Part of
Heritage Language Development: Focus on East Asian ImmigrantsEdited by Kimi Kondo-Brown
[Studies in Bilingualism 32] 2006
► pp. 15–32
Edited by Kimi Kondo-Brown
[Studies in Bilingualism 32] 2006
► pp. 15–32
The role of parents in heritage language maintenance and development
Case studies of Chinese immigrant children’s home practices
Drawing on two ethnographic studies on Chinese immigrant families’ home literacy practices, this chapter addresses the issue of Heritage language (HL) loss and the role of parents in facilitating immigrant children’s HL maintenance and development in the home milieu. The results indicate that the parents as well as their ethnic communities play a significant role in their children’s HL maintenance, and they employ a variety of strategies and resources to facilitate their children’s first language learning. However, due to the lack of mainstream school and societal support, the parents experience different barriers in fostering the children’s positive attitudes toward HL learning, and their actions often did not match their beliefs. These findings suggest that relying on parents alone cannot help the immigrant children become bicultural and biliterate.More institutional support from policy makers and schools is needed.
Cited by (16)
Cited by 16 other publications
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2024. Challenging journeys for minority language-speaking parents: teaching heritage language in inter-lingual families. International Journal of Multilingualism 21:4 ► pp. 1757 ff. 
Wang, Yining & Jia Li
2024. Changing discourses of Chinese language maintenance in Australia: unpacking language ideologies of first-generation Chinese immigrant parents from People’s Republic of China. Frontiers in Psychology 14
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2023. Special Issue Editorial. Researching and Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language 4:1 ► pp. 41 ff.
Wang, Yining, Vera Williams Tetteh & Sithembinkosi Dube
2023. Parental emotionality and power relations in heritage language maintenance: experiences of Chinese and African immigrant families in Australia. Frontiers in Psychology 14
Lee, Sherman
2022. The Chinese Diaspora: Language Maintenance and Loss. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 690 ff.
Chen, Stephen H., Qing Zhou & Yuuko Uchikoshi
2021. Heritage language socialization in Chinese American immigrant families: prospective links to children’s heritage language proficiency. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 24:8 ► pp. 1193 ff.
Gharibi, Khadij & Corinne Seals
2019. Family Language Policy towards Heritage Language Literacy Acquisition and Maintenance: Iranians in New Zealand. In The Sociolinguistics of Iran’s Languages at Home and Abroad, ► pp. 109 ff.
Gharibi, Khadij & Corinne Seals
2020. Heritage language policies of the Iranian diaspora in New Zealand. International Multilingual Research Journal 14:4 ► pp. 287 ff.
Choi, Jane Younga, Jin Sook Lee & Janet S Oh
2018. Examining the oral language competency of children from Korean immigrant families in English-only and dual language immersion schools. Journal of Early Childhood Research 16:1 ► pp. 32 ff.
Jo, Ji-Yeon O. & Seok-In Lee
2016. Heritage Language Sustainability and Transnational Affect. In Immigration and Education in North Carolina, ► pp. 221 ff.
Mori, Yoshiko & Toshiko M. Calder
2015. The Role of Motivation and Learner Variables in L1 and L2 Vocabulary Development in Japanese Heritage Language Speakers in the United States. Foreign Language Annals 48:4 ► pp. 730 ff.
Hu, Jiangbo, Jane Torr & Peter Whiteman
2014. Australian Chinese parents’ language attitudes and practices relating to their children’s bilingual development prior to school. Journal of Early Childhood Research 12:2 ► pp. 139 ff.
Kawasaki, Kyoko
2014. A Place for Second Generation Japanese Speaking Children in Perth: Can they Maintain Japanese as a Community Language?. In Critical Perspectives on Language Education [Multilingual Education, 11], ► pp. 163 ff.
Hashimoto, Kumi & Jin Sook Lee
2011. Heritage-Language Literacy Practices: A Case Study of Three Japanese American Families. Bilingual Research Journal 34:2 ► pp. 161 ff.
Zhang, Jingning
2009. Mandarin maintenance among immigrant children from the People's Republic of China: an examination of individual networks of linguistic contact. Language, Culture and Curriculum 22:3 ► pp. 195 ff.
[no author supplied]
2022. Language Diasporas. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 611 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.