉得没有, 如果会看就好了嘛] 噢, 你说那个繁体字可以看懂就好了是吧? [Tan: 嗯, 啊, 我没有试过他, 但是我没有试过他会不会看喽, 我觉得可能是不, 可能有时候用猜的吧] 嗯, 就猜的 [Tan: 有的字可以用猜的, 我还没有试他, 可能我得试, 这样看, 这样看他会不会这样看] 对, 反正你觉得没有必要去学繁体的字这样子的。 Tan 6 Traditional characters, they rarely learn traditional characters, only Taiwan uses traditional characters. [Bo: Yeah, what form does Malaysia use?] Malaysia also uses simplified characters, but it seems that some of the Southeast Asian simplified characters are different from those in China. [Bo: I see.] I think they might be, because once I wrote simplified… I learned simplified characters by myself because I was first taught traditional characters when I was in primary school. [Bo: I see.] Once I helped Luke write something, then, his teacher said they were different, the simplified characters I wrote were different from his teachers’. 繁体, 就是学繁体比较少, 只有台湾用繁体嘛 [Bo: 对, 欸, 在那个马来西亚用得是什么?] 马来西亚也是用简体, 但是好像东南亚的简体有一些是跟中国的不大一样的[Bo: 噢] 我觉得好像是, 因为以前我每次写简……我的简体字是自己学的, 我那时候小学我是读繁体字的 [Bo: 噢] 我写一些, 帮他写一些东西的时候, 后来他老师说不一样, 那个简体字和我写得不一样。 Bo 7 I see, you were taught traditional characters? [Tan: When I was in school, they taught us traditional characters, I learned traditional characters, but I

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can write both forms.] Oh, you can write both? [Tan: My simplified characters were self-taught.] Self-taught. [Tan: Tan.] Why did you learn simplified characters? [Tan: Because, because I should keep pace with the times.] Keep pace with the times, right. [Tan: Otherwise you wouldn’t recognise them.] 噢, 对, 那你当时学得时候也是繁体字? [Tan: 我上学的时候是繁体字, 我是学繁体字的, 所以我繁体是跟简体我都会] 噢, 你都会写是吧? [Tan: 我简体字是自己学的] 自己学的 [Tan: 嗯] 那为什么自己学简体字呢? [Tan: 嗯, 因为, 因为要跟进这个时代嘛] 跟进时代, 对 [Tan: 你不学你就不会看嘛] Bo 8 Does Malaysia teach simplified or traditional characters nowadays? [Tan: Simplified.] It has switched to simplified form [Tan: Simplified], which means there was a change, right? [Tan: Yeah, yeah, simplified, but I think, Southeast Asian, Singaporean and Malaysian simplified characters are different from China’s.] 那就是那现在马来西亚教得是简体还是繁体? [Tan: 简体] 现在都改变简体了是吧? [Tan: 简体] 噢, 就是说也是有个变化对吧? [Tan: 嗯, 嗯, 简体, 但是我觉得好像东南亚的, 新加坡、马来西亚的简体字有一些跟中国的简体字是不一样的]

Section 4.3 Do You Like Learning Chinese?

Excerpt 2-F3: Mandarin learning attitudes and attitude management

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Tan 1 We often have lunch here in this classroom. {To Alex} This is Teacher Hu. 我们经常在这边吃饭 {对 Alex 说} 这个是胡老师。 Bo 2 Hello. 你好。 Tan 3 Please call ‘Teacher Hu’. 你叫 “胡老师”。 Alex 4 Teacher Hu. 胡老师。 Bo 5 Hello. 你好。 Tan 6 Tell Teacher Hu what your name is. 你叫什么名字你跟胡老师说。 Bo 7 What’s your name? 你叫什么名字? Alex 8 Oh, my name is Alex. 噢, 我叫 Alex。

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Tan 9 He doesn’t like learning Mandarin. 他不喜欢中文。 Bo 10 It’s not easy for them. 你想他们也不容易。 Tan 11 He starts to yawn as soon as I ask him to learn Chinese. 我一叫他读中文, 他就, 他就打哈欠。 Bo 12 Do you like learning Chinese? {shaking head} You don’t like it, hang in there. 你喜不喜欢学中文? {摇头} 不喜欢, 坚持一下。 Tan 13 That environment is not there. No environment. 没有那个环境, 没有环境。 Bo 14 Right, it’s not easy for them, having to come to the school every week, is it? 对对对, 你说他们每个周末都要来, 这也不容易啊, 是吧? Tan 15 When they were little, they always protested, I said ‘Objection, objection overruled!’. [Bo: ‘Objection overruled’.] I said to them ‘You are Chinese, you must, you must learn it, at least you can read something, you can’t be completely ignorant’. [Bo: Right] So, you are not allowed to protest, ‘objection overruled’; after a few years, they gave up. [Bo: They obeyed.] They obeyed. 他们小时候总是, 老是抗议, 我说 “抗议……抗议无效” [Bo: “抗议无效”] 我说 “你们是华人, 你一定要, 一定要学, 至少要看啊, 读一些啊, 不能够完全不懂的” [Bo: 对对对] 所以不能抗议, 抗议无效的, 所以过了几年呢, 他们也放弃 [Bo: 也就服从了] 也就服从了。

Excerpt 3-F3: Mandarin learning attitudes and attitude management

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 When he just started the Chinese school, was he reluctant to learn, or willing to learn? Or? 他有没有就是刚开始来中文学校学的时候就不想学, 或者是特别想学? 还是? Tan 2 I can’t remember from what time, when he was little, he always said, ‘Why do my classmates get to have fun on Saturdays when I have to have classes?’. [Bo: Right.] Also, he found Chinese difficult, he didn’t, didn’t want to learn. [Bo: He didn’t want to learn.] Right. 我不知道从什么时候开始, 小时候有, 常常就是说 “哎呀, 为什么, 哎呀我, 我学校的同学他们星期六他们都是去玩啊. 我还要上课” [Bo: 对] 还, 而且老是觉得上中文难嘛, 他不想, 不想来上课 [Bo: 他不想来上课] 嗯。 Bo 3 But you said they had to learn. [Tan: Yeah, that was non-negotiable.]

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反正最后你说你必须要来 [Tan: 对的, 这个是没有的商量的]

Excerpt 4-F3: Essay samples about ‘Me’ (original left, translation right)

Excerpt 4.1-F3: Year 9 essay ‘Me’ (para. 3)

This is me - (name)

Excerpt 4.2-F3: Year 10 essay ‘Me’ (para. 4)

I am in Grade 10 at [school name]. My academic performance is not bad, my mum insists that I learn Mandarin, and I also hope I can get good exam results. This is me–Luke.

[Teacher’s comments: ‘Excellent’]

Excerpt 5-F3: Learning Mandarin—lack of ‘environment’

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Tan 1 For children growing up here, the most important fact is that they only go to the Chinese school once a week, there’s no Mandarin-speaking environment outside of the school. 我觉得这里的孩子, 最主要的是因为他们一个星期只来上一次课, 所以就又出去后, 又没有那个语言环境。 Bo 2 Your two kids only have contact with Mandarin in this school on the weekend? 对, 比如说像他们兄弟两个, 他们平时接触到的华语也就是周末的时候, 在这个学校? Tan 3 Correct; you see, they still speak English between classmates. [Bo: Yeah, you’re right.] I read Luke’s essay, sorry, not essay, in the oral exam, there’s a question about ‘Is Mandarin hard to learn?’; he said that Mandarin was hard to learn because he did not have such an environment to learn the language. 对, 你看他们同学之间还是讲英语嘛 [Bo: 对, 是的] 我在那个 Luke 的那个他的作文里面, 啊, 不是作文, 那个口语考试里面, 有一个问题问到他

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们说, “你觉得学中文难吗?”, 之所以学中文很难, 因为没有, 没有那个环境。

Excerpt 6-F3: Learning Mandarin—lack of ‘environment’

S T Utterances [Student-3/INTW/14OCT15], Mandarin Bo 1 What subjects have you been learning this year? 你今年学了哪些课呢? Luke 2 I’ve been learning Mandarin, English, two types of Mathematics, Design and Physics. I think Design and… I’m more interested in Design and Mathematics, because I think these two subjects can be challenging and creative; you don’t have to memorise a lot of stuff. 我今年学了中文、英文、两门数学、设计和物理。我觉得设计和...我对设计和数学比较感兴趣, 因为我觉得这两门功课有挑战性和创造性, 不需要太多记忆的东西。 Bo 3 That’s good, what’s your hardest school subject? And why? 嗯, 好的, 那你觉得哪一门课是最难的? 为什么? Luke 4 I think Mandarin is the hardest, because I always speak dialect at home, rarely watch Chinese TV and only go to the Chinese school on Saturday; that’s the only time I can have contact with Mandarin. But also, in the Chinese school, we speak English with friends, so I don’t have that environment to learn Mandarin, that’s why I found Mandarin the most difficult. 啊, 我觉得中文最难, 因为我从小都是讲, 在家里是讲地方言, 几乎不看中文电视, 才有星期六中文学校, 才有机, 机会接触到中文。啊, 但是在中文学校, 同学们也, 也, 英语沟通, 所以我没有太多环境学习到中文, 所以我觉得中文最难。

Section 4.4: To Learn or Not to Learn Chinese

Excerpt 7-F3: ‘the most important reason is you are Chinese, you must learn, must learn Chinese’

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Why did you want your children to come to this school and learn Chinese? 当时你们是为什么想让孩子来这个学校学中文呢? Tan 2 We must let them know Chinese. [Bo: Right.] You are Chinese, also myself can speak it, we know Chinese [Bo: Right], so you must let your children know Chinese. [Bo: Right, Chinese, you mean Guoyu, Putonghua?] Yeah, yeah, I told them ‘The most important reason is you are Chinese, you must learn, must learn Chinese, Mandarin’. [Bo: Right.]

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就是一定要让他们懂得中文嘛 [Bo: 对] 你是华人你, 因为我自己本身会说, 我们懂得中文嘛 [Bo: 对] 所以你一定要让孩子要懂得中文嘛 [Bo: 对, 你说的中文是, 就是国语, 就是普通话是吗?] 嗯, 嗯, 然后我也跟他们说 “最主要就是你们是华人, 一定要学, 一定要学中文, 华语, 华文” [Bo: 对对对] Tan 3 Another reason is, nowadays, Chinese is becoming prevalent. [Bo: Right, yeah] Ten years ago, Cantonese was… [Bo: Cantonese was popular] but currently, people who speak Cantonese are gradually switching to Mandarin [Bo: Yeah, it seems that Mandarin’s influence…] because Mandarin is also the official language. [Bo: Yeah, right.] Cantonese is only spoken among Cantonese people, but as for Mandarin, people who speak other dialects have to learn Mandarin {followed by Excerpt 12-F3}. 然后另外一方面就是说, 现在也是啊, 中文也是很渐渐很普遍的 [Bo: 对对对, 是] 我觉得十年前可能那个广东话还……[Bo: 广东话还活跃一点啊] 但是现在就是即使讲, 讲广东话的人他们也慢慢地改成讲, 讲华语 [Bo: 对, 对, 现在好像就是华语的影响力……] 因为华语也是那个 official language 嘛 [Bo: 对对对, 是] 呃, 广东话就是只有广东人之间讲, 但是华语就是其他的, 讲其他方言的人他们也是都要学华语。

Chapter 5: Speaking Regional Languages and/or Mandarin at Home

Section 5.3: The Teochew-Speaking Tan Family

Excerpt 8-F3: General home language use—Teochew

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Which language do you speak at home? 那您在家里边讲什么语言啊? Tan 2 Teochew. 潮州。 Bo 3 It’s Teochew…can Luke speak Teochew? 那潮州话就是……那 Luke 会讲潮州话? Tan 4 He speaks Teochew, speaks Teochew since he was a child, so that’s why it’s really hard for him to learn Mandarin. 他讲潮州, 从小讲潮州话, 所以他学中文学得很辛苦。

Excerpt 9-F3: Language shift and general home language use—Teochew and English

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Does he talk to his younger brother mainly in English or Teochew? [Tan: Use English more and more.] Use English more and more, oh, I see.

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那他和弟弟交流主要是用英文还是用潮州话? [Tan: 用英语越来越多] 英语越来越多, 噢, 对对对。 Tan 2 But they still mainly speak dialect with parents. [Bo: Teochew, right.] He said English is more expressive, through which he could understand others more… [Bo: Oh, he said that to you, right.] Yeah, English is more expressive, easier, because there are words that he doesn’t know how to articulate in our language. 但是跟父母就是还是讲方言比较多 [Bo: 潮州话噢, 对对对] 因为他说, 英语比较能够表达, 用英语他能懂得别人更多...[Bo: 噢噢, 他跟你说过, 对对] 对, 英语比较能够表达, 比较容易他说, 因为有一些字啊, 有一些他们要用的字啊, 用我们的话都不知道要怎样讲嘛。

Excerpt 10-F3: Not speaking Mandarin

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Tan 1 We rarely speak Mandarin at home, sometimes I would speak Mandarin to him, but he said ‘I don’t understand’. [Bo: Yeah.] You know, he spent all day at school and didn’t have much time at home. [Bo: Right.] Also, there are not many topics to talk about at home. [Bo: Oh, right.] When we speak Mandarin to him, he would say ‘I don’t understand’, then he just gave up. 我们家里很少讲华语, 而且有时候我跟他讲华语, 他说 “我听不明白” [Bo: 噢] 你知道他现在上学, 他在家里的时间就比较少喽 [Bo: 对对对] 比较少, 然后在家里也没有什么很多话题讲 [Bo: 嗯, 对] 然后你跟他讲话华语的时候, 他说 “我听不明白”, 然后他就, 他就放弃。 Tan 2 When he was little, we were more patient to teach him to speak. [Bo: Right.] Now he’s grown up, and he understands both English and our Teochew, and then, when I try to teach him Mandarin, I felt like, very… [Bo: I see] very, not very patient, I’ve lost that patience. 孩子小的时候我们还比较有耐心教他讲话什么的 [Bo: 对对对] 因为他这么大了, 他又听懂英语, 听懂我们潮州话, 然后你还要孩子另外再教他讲华语, 我觉得很, 很……[Bo: 噢, 对] 很, 啊, 没有那个耐心了, 失去那个耐心。 Bo 3 Right, because he understands Teochew and English. [Tan: Why do I need to speak a language that he doesn’t understand?] Right, right, if he was a little child, you might consider speaking Mandarin to him. [Tan: I, I should, I should teach him, to understand and to speak.] 对,可能就是因为他既能听懂潮州话又可以听懂英文 [Tan: 为什么我又讲一个听不懂的?] 对对对, 就是他如果比较小的话, 可能你还觉得要跟他说华语 [Tan: 我, 我应该, 我应该要教他, 听得懂, 会讲这样子]

Excerpt 11-F3: Speaking Teochew and English, not Mandarin

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold)

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Bo 1 What do you think about his communication with his older brother? Do they normally use English with each other? 他和哥哥之间的交流, 你觉得怎么样? 他们都是一般都是英文交流? Tan 2 They speak a lot in English unless they talk to parents; then, they’ll switch to Teochew. [Bo: Right.] When they talk about school stuff, game stuff, they can’t discuss that in other languages, all the games are in English. [Bo: Games, computer games that they play?] Yeah, computer games. [Bo: Right, they have to use English because they can’t find the Teochew equivalent.] They also can’t find the Mandarin equivalent, it’s all in English. 现在很多都是用英文, 除非就是跟我们家长才用潮州话 [Bo: 对] 因为他讲学校的东西, 讲那个 game 的事情, 他讲不出来的, game 全部都是英文的 [Bo: 游戏, 就是电脑的游戏是吧?] 欸, 电脑的游戏 [Bo: 对, 都得拿英文讲, 要不然潮州话没有那个词] 中文也不知道怎么讲, 都是用英文的嘛。 Bo 3 Right, anyway, they use English the most, right? [Tan: Yeah.] You use Teochew with the kids at home, right? [Tan: Yeah.] The kids speak English with each other? [Tan: Yeah.] How about between their father and them? [Tan: Teochew.] Teochew? [Tan: Yeah.] Right, that means there’s almost no Mandarin-speaking environment at home? [Tan: No.] Right. 对, 反正就是现在他们英语使用得最多, 是吧? [Tan: 嗯] 在家里你和孩子之间说潮州话对吧? [Tan: 嗯] 他们孩子们之间说英文? [Tan: 嗯] 他爸爸跟他们说什么话? [Tan: 潮州话] 潮州话? [Tan: 嗯] 对, 所以几乎现在在家里没什么普通话这个环境是吧? [Tan: 没有] 嗯。 Tan 4 I, now, speak Mandarin to them. [Bo: Right.] I try my best [Bo: to speak a bit more] yeah, to speak more. I speak Mandarin as soon as I remember, but it’s too late. [Bo: Why? As you could speak Mandarin but you never spoke it to them, right? You can speak Mandarin.] It’s hard to change, hard to change, after I speak a few sentences to Luke in Mandarin, I’ll just forget to keep it up, and he’ll sometimes say ‘I don’t know what you are talking about’, I don’t know if he really doesn’t understand, or pretend not to, you know? [Bo: Right, you mean when you talk to him in Mandarin.] Yeah, he would say ‘I don’t understand’, then I wasn’t patient enough to repeat it, you know? [Bo: You find it impossible to stick to Mandarin.] Because, if you teach a little child and you know they don’t understand, you would have more patience to talk to them. [Bo: Yeah.] He’s already grown up, so, who would still have the patience, you’ve lost the patience. [Bo: Right.] 啊, 我现在会跟他们讲普通话 [Bo: 对] 啊, 我尽量 [Bo: 多讲一些] 多讲, 嗯, 我一记得我就跟他们讲, 但太迟了点 [Bo: 为什么呢? 就是说以前你从来都没有说过, 因为你会说普通话嘛对吧? 你会说华语] 改不了口, 改不了口, 然后因为讲了一两句华语, 等一下又忘记了, 等一下我自己忘记, 然后跟 Luke 讲啦, 有时候他说 “我不知道你在讲什么”, 我不知道他是真得听不懂, 还是假得听不懂有吗? [Bo: 噢, 对, 跟他说华语的时候] 啊, 他会说 “我听不懂”, 然后我又没有耐心再重讲一次有吗? [Bo: 自己没有办法坚持一直说华语] 因为你教小孩子, 你知道他不懂, 你还比较有那个耐心去跟他讲 [Bo: 嗯] 因为他长得这么大了, 你哪有那个耐心, 你失去那个耐心了 [Bo:对]

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Bo 5 When he was little, you didn’t speak…if you could make a decision again? [Tan: I’ll definitely speak Mandarin to him.] You didn’t think about too much about Mandarin when he was little? [Tan: I thought, if he took Chinese lessons later, he would learn very fast, very…] Right, you didn’t realise that if you spoke Mandarin to him in everyday life, his Mandarin would be more… [Tan: Yeah]; when you’ve realised it, he was already grown up? 他小时候你当时没有讲……如果让你再选择一次的话? [Tan: 我肯定跟他讲华语] 他小的时候, 你是不是就没有想太多华语的事? [Tan: 我就好像觉得啊, 他之后上中文课会, 应该会好像说学得很快, 学得很……] 嗯, 但是你就没有想其实如果你要生活当中多跟他说华语的话, 他可能就更那个…… [Tan: 嗯嗯] 对, 等你意识到的时候他已经太大了, 对吧? Tan 6 Yeah, yeah, it was my problem, I didn’t realise that earlier, if I did, I would have spoken Mandarin to him earlier. Now I find it really hard because dialect can easily slip out of my mouth. 嗯, 就是, 最主要就是在我, 我自己的问题, 我自己那个没有早一点, 如果早一点觉察到, 需要早一点跟他讲一样。到了现在就觉得哎哟, 自己很难啊, 因为你自己很容易地就讲方言出来了。

Excerpt 12-F3: Attitudes to Teochew/MT and Mandarin

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Tan 1 {Following Turn 3, Excerpt 7-F3} I actually was a bit regretful, I half regretted speaking dialect to them, because I thought… [Bo: Oh right] I thought because the kids were still young, so, you could speak dialect to them. They could still learn Mandarin when they grew up. If you didn’t speak dialect to them, they couldn’t learn it when they grew up, and they couldn’t speak the dialect. [Bo: Right, this is what you thought?] Yeah. [Bo: You thought Mandarin could still be learned when they got older.] Still be learned when they grew up as long as they wanted, they can still speak it [Bo: Right] but dialects couldn’t be learned when they grew up. [Bo: Dialects can’t be learned, right, right.] Because when you grew up, your tongue, it has something to do with tongue. 我其实是有点后悔, 我有一半后悔跟他们讲方言, 因为我是觉得...... [Bo: 对对对] 我当初是这么想, 因为孩子小, 你可以讲方言, 华语你长大了, 你还可以学; 如果你从小没有讲方言, 你长大了你学不到方言, 是不能够学方言, 你讲不来的, 你讲不来的 [Bo: 对, 你当时是有这样的考虑?]当时我是有这样想 [Bo: 你就觉得华语是可以等孩子大些后再学的?] 可以学的, 长大了你只要你学, 你还是可以讲的 [Bo: 对] 但方言长大后是不能够学的 [Bo: 方言是不能够学的, 对对对]长大了你, 你那个舌头啊, 那个舌头那个关系。 Tan 2 I spoke Teochew to the kids because I wanted them to be able to communicate with my relatives and friends when they went back. 因为我是为了说他们回去的话, 他们可以跟我的亲戚朋友交流。

Chapter 6: FLP And Children’s Multilingual/Multicultural Experiences

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Section 6.3.1: General and VCE-focused FLP

Excerpt 13-F3: Casual homework supervision

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 They learn Mandarin at home—do you teach them something at a fixed time, like, having a family study time or something? 他们在家学中文, 你有没有说找一个固定的时间去教他一些东西, 比如说有一个 family 的一个 study time, 或者怎样的? Tan 2 Ah, I didn’t, I didn’t…like writing down what should I teach [Bo: Right] because I thought the Chinese school had already given them a lot of homework. When they were little, they had to learn how to write characters, do dictation, had a lot of homework. I didn’t need to teach them extra things, the Chinese school had already given them a lot of work, their day school didn’t. [Bo: Day school didn’t give them homework?] I mean only when they were in primary school. [Bo: Right.] That’s why I didn’t teach them extras at home, I thought that’s good enough if they could learn their Chinese school textbooks well. 啊, 我没有, 我没有说, 怎么讲, 写下来要教他们什么 [Bo: 嗯] 因为我觉得这个学校已经有很多东西给他们学习嘛, 小的时候, 要写字啊, 要听写啊, 要做作业, 很多作业啊这样, 所以我不用再教他们什么, 这个中文学校给他们很多功课了, 因为日校是没有功课的嘛 [Bo: 噢, 日校没什么功课?] 啊, 我是说小学的时候 [Bo: 对] 所以我就没有说在家教他们学什么, 我觉得如果他们能够学得好中文学校这里的课本内容就很不错了。

Excerpt 14-F3: Mother is the ‘teacher’

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 How’s his Chinese learning? 他现在这个中文学得怎么样? Tan 2 I could teach him when he was young, because I learned Mandarin when I was in Malaysia. [Bo: Right.] I finished Chinese primary school. From secondary school, I was taught in English and Malay. [Bo: Oh, you actually…] My Chinese is only primary school level. [Bo: You went to Chinese medium school in Malaysia, right?] Yeah, till primary school, then I started secondary school. [Bo: In secondary school, that was in Malay and English?] Yeah. [Bo: I see.] I was able to supervise him when he was little. [Bo: Right.] 他小的时候我还可以教嘛, 因为我在马来西亚有读过中文嘛 [Bo: 对对对] 读到小学, 因为我后来国中我就读, 有读英语跟读马来西亚语喽 [Bo: 噢, 就是您自己其实] 我自己本身的中文程度只有小学程度 [Bo: 噢, 就是在马来西亚的时候读华语的小学对吧?] 对, 直到小学, 然后我

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转到国中啦[Bo: 那个中学的时候就是马来语和英文的?] 噢噢噢 [Bo: 噢] 然后, 他小的时候我还可以辅导他 [Bo: 对]

Excerpt 15-F3: Private tutorial for VCE Chinese studies

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 I heard that there was another teacher teaching Luke, right? 我听老师说 Luke 还有另外一个老师教他是吧? Tan 2 Yes, last year, I found myself—because my education level was not high enough, my level of Mandarin was no longer high enough to teach him, there were many things that I didn’t know how to teach, like, writing among others. I knew his Chinese was not good. If he only went to the big- scale class, didn’t pay much attention in class, not active in class, his Chinese level would be slowly…slowly decreasing. [Bo: Oh, I see.] 对, 然后我就到了去年, 我发现我自己, 因为我自己那个学历不够啊, 我中文的学历不够教他, 很多东西我就觉得我不知道要怎么样, 好像说写作啊各方面。然后我知道因为他那个中文不是很好嘛, 如果你只是上这个大班啊, 然后如果他没有很注意听, 或者他自己本身不那么积极的话, 他可能就又慢慢地会……程度慢慢地会下来 [Bo: 噢, 对对对] Tan 3 So, I said, ‘If you want to do something, you should try your best to do it well’. [Bo: Yeah.] I said we’d decided to take VCE Chinese, I didn’t even dare to think about VCE when he was little, but he’s always been doing Chinese well, always got either gold or silver medals… [Bo: Right, in this Chinese school?] Right, that’s why I realised that we could actually try VCE. [Bo: Right.] 所以我是说 “如果你要做一件事情, 你要尽力地去做好” [Bo: 嗯] 那么我就说, 既然我们要考 VCE, 以前小时候我不敢想, 我 VCE 是不敢想, 后来是因为一直他的中文功课都是在前面, 他一直都是拿金牌银牌这样的……[Bo: 对, 就是在这个中文学校, 噢噢] 对对对, 所以我就觉得还可以尝试 [Bo: 对对对] Tan 4 Also, when he was little, I sometimes went to the parent–teacher meeting, his teacher said students who were learning here in the school should be okay to pass VCE. [Bo: Right.] I found his Chinese school performance actually not bad, so I asked him if he would like to give it a go and that he won’t lose anything if he fails. [Bo: Right.] Also, I said the more important thing was his good performance in the day school. 然后, 以前他比较小的时候, 家长开会有时候我来听啊, 那么听了他老师鼓励说在这里学的, 在这里上课的学生都应该来考, 应该是没有什么问题啦 [Bo: 嗯] 所以我又看他成绩还不错, 所以我有问他, 我说 “要不要我们试一下, 万一你考不上的话呢, 也不会怎么样啦” [Bo: 对对对] 另外我说 “你日校的功课, 主要你要日校功课你一定要成绩好” [Bo: 对对对]

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Tan 5 But when VCE was approaching, I realised, as we’ve decided to take VCE, we must try our best [Bo: Right, right] because we’ve already put a lot of time and effort into learning the language. [Bo: Yeah.] 但是真正要考 VCE 的时候呢, 我就觉得说, 我们既然决定考了, 那么我们就是要尽力了 [Bo: 对对对, 是] 因为已经花了那么多时间和精力来学 [Bo: 对] Tan 6 Till last year, end of last year, I found I was unable to teach him, he should have a private tutor, sometimes when I teach him, he was a bit…[Bo: He might have realised the different roles of Mum and teacher.] Yeah, also, I didn’t know how teachers teach. [Bo: Yeah.] The main reason was my limited capacity to teach. 然后学到去年, 去年年底的时候, 我觉得我不行了, 我觉得应该要有一个家教别人来教他. 有时候妈妈教他, 他有时候也有点……[Bo: 对, 他可能也是觉得妈妈和老师的角色是不一样的] 噢, 是, 我们也不知道老师要怎么样教 [Bo: 对] 然后, 最主要的是我自己的能力有限了。 Bo 7 Yeah, does that mean when you began sending your children to the school to learn, the original intention was to maintain, to learn Mandarin? [Tan: Yeah.] Taking VCE Chinese became part of the plan at a much later stage… [Tan: At a later stage.] Oh, right. [Tan: Just found there were many additional benefits.] Right [Tan: Then realised, he can actually…] Can actually? [Tan: Can actually, can actually take the exam.] 对对对, 相当于你们来中文学校学习, 刚开始就是想就保持, 就学华语嘛 [Tan: 噢] 但是考 VCE 只是到了后面 [Tan: 后面的时候] 噢, 对对对 [Tan: 才觉得还有这么多好处...... ] 对对对 [Tan: 然后觉得, 他还可以...... ] 还可以? [Tan: 还可以, 还可以考, 嗯]

Excerpt 16-F3: Private tutorial for VCE Chinese studies

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin Tan 1 I’ve always been helping him, help him do revision [Bo: Right] like, give him a dictation, something like that, help him do revision. [Bo: In terms of?] I could help him with anything that was on the textbook. [Bo: Right, on the textbook.] 我还一直在帮助他啦, 帮他复习什么的 [Bo: 对对对]有听写啊, 有什么, 我就帮, 就给他复习了 [Bo: 哪方面呢?] 就是课本上的东西我都可以帮他嘛 [Bo: 对, 课本上] Tan 2 But writing is really hard, I couldn’t be helpful [Bo: right] until Year 11, at the end of Term 3, I found that was the time, because VCE tests writing. [Bo: Yeah.] If don’t hire a private tutor, it would be really hard for him to get through VCE [Bo: Right] because my ability is also limited. [Bo: Right.] Also, because school may have different teaching requirements from ours [Bo: Different, right.], you must learn what the school requires. [Bo: Right, he must know the test requirements.] That’s why I hired a private tutor for him.

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但是说写作还是什么我就比较, 比较难帮喽 [Bo: 对对对] 所以一直等到 11 年级, 第三学期结束了, 我觉得不行了, 因为 VCE 要写作啊 [Bo: 嗯, 对] 如果不请家教的话, 他可能很难要考过这个 VCE [Bo: 嗯, 是] 因为我自己的能力也有限嘛 [Bo: 对] 然后因为学校要求的跟我们教得可能也不一样 [Bo: 不一样, 对] 然后你一定要知道学校要学什么 [Bo: 对, 就考试的那种要求他要知道] 是啊, 所以就给他请家教。

Section 6.3.2 Luke’s multilingual and multicultural experiences

Excerpt 17-F3: Being Australian Chinese

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do your two children have a clear sense of whether they are Chinese (Huaren) or Australian? 你觉得这两个孩子, 现在有没有感觉就是他们是华人, 还是澳洲人? Tan 2 They, they are Australian Chinese, they are very clear about that [Bo: Very clear about that] Yeah, yeah. 他们, 他们, 澳洲的华人, 他们还是会很清楚 [Bo: 还是会很清楚噢]嗯, 嗯。

Excerpt 18-F3: Being Chinese Australian

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin Bo 1 For kids of his age, do you think, how would he identify himself? For example, does he think he’s Australian, Huaren (ethnic Chinese), Malaysian Chinese, or Zhongguoren (a Chinese person who is from China)? Does he have a clear idea? 像他这么大的孩子噢, 你觉得他的身份认同感上是怎么样的, 你觉得他自己觉得自己是比如说像澳洲人, 还是像比如说是华人, 比如说马来西亚华人, 还是中国人? 你觉得这样的身份认同他有没有一个什么概念? Tan 2 I think Luke believes he is Australian, but he also knows he’s Huaren (ethnic Chinese). [Bo: He also knows he’s Chinese.] Yeah [Bo: You think], he doesn’t seem to have, eh, in terms of his ethnicity, he doesn’t have any… [Bo: Struggles?] struggles, no, he doesn’t have. 我觉得对 Luke, 他觉得他是澳洲人, 但是他也知道他是华人 [Bo: 他也知道他是华人] 嗯 [Bo: 你觉得] 但是他好像没有那种, 呃, 对于自己的种族, 他没有, 他不会觉得有什么, 呃, 对他有什么…[Bo: 困扰? 噢] 困扰, 他不会。

Excerpt 19-F3: Being Chinese (migration story and Chinese cultural values) (original left, translation right)

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My Father

My dad’s name is [xxx]. Dad told me, he was born in the remote countryside in Malaysia. My grandparents came to Malaysia from their hometown in China, so when Dad was little, his family was very impoverished.

Dad worked very hard when he was young, he would help grandparents farm as soon as he got back from school. But grandma often encouraged Dad to study hard so that he could find a good job and did not have to the hard work of farming. After Dad grew up, he did not let grandma down, and became an employee [a teacher replaced the word with ‘public servant’] in the government’s post office sector. After a few years of working there, Dad changed his profession to business and continued to be hardworking and thrifty.

Because Dad worked so hard, we were able to migrate to Australia and live a good life, he often encourages me and my younger brother to study hard [a teacher added another phrase that also means ‘study hard’] so that we can become the country’s asset.

Excerpt 20-F3: Migration motives—being Chinese

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin Bo 1 Where is your family originally from? 你们是从什么地方移民过来的? Tan 2 Malaysia. We’d been living in Malaysia till Luke was one year old [Bo: right], then his dad decided to come to Australia, because his dad’s family, most of his siblings, had already migrated here in Australia. We were slower. [Bo: I see.] 马来西亚, 我们一直在住马来西亚, 一直到他一岁多 [Bo: 嗯] 然后他爸爸决定说来澳洲, 因为他爸爸的家族都, 他的兄弟姐妹大多数都移民过来了, 我们是比较慢地 [Bo: 对对对] Tan 3 His father thought children going to school here in Australia, they could have equal opportunities because Malaysia is a Huijiao (Islamic) country. [Bo: What kind of country?] Huijiao, Huijiao country. [Bo: Islam, right.] That’s why their race is given priority [Bo: I see] in terms of job application and

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etc.—they are given priority. Chinese people do not have many opportunities [Bo: Right, opportunities] unless you want to join their religion, or… [Bo: Right, Malaysia is a multi-racial and multi-religious country] it’s fairly unequal. [Bo: I see, I’ve heard of that.] So, if we immigrate to a Western country, we could give our children an equal opportunity. 他爸爸觉得, 让孩子在这里读书可能, 比较, 比较有公平的机会, 因为马来西亚是一个回教国 [Bo: 是个什么国?] 回教, 回教国家 [Bo: 回教, 啊, 对对对] 所以他们的种族是比较优先的 [Bo: 对对对, 是] 在工作啊, 在什么啊, 都是比较优先, 华人呢就没有那个机会啦 [Bo: 对, 那个机会] 除非你就是进他的教, 或者是...... [Bo: 对, 就是马来西亚它是多种族和宗教的国家啊] 然后就是比较不公平啦 [Bo: 对对对, 我也是听说过] 所以就是有, 如果有机会啊能够移民到西方国家我们就觉得给孩子一个公平的机会。

Excerpt 21-F3: Being Malaysian Chinese (original left, translation right)

Excerpt 21.1-F3: Year 8 essay ‘All People Belong to One Close Family’ (paras 1 and 2)

All People Belong to One Close Family

My name is Luke, I am turning 14 years old on [day and month]. My dad and mum are from Malaysia. I have a younger brother, his name is Alex, he is 11 years old, and is in Grade 5 at [primary school name].

I am in Grade 8 at [school name]. Most of my classmates are from different nationalities. We have Australians, Indians, Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese, and Chinese. My best friend is [xxx], and he is Vietnamese. We have been hanging out and studying together since pre-school. His mum and my mum have also become good friends.

Excerpt 21.2-F3: Year 9 essay ‘Me’ (para. 1)

My name is Luke. I am in the Grade 9 Opportunity Class. My family has four people: Dad, Mum, younger brother, and I. I am slim and 160 cm tall. I have black hair and brown eyes.

Excerpt 21.3-F3: Year 10 essay ‘Me’ (para. 1)

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My surname is [xxx], first name is [xxx] height is 175 cm, weight is 55 kg, black eyes, black hair, 15 years old, and was born into a well-off Malaysian family. I have parents and a brother who is three years younger than me and he is very naughty. I migrated to Melbourne, Australia with my parents when I was one and a half years old.

Excerpt 21.4-F3: VCE prep essay ‘My Family’ (para. 1)

My family has four people, Dad, Mum, little brother and me. My parents and I are Malaysian, but my little brother was born in Australia.

Excerpt 22-F3: General lifestyle, food preferences and connections with Malaysia

Excerpt 22.1-F3: Lifestyle and food preferences

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-1/28MAR15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 Have you got any plans for the school holidays? 那你们假期有没有什么安排打算什么的? Tan 2 No, we usually, we rarely go out of town during the holidays unlike Australians [Bo: Oh, right] because first my husband can’t drive long distances [Bo: Long distances, right], also we are not like Australians who like going out for the holidays, it’s very tiring. [Bo: Right.] You go out of town, you’ll get really tired after the holidays, you still have lots of things to do when you’re back. [Bo: Right, yeah.] Yeah, our lifestyle is very simple, that’s it [Bo: Right] because you can be very relaxed at home, then do what you like. [Bo: Also very relaxing]. 嗯, 没有, 我们通常, 我们很少说跟那个澳洲人一样假期就出去玩什么的 [Bo: 噢, 对对对] 因为, 一方面就是我先生也不能够开车开很远车 [Bo: 很远, 嗯] 但我们都没有这个像澳洲人这样很喜欢假期出去, 你很累啊 [Bo: 对对对] 你出去玩了, 你玩累了你回来也很累, 还有很多东西要做 [Bo: 对对对, 是]嗯, 我们就是属于比较那种简单的生活这样, 我觉得这样就可以了 [Bo: 对, 是] 因为在家里, 在家里也很 relax, 然后你可以做自己喜欢做的事情 [Bo: 也挺放松的] Tan 3 Then we cook delicious food. [Bo: Right.] Chinese are particular about food. [Bo: Right, right] Cook some delicious food. 然后就做好吃的 [Bo: 对对对] 华人就是讲吃的 [Bo: 对对对对] 做一点好吃的。

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Bo 4 What kind of food do your two kids like? 像这两个孩子喜欢吃什么食物? Tan 5 Luke only likes Chinese food. [Bo: Oh, Luke only likes Chinese food?] Yeah, all the kinds, traditional or our hometown style, he likes Chinese food. He’s not interested in stuff like white bread, unless occasionally weekly McDonald’s or Hungry Jack’s, he’s not really interested in bread. [Bo: I see.] It’s okay to have some McDonald’s, sometimes [Bo: Right]; he mainly eats Chinese food. [Bo: Does he?] Luke 他只喜欢吃中餐 [Bo: 哦, Luke 只喜欢吃中餐?] 对, 什么样的, 传统的, 我们家乡的什么的, 他喜欢吃中餐。但是像面包什么, 他除非就是偶尔每周的 McDonald's, Hungry Jack's 那个, 那个白面包什么的他不大有兴趣的, 面包类的他不大有兴趣的 [Bo: 噢] McDonald’s 还可以啦, 偶尔这样的 [Bo: 对对对] 但是他最主要就是中餐 [Bo: 是吧]

Excerpt 22.2-F3: Luke’s food preferences

S T Utterances [Student-3/INTW/14OCT15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you like Chinese food? 你喜欢吃中国菜吗? Luke 2 I like Chinese food, because my parents normally cook Chinese food. I’ve loved eating their dishes since I was little. 我很喜欢吃中国菜, 因为我的父母做的饭, 平时是中国菜, 所以我从小就喜欢吃他们的菜。 Bo 3 Okay, do you, do you like Western food? 好, 那你, 那你喜欢吃西方菜吗? Luke 4 Eh, I don’t, I don’t like Western food, because I, I live in Melbourne, Melbourne, in Australia, Australian restaurants, there are restaurants from different countries, Australia has restaurants from different countries, I like restaurants from different countries. 呃, 我不, 不喜欢吃西方菜, 因为我, 我住在墨尔本, 墨尔本啊, 就在澳大利亚, 澳大利亚的餐馆, 有很多国家的餐馆, 澳大利亚有很多国家的餐馆, 所以我就喜欢很多国家的餐馆。

Excerpt 22.3-F3: Lifestyle and connection with Malaysia via food [essay: ‘My Family’] (original left, translation right)

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Malaysia has a lot of delicious food. The most common one was “Gan Lao Mian”, satay, laksa, mee jawa, roti chanai. These are Malaysia’s special dishes. Although Malaysia has many special dishes, “Gan Lao Mian” is our favourite.

My family rarely travels, but we like staying at home and watching TV, DVD, going online and doing exercises in the backyard. We usually play basketball when we are free, because we have a basketball stand, we enjoy playing it.

Excerpt 22.4-F3: Lifestyle and connection with Malaysia via family bonds and food

S T Utterances [Student-3/INTW/14OCT15], Mandarin Bo 1 Do you often travel? 你经常去旅游吗? Luke 2 No, I haven’t travelled much, but I go to Malaysia to visit my family every three years. [Bo: Yeah] I think Malaysia is very beautiful, and also Malaysian food is very delicious, so I went back to Malaysia. 啊, 我没有经常去旅游, 但是我每三年就会去马来西亚看望我的家人 [Bo: 嗯] 我觉得马来西亚风景很美, 而且马来西亚的餐很好吃, 所以回到马来西亚去。 Bo 3 Do you like going back to Malaysia? 你喜欢回马来西亚吗?

Luke 4 Ah, I like going to Malaysia, because, my, my family is in Malaysia, I can visit them every three years. Also, I like Malaysian food very much. 啊, 喜欢去马来西亚, 因为啊, 我的, 我的家人都在马来西亚, 所以每三年我就可以, 看望他们, 而且我很喜欢马来西亚的餐。

Excerpt 22.5-F3: Connection with Malaysia [essay: Visiting Kuching] (original left, translation right)

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Visiting Kuching

On the second day after we arrived in Kuching, uncle drove us to the riverside of the south city. Kuching is located in northwest Borneo; beautiful Sarawak River divides Kuching into

After lunch, we drove to a Cat Museum, which was located in the north city. I believe that in other tourist attractions people can hardly find these many different kinds of handmade cat sculptures.

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Kuching’s language is very colourful [a teacher extends the student’s original expression to an idiom]. Malay, English, and Mandarin are widely used. Between Chinese people, besides Mandarin, dialects such as Hokkien, Hakka, and Teochew are also commonly used languages. Compared with other big cities, Kuching people are simple and honest, life pace [the teacher added a character that the student had missed] is not so fast, and I enjoy this idyllic feeling.

[Teacher feedback stamp reads: outstanding]

Excerpt 22.6-F3: Lifestyle, food preferences, connection with Malaysia and no connection with China

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Bo 1 He’s learning Chinese [Tan: Yeah], he would come across a lot of things about China [Tan: Yeah] but he hasn’t been to China, has he? [Tan: Never been there.] What do you think about his attitudes towards China? Would he say something like, ‘I’ve never been to China, why do I need to learn Mandarin?’ 因为他们现在学得是中文嘛 [Tan: 嗯] 会接触很多跟中国有关的东西 [Tan: 嗯] 但他从来没有去过中国对吧? [Tan: 没有去过] 就是你觉得他对中国是一个什么样的态度呢? 你觉得他会说 “我又没有去过中国, 为什么要学中文?” Tan 2 Learning Mandarin, he knows that, although he is not Zhongguoren (a Chinese person who is from China), he is Huaren (ethnic Chinese). [Bo: Right.] This was what I’ve been instilling into him since he was very young. [Bo: Right.] ‘You are ethnic Chinese, this language is like, like, is your mother tongue, you must acquire it’. [Bo: Right.] So that’s it, he wouldn’t say because of China…he’s not from China, that’s why he didn’t want to go to China. 学中文他是知道, 因为他自己是, 他虽然不是中国人, 但是他是华人 [Bo: 对] 这是我从小就是灌输给他们 [Bo: 对] 你是华人, 这个你, 就好像是, 等于你的母语这样啦, 你一定要学会的 [Bo: 对] 所以也没有什么, 他不会说因为中国……他不是来自中国嘛, 所以他不会想要去中国。 Bo 3 Right, he didn’t seem to have any relationship with China? 对, 他跟中国好像没有什么关系对吧? Tan 4 No, he didn’t have relationship, he just, he didn’t, he didn’t say he wanted to go. Also, in his oral exam, there’re questions about… [Bo: In the general conversation part] about whether he’d like to work in China, something like that. [Bo: Right.] He wouldn’t say he’d love to, it’s okay, if it’s short term, he doesn’t look forward to going there. [Bo: No, he doesn’t.] Right.

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对, 没有关系, 他只是, 他没有, 他没有说想要去。然后口语考试上, 也那个经常问他……[Bo: 对话 general conversation] 也是有问他说 “想不想去中国工作” 什么的 [Bo: 对] 他也不会说想去啦, 他说如果是短期的还可以啦, 他说就是没有那么没有向往说要去 [Bo: 对, 他没有向往] 嗯。 Bo 5 Does he look forward to visiting Malaysia? 那他向往不向往马来西亚? Tan 6 He doesn’t. [Bo: He doesn’t either.] He just wants to stay in Australia, if he has opportunities, he said, if he had some career opportunities in the future, he would like to go to Europe. [Bo: Right, Europe, go to Europe.] Yeah. 不会 [Bo: 也不会] 他就是想要在澳洲, 然后有机会的话, 他说以后工作如果有机会的话, 他是想去 Europe [Bo: 噢, Europe, 去欧洲那边] 嗯。 Bo 7 Okay, because we talked about he was in Malaysia, he was born in Malaysia, right? [Tan: Yeah.] There are still some relatives living there, right? [Tan: Oh, there are relatives, they are ours, ours, our relatives.] All in Malaysia. [Tan: Malaysia.] 对, 因为当时说到他在马来西亚, 就是他是在马来西亚出生对吧? [Tan: 嗯]是不是还有些亲戚在那边? [Tan: 噢, 亲戚是有, 亲戚是我们的, 我们的, 我们的亲戚喽] 都在那个马来西亚 [Tan: 马来西亚喽, 嗯] Tan 8 [Bo: Do you go back every year?] No, I don’t, but my husband does every year, he goes back every year during Tomb-Sweeping Day. [Bo: Oh, your husband does every year.] Kids need to go to school, if I go with him… the school holidays after Term 1 are very short, only two weeks. [Bo: Right.] It’s not worth going back in a rush. [Bo: Right, it’s timing.] You also have to spend a lot [Bo: Right], very expensive, plus a very short visit, it doesn’t make sense, so we wouldn’t go back, also kids are not really keen, going back is more for the parents. [Bo: 那你们每年都会回去吗?] 我没有每年去, 我先生有每年回去, 他清明每年都回去 [Bo: 噢, 你先生每年] 啊, 因为一方面是孩子上学, 如果我回去, 因为第一学期的假期都很短, 两个星期 [Bo: 对] 如果这样匆匆忙忙地回去, 不大合适这样啊 [Bo: 对对对, 时间上] 那个花费又很大 [Bo: 对] 花费很大, 然后你就回去那么短的时间, 就划不来, 我们就没有回去, 而且孩子也不是说很想回去, 因为回去主要是我们大人。 Bo 9 Do they have any cousins in Malaysia? 马来西亚他有没有和他同辈的 cousin 啊? Tan 10 They are not familiar with each other. [Bo: Not familiar, I see.] Yeah, they don’t want to go back because Malaysia’s internet is really bad, also it’s very expensive [Bo: Oh, very expensive], very expensive, they can’t get access to the internet to talk to their friends here [Bo: Talk to their classmates] plus, they can’t play computer games; besides, Malaysia is too hot, they can’t stand it. [Bo: I see, they are not used to it.] 同辈也不熟嘛 [Bo: 不熟噢] 嗯嗯嗯, 不想回去, 因为马来西亚的那个 Internet 很差, 而且很贵 [Bo: 噢, 很贵噢] 很贵, 所以他们不能够上网, 甚

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至不能够上网跟这里的朋友聊天 [Bo: 同学联系啊] 又不能玩 game 嘛; 然后马来西亚天气太热, 受不了 [Bo: 对噢, 他们其实不太习惯噢] Tan 11 Right, the only thing they like about there is to eat delicious food [Bo: delicious food], food. [Bo: What do they like?] Our local food [Bo: I see, local food.] Yeah, food. [Bo: What do you think about their food preferences? All sorts of Malaysian food, Chinese food or as long as it’s Asian?] Asian food. [Bo: Asian food.] Yeah, because Luke likes eating Chinese food. [Bo: Yeah.] Every time when he was back, he got sick because of the weather, he doesn’t like it. [Bo: Yeah.] 然后就是喜欢吃喜欢的东西 [Bo: 好吃的噢] 吃的 [Bo: 他们喜欢吃什么?] 其实我们那边 local 的东西喽 [Bo: 就是 local 的那些是吧?] 嗯嗯, 吃的 [Bo: 他们的口味你觉得是, 是偏向于哪样的口味? 就是马来西亚的各种各样的食物, 还是只要是中国整个的这种口味, 亚洲口味] 亚洲口味的可以 [Bo: 亚洲可以啊] 嗯, 因为 Luke 比较喜欢吃中餐的 [Bo: 嗯] 然后因为每次 Luke 回去, 反正天气的关系, 他每次回去都生病, 所以也是他就不喜欢 [Bo: 对] Tan 12 Actually, I really encourage him to go to the ‘Seeking Roots Trip’. [Bo: Yeah, the ‘Seeking Roots Trip’ to China?] Yeah, ‘Seeking Roots Trip’, I said it would help you improve your Chinese, but he didn’t want to go, he said if I was not with him, what if he got sick? This was his thought. He’s afraid of getting sick when he goes out. 我其实很鼓励他去, 这个寻根之旅 [Bo: 对, 去中国的寻根之旅] 欸, 寻根之旅, 我说对你的中文帮助很大, 但是他也不想去, 他说我没有跟在他身边啦, 如果他生病了怎么办? 他就是这样的一个心理。因为他就是好像说外出啊什么的, 他就怕生病。

Excerpt 23-F3: ‘My hometown is Melbourne’ [essay: My Hometown] (original left, translation right)

My Hometown

My hometown is in Melbourne where I grew up.

Melbourne is a very diverse place. It has many tourist attractions [teacher rephrased the term, but the English translation is more or less the same], tall buildings and modern architecture. There are beautiful flowers everywhere in spring reason [deleted]. The city is full of greenery and vigour. I love the sounds of birds and frogs in spring and all other lively animals.

The summer heat is scary, because the temperature can sometimes reach 36, 38 or even more than 40° Celsius. In summer, I am most looking forward to the south wind. Australian Open is held in Melbourne annually during the first month of the lunar year.

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This is one of my favourite matches.

In autumn, the weather starts to be nice and cool. Many people like autumn, because autumn has a poetic kind of beauty. When golden leaves fall off by the wind, they look like they are dancing in the air, how beautiful it that!

Winter is very cold. The morning weather is often cloudy and misty, whereas in the afternoon it usually rains. In the evening, the temperature gets as low as 2° Celsius. I was often wondering what it would be like if it rains snows in Melbourne during winter? No matter what, I always love my hometown.

[Teacher’s comment reads Excellent +]

Excerpt 24-F3: ‘I don’t want to work in Malaysia, because all of my good friends live in Australia’

S T Utterances [Student-3/INTW/14OCT15], Mandarin Bo 1 Are you interested in working in China in the future? 你将来有兴趣去中国工作吗? Luke 2 I will work in Australia in the future. Because my family and friends live in Australia, and I am familiar with Australia’s environment. That’s why I think I will work in Australia. 我将来就在澳大利亚工作。因为我的家人和朋友都住在澳大利亚, 而且我对澳大利亚的环境比较, 噢, 熟悉, 所以我就觉得, 就在澳大利亚做工作。 Bo 3 Do you want to go to Malaysia and work in Kuching? 那你想不想去马来西亚, 去古晋工作呢? Luke 4 I, ah, I don’t want to work in Malaysia, because all of my good friends live in Australia, and I am familiar with Australia’s weather and Australia’s environment. 我, 啊, 不想去马来西亚做工作, 因为我的好朋友都住在澳大利亚, 而且我对澳大利亚的天气和澳大利亚的环境比较熟悉。

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Appendix 9: Supplementary Data

Chapter 5: Speaking Regional Languages and/or Mandarin at Home

Section 5.4: Regional Language vs Mandarin

Case: Teacher Hou and her daughter’s experience [Fieldnotes]

1. Teacher Hou’s daughter, Lily, was born in 1994 in Shanghai and came to Australia

after she finished her primary school. Although she was born in a Shanghainese-

speaking family, Lily couldn’t speak Shanghainese.

2. Teacher Hou said this was because students were only allowed to speak Mandarin

in schools in China and they basically stayed in this Mandarin-only environment

around nine hours a day. At home, Teacher Hou and her husband would speak

Shanghainese to Lily, but she generally responded in Mandarin.

3. After they moved to Australia, Lily did not go to Chinese weekend school because

her parents wanted her to focus on improving English. Gradually, Lily’s Mandarin

proficiency has decreased and English proficiency has increased. Years of

exposure to English language and lack of exposure to Mandarin resulted in Lily’s

very high proficiency in English and limited proficiency in Mandarin. When Lily

went back to Shanghai, Teacher Hou found that Lily and her native Shanghainese

cousins ‘could not communicate’. Loss of Shanghainese among Lily and her

cousins, Lily’s high proficiency in English and low level of Mandarin, and cousins’

high competence in Mandarin and low competence in English made their

communication very difficult.

4. Teacher Hou visited Shanghai, her hometown, in December 2013, and she found

that trilingual station reporting services were provided on buses: Mandarin,

Shanghainese and English.

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5. Also, she heard that Regional Dialect Subject (Shanghainese) was offered in some

local schools. She found that very ‘ridiculous’ because although schools

discouraged students from speaking Shanghainese at school, schools also tried to

teach students Shanghainese. She said it simply was not a natural way of acquiring

Shanghainese in Shanghai. I could feel that Teacher Hou was not happy about the

Mandarin-Only Policy in China’s schools.

Excerpt 1-Teacher T: Teacher Tu’s experience

S T Utterances [Teacher-1/INTW-2/09MAY15] Bo 1 What influence, do you think, would it have on Mandarin learning if regional Chinese varieties are spoken at home? 您觉得如果在家说方言的话, 您觉得就是对他的这个普通话的学习哦,有没有什么帮助？ Tu 2 I wouldn’t think dialect...take my two children as an example: For the oldest, I used to think, speaking Shanghainese might have a negative influence on her Chinese levels. [Bo: Mandarin’s levels?] Yes, yes. So, I told my husband, we should consistently speak Mandarin to her. Because she can speak Shanghainese. Because... [Bo: She speaks Shanghainese?] Because my parents-in-law brought her up. [Bo: I see.] My parents-in-law spoke Shanghainese with her when she was very little, so she can speak Shanghainese. Actually, we all Shanghainese and we speak Shanghainese at home. Later, because she was about to start school, I thought I should start to speak Mandarin to her. I also asked my husband to talk to my daughter in Mandarin. At the beginning, he was not used to it, but finally he got used to it, so did my daughter. [Bo: Did you say your husband was not used to speaking Mandarin with your daughter?] Yeah. Not used to it. He normally speaks Shanghainese. If you ask him to speak Mandarin, he would eventually switch it to Shanghainese. However, after a while, both of my oldest daughter and husband got used to speaking Mandarin with each other. It has become a conditioned response. [Bo: I see. When did that happen? How old was she?] About five to six years old, when she was about to go to Chinese school. Yeah. Now, once she sees me, the first response is to speak Mandarin. It results from what my husband and I stick with. She doesn’t speak English with me, only Mandarin. [Bo: Which language does she use with her younger sister?] Completely English. 其实方言的话, 我觉得也不是, 就是就拿我自己两个孩子来说吧！老大的话我就觉得“哎呀”这个上海的方言我觉得好像以, 以后会影响他, 这是我一开始的感觉。我觉得会影响他将来讲中文的那个水准 [Bo: 就普通话的水准？] 我就, 对对对, 我就和我先生就坚持说, 我们两个人和她说普通话。因为她是会说上海话。因为我……[Bo: 她是怎么会的？] 我公公婆婆来带她们 [Bo: 噢] 他们就

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和她小时候说上海话, 所以她能说上海话。我们家里其实我和我先生都上海的, 我们都说上海话的。然后她因为她要读书了嘛, 我就觉得“哎呀”应该要讲普通话, 我就坚持跟他讲普通话, 我让我先生也坚持跟他讲, 一开始他不习惯, 但后来慢慢就习惯, 那孩子也习惯 [Bo: 噢, 你说刚开始先生不习惯?] 不习惯。因为他不习惯, 他会说着说着就说成上海话了, 然后我, 然后经过一段时间坚持呢, 我们现在是条件反射, 看见她就是普通话, 她看见我们也是普通话 [Bo: 噢, 那就是从什么时候开始起, 他们几岁的？你们家里边] 嗯, 大概就是要读中文学校, 大概五六岁, 六岁的时候。然后她现在呢, 其实看见我的第一个反应她是普通话的反应, 因为是我自己坚持的, 我和先生坚持的。他看见我不说英文的, 只说普通话 [Bo: 对, 那他们之间交流呢？] 他们之间就完全是英文。 Tu 3 The younger one, she’s quite flexible, if I asked her to speak Mandarin, she might forget…also, if we don’t insist on her speaking… I think…the key thing is her language competence might have developed, her Shanghainese is better than her sister’s. [Bo: Better than her sister’s? Shanghainese?] Yes, her Shanghainese is better than her older sister’s. She speaks Mandarin in the classroom. At home, we sometimes speak Shanghainese with her older sister and she can hear it. She can also speak Shanghainese; her Mandarin is not bad. She does not lose her dialect. The older one’s Shanghainese is a bit strange, a bit strange, because we insisted on speaking Mandarin to her. Her Shanghainese is a bit strange, a bit strange and it’s not very standard. This doesn’t happen to the younger one. [Bo: The younger one’s Shanghainese is very standard.] Yes, the younger one’s Shanghainese has no problem at all. Although the way she speaks Mandarin and reads aloud books in Mandarin is not very lively as you may have noticed during your classroom observation, she still maintains two languages. However, her older sister’s Shanghainese...she can speak it, but not very standard, because we insisted on speaking Mandarin to her. We insisted on that. 对, 然后老二呢, 因为她比较灵, 灵活一点, 我跟她说你要说普通话, 她有时候忘了, 然后我们也有, 也没有很一定要坚持的话, 呃, 我觉得倒不是很, 很管……关键我觉得好像她语言有可能扩展, 他上海话说得比他姐姐好[Bo: 噢, 老二上海话说比姐姐好?] 比姐姐好！她课堂上是说普通话的, 我们家里也和姐姐说上海话, 她其实耳朵也听的, 她也会说上海的, 她的普通话也不差, 但是她的方言呢, 他的上海话也没丢。老大现在说上海话有点怪, 有点怪, 因为是我们坚持了说普通话。上海话说得有点怪的, 有点怪的, 讲得不是那么标准。老二就没有这个问题 [Bo: 噢, 老二就很标准] 对, 老二说上海话也没问题。你可以听过她说普通话, 她不是说得非常生动, 对吧？不是读书读得很生动地, 但是她两边都好像都没丢, 老大的上海方言, 她能说, 但是说得不是很准。因为是我们坚持的。是我们坚持。 Bo 4 Why didn’t you insist on speaking Mandarin with your younger daughter? 那为什么在老二的时候没有坚持?

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Tu 5 The younger one was a bit different. The older one is fairly obedient and she follows what she’s been told. The younger one doesn’t like this. We also think the younger one’s Mandarin makes sense, so gradually we didn’t stick with our ‘Mandarin-only’ rules...she speaks both. If we speak Mandarin to her, she speaks Mandarin back; sometimes, for example, if I’d like to ask her to do something, I’d speak Shanghainese and she would response in Shanghainese. She hasn’t lost Shanghainese, and her Shanghainese is not strange, instead, relatively standard. These two children are a bit different. 老二的时候呢, 因为老二比较灵活, 她有时你跟她说, 老大是比较听话的, 你跟她怎么说, 她就怎么做了。老二有时就是你跟她这么说, 她不这么做的, 那有可能我们, 我们感觉她好像中文也能讲得清楚, 就慢慢地我们也不坚持了。有一半, 我如果是跟她说普通话, 或用普通话回答, 有时譬如我自己要她做什么事情, 我用上海话, 她也就上海话对, 给你对应了, 她说的上海话不是怪怪的, 相对来说是比较标准。就两个孩子有点不一样, 有点不一样。

Chapter 6: FLP And Children’s Multilingual/Multicultural Experiences

Section 6.1 The Li Family

Excerpt 2-Teacher T: ‘Your roots are still in China… your face will never change’

S T Utterances [Teacher-1/CO-2/28FEB15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Tu 1 Asking you to read this is because I want you to know a bit more about the return of Hong Kong. This is knowledge, I think, you should read books to understand some historical stories, no matter it’s about China or about Australia, or other parts of the world, you should know about them. Like you watch or listen to the news every day, it’s a process of accumulating knowledge. Some students are not interested, they would say ‘What have I got to do with the return of Hong Kong? It doesn’t matter to me, I’m Australian, I’m Aussie’ {students giggling}. ‘It’s none of my business’. However, your roots are in China, your ancestors are Chinese, you should know about some knowledge of China. What if other people ask you about it and you don’t even know any of them, ‘I don’t know’, ‘I don’t know’. Actually you should know something. After all, because of your ‘face’, other people wouldn’t say you are… 读这一段呢只是让你对香港回归有更多的一个什么? 了解. 其实这是一个你的一个知识, 我觉得你们读书, 读书, 要了解很多的一些历史知识, 一些不管关于中国的, 还是澳洲的, 世界各地的知识你都要有所了解. 其实你每天看新闻, 对吧, 听新闻, 看新闻是, 都是一个知识的积累, 有的同学不感兴趣, ‘你们香港回归和我有什么关系, 跟我没关系, 我澳洲人, I'm Aussie, {同学们笑} 我没关系’, 其实

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你的“根”是在中国, 你的 “祖先” 是中国人, 你对中国的有的一些知识应该有所了解, 别人不要问你, 一问三不知, 都不知道, “我不知道”, “I don't know”. 他都不知道，其实你应该有所了解, 毕竟你的 “脸”, 你出去人家不会说你是…… Boy 1 2 Australians. 澳洲人。 Tu 3 Other people, they’ll ask you, ‘Are you Chinese?’, won’t they? Is that right? 人家说, 人家会不会问你啊, ‘Are you Chinese?’, 是不是这样问的? Boy 2 4 They don’t actually ask. 他们都不问的。 Tu 5 Right? Your roots are still in China, your ‘face’ can’t be changed. Although you were born in Australia, your face will never change. 你的 “根” 还是在中国, 你这个 “脸” 是改变不了的。你是出生在澳洲, 但是你的 ‘脸’是永远不会改变的。 David 6 Surgery {All the students laughing}. Surgery {所有同学都大笑} Tu 7 So, David is going to change his face and hair. 所以, David 他准备去改一个脸, 换一个头发。 David 8 No! I’m not! No! 我不要。 Tu 9 Don’t say it then {students laughing}. Okay, stop it! {Noises reducing} I’m not joking, this is classroom, okay? You’ll show us a different face next week, won’t you? 那你不要说嘛 {同学们都在笑} 好, 停止啦! {同学们的声音小下来} 我不给你开玩笑，我这是课堂好不好, Okay? 下个星期你给我们看到是另一个面貌是不是? David 10 No! {Some students laughing.} No! {同学们笑} Tu 11 Okay, your face can never change, so that’s why you should know something about China. {A girl raising her hand} What? 好啦, 你的脸不会变, 所以我这么说, 你要了解有关的中国的有关的那个内容 {一位女生举手提问} 什么? Girl 12 Why your ‘face’ is that important? 为什么你的 “脸” 这么重要呢?

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Tu 13 This is not the question that I want to discuss with you. Don’t ask me about this, I can’t answer your question. Of course, it is important! You, think about if your face is important? Think about if it is important? Your face is of course important. 这不是我和你讨论的问题, 这事你不要问我, 我不能回答你的这个问题, 当然重要, 你想一想你的脸皮重要不重要? 你的脸重要不重要? 你的脸当然重要了。 Girl 14 No. Tu 15 Otherwise no one would spend money on something…just like David said ‘surgery’ {student laughing}. The face is of course important. Is a person’s face important? Is the face important or not? Everyone wants ‘face’, face is of course important, I don’t want to discuss this, okay? This is a Chinese language classroom. The face I’m talking about, the face I’m talking about, you are Chinese. I don’t want to talk about something irrelevant, we’ve gone too far off topic. A person’s face is very important, of course important, it represents a nation. Everyone’s opinion is different, everyone’s opinion is different, everyone’s thoughts are different. Some students are not interested in this topic, because they might think Hong Kong’s return has got nothing to do with them. It’s okay if you think it’s nothing to do with you, but what I meant was, you should know about this as knowledge. I didn’t ask every one of you to say, ‘I’m Chinese’, I didn’t mean that. What I meant was no matter it’s knowledge of China, Chinese history or Australian history, even that of the US, Germany or France, you should have gained some basic understanding. I want you to grasp more knowledge. 否则脸不重要人家就不要去什么花钱, 就像他刚才说的 surgery 了{同学们笑} 脸当然重要了, 一个人的脸不重要? 脸皮重要不重要? 人都要 “面子”, 脸当然很重要, 这是各方面, 我不想讨论, 好吗? 我中文课堂, 这个我说的 “脸”, 我说这个脸,你是中国人. 我不想来讨论这种外面的事情, 很多扯出去的事情, 一个人的脸很重要的, 当然重要了, 代表了一个 “民族”, 每个人的观点不一样, 每个人 opinion 不一样, 每个人的想法不一样。我这么说其实是说你要, 有的同学对这个文章, 这个内容不感兴趣, 因为他可能觉得这个香港回归和我有什么关系, 我说你要有了解, 你觉得没关系, 没问题, 但是你要有所了解, 你要有所知识的掌握, 这是你的知识。我不是说, 让你们每个人都说 “我是中国人”, 我不是这么说, 我说你要有所了解, 不管是中国的知识也好, 中国的历史知识也好, 是澳洲的历史知识, 哪怕美国的、德国的、法国的, 你都要有所了解, 是要你掌握更多的知识。

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Appendix 10: Conventions Used in Data Presentation

All the data were generated in Mandarin, with occasional code-switching to

English. During the transcribing process, I have preserved the exact language (i.e.,

Chinese) used by respondents (see Appendices 4–9). I translated the collected data into

English and presented these in the main body of the thesis either in data excerpts or in the text. Specific languages used in particular excerpts are indicated in the table header.

The focus of data analysis is the content of participants’ responses, rather than linguistic features of their utterances (see also Duff, 2008a, p.133). Therefore, the main transcription convention was to produce an idiomatic translation from Mandarin to

English. Meanwhile, the English translation maintains the original conversational style, and I attempted to retain the Chinese flavour (Wang, 2004). Conversely, when a potential

English translation may not be able to fully present the original meaning in Chinese or a specific point in Chinese that needs to be highlighted, Pinyin and/or Chinese characters are used followed by the English translation in parentheses. In addition, respondents’ critical nonverbal communicative behaviour is described in curly brackets (i.e., {}) in data excerpts. Examples are shown below.

Part of Excerpt 22.6-F3

S T Utterances [Parent-3/INTW-3/30MAY15], Mandarin and English (in Bold) Tan 2 Learning Mandarin, he knows that, although he is not Zhongguoren (a Chinese person who is from China), he is Huaren (ethnic Chinese). [Bo: Right.] This was what I’ve been instilling into him since he was very young. [Bo: Right.] ‘You are ethnic Chinese, this language is like, like, is your mother tongue, you must acquire it.’ [Bo: Right.] So that’s it, he wouldn’t say because of China…he’s not from China, that’s why he didn’t want to go to China. 学中文他是知道, 因为他自己是, 他虽然不是中国人, 但是他是华人 [Bo: 对] 这是我从小就是灌输给他们 [Bo: 对] 你是华人, 这个你, 就好像是, 等于你的母语这样啦, 你一定要学会的 [Bo: 对] 所以也没有什么, 他不会说因为中国……他不是来自中国嘛, 所以他不会想要去中国。

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Part of Excerpt 5-F1

S T Utterances [Student-1/CONV-1/21FEB15], English Bo 1 Do you like Chinese school? {David shaking head.} No. Why not? {no response} It’s too difficult? David 2 Boring.

In-text analysis

Jiaxiangren (家乡人) or Laoxiang (老乡) (‘people from the same hometown’).

Furthermore, in order to present the interviewing data in a more compact and coherent manner while indicate the presence/role of the researcher (Duff, 2008a), the researcher’s brief utterances are sometimes embedded in participants’ turns. Examples are shown below.

Part of Excerpt 2-SL1

“Going to their schools is not suitable for our children. [Bo: Ah, I see.] Not suitable, so we taught them…”

Part of Excerpt 3-F2

“Putonghua that Beijing people speak...the kind with clear and accurate articulation... [Bo: By the mainland Chinese standards?] Yes...because Southeast Asian Chinese people are the early immigrants”

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Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne

Author/s: Hu, Bo

Title: Chinese Australian multilingual family experiences

Date: 2018

Persistent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11343/219970

File Description: PhD Thesis-Bo Hu (2018) Chinese Australian Multilingual Family Experiences

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