MA Thesis “Swimming against the tide”：Heritage Language Maintenance and Attrition among Chinese Immigrant Families in the Dutch Multilingual Environment

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MA Thesis

“Swimming against the tide”：Heritage Language

Maintenance and Attrition among Chinese Immigrant

Families in the Dutch Multilingual Environment

Yuting Wang

S3970183

MA in Multilingualism

Faculty of Arts

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Supervisors:

Joana Duarte

Bart Hollebrandse

Date of submission: 18/06/2020 Words: 16, 715

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Abstract

Many immigrant families struggle to maintain their heritage languages and reduce phenomena of language attrition (Fishman, 1966; Kheirkhah & Cekaite, 2015; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). Yet research concerning heritage language maintenance and attrition of Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands has received scant attention in the literature. The current study addresses this research gap by investigating heritage language maintenance and attrition of Chinese immigrant children in the Netherlands through exploring three research questions: (1) What factors contribute to the home language maintenance or attrition of Chinese-speaking families in the Netherlands? (2) What strategies do Chinese immigrant parents would make to maintain their home language (including digital tools)? (3) What attitudes do Chinese immigrant parents hold towards home language attrition or maintenance?

In this study, the sample is composed of 42 Chinese immigrant families in the Netherlands: 42 parents and 84 children. A mixed-methods approach (Wisdom & Creswell, 2013) was used to address the research questions, combining a questionnaire for all participants, semi-structured interviews with 8 parents, as well as a story-retelling task with the children. The quantitative analysis of the data demonstrated that age of immigration, heritage language use frequency, parents’ heritage language proficiency, parental attitudes and the change of language environment before and after school have a significant effect on heritage language maintenance. A content analysis of the interviews provided a better understanding of parents’ attitudes and expectations towards heritage language maintenance and attrition.

In general, this study contributes to the development of children’s heritage language in Chinese immigrant families in the Netherlands, aiming at providing a better understanding of

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second generation’s home language proficiency improvement with the help of first generation. Key words: heritage language, language maintenance, language attrition, Chinese immigrants

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List of tables

Table 3.1 Characteristics of participants’ family of the interview……….………43 Table 3.2 Characteristics of participants’ children……….……...44 Table 4.1 The descriptive statistics of Chinese Mandarin proficiency of children………49 Table 4.2 The descriptive statistics of Chinese Mandarin proficiency of parents………….…50 Table 4.3 The descriptive statistics of children’s proficiency score in three age groups of immigration………52 Table 4.4 The descriptive statistics of children’s proficiency in the changes of heritage

language use before and after school………...56 Table 4.5 Language use situation and language proficiency of Chinese Mandarin of eight participants’ families.………...…...…...60

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List of figures

Figure 3.1. Time of immigration of participants……….……….44

Figure 3.2 The number of children in participants’ family………....45

Figure 3.3 The number of children in three age groups……….45

Figure 3.4 The number of two types of bilingual children………...……….46

Figure 4.1 Preferred languages (Chinese Mandarin, Dutch, Chinese dialects) in daily communication……….50

Figure 4.2 The number of children in three groups of immigration age………51

Figure 4.3 Children’s use frequency of different languages in six domains………….………53

Figure 4.4 The distribution of heritage language proficiency of parents (N = 84) ………54

Figure 4.5 Birth information of parents in Chinese immigrant families….………….…...….54

Figure 4.6 Parents’ attitudes towards heritage language……….……….….55

Figure 4.7 The number of parents in choosing their preferred approach for supporting heritage language maintenance………...57

Figure 4.8 Percentage of parents’ different attitudes towards the digital tools for heritage language maintenance...……….………...58

Figure 4.9 The number of parents in choosing their preferred digital tool for heritage language maintenance……….….59

Figure 5.1 Model for factors of heritage language attrition and strategies of heritage language maintenance……….….…………...….73

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Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

Immigration is a type of global phenomenon through which people move from their own country to other countries for diverse factors, such as, transnational business, job opportunities, education, family reunion or due to natural disasters (Dixon & Wu, 2014). Based on recent trends, the mobility of people contributes to a considerable growth of the migrant population in many already multicultural countries. Due to immigration, people meet many difficulties in learning languages and acquiring new cultures. Young children, in particular, who immigrate with their families or are born abroad often face the strenuous challenges of heritage language maintenance and attrition. The governments in these host countries attempt to resolve the difficulties of immigrants’ integration, but the issues of heritage language maintenance and attrition are often not yet provided adequate attention (Kharchenko, 2014). And unfortunately, most parents helplessly ignore the heritage language learning of their children and also feel it to be an additional burden in a new country (Kharchenko, 2014).

Since 1960s, as a consequence of the need for manpower, there were immigrant labor workers from other countries coming to the Netherlands and eventually obtaining the permanent residence (Van Ours & Veenman, 1999). Hence, due to such processes of migration, a large proportion of the population in the Netherlands is composed of people from different ethnic groups, linguistic, and religious (about 25%), according to the CBS (2019). Chinese people are amongst this diverse group. China is one of the large and main emigrant countries and Chinese immigrants can be found in most countries around the world. Since the late 19th and until the early 20th century, Chinese people, who were mainly from coastal provinces,

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spoke Chinese dialects more than Chinese Mandarin. According to Gijsberts et al. (2011), 71,500 Chinese immigrants with their descendants lived in the Netherlands at that time. They tended to relocate to the Netherlands for business, education and family reunion. But in recent years, there is a remarkably larger number of Chinese immigrants used to speak Chinese Mandarin, the official language in China. However, the language environment and school system in the Netherlands are multilingual and multicultural. Under such an environment, children in immigrant families are always exposed to a heritage language (or a heritage language and a dialect) since birth and simultaneously a majority language when they receive the education at kindergarten or school (Hoff, 2018). So, on the one hand, Dutch is regarded as a major language for socialization by Chinese immigrants; on the other hand, Chinese Mandarin plays a key role in their families, which can ensure that children maintain the heritage language (Dong & Dong, 2013). In addition, some Chinese dialects, such as the Wenzhou dialects and Cantonese are also still used frequently among Chinese immigrants. This leads to a complex language ecology for the children and the need to establish language management strategies for the families.

Although many parents in immigrant families seek to preserve the first language for their children, which could give them a sense of familiarity and self-identification, this is an enormous challenge to realize. Although language is always a tool and sign for expressing a person’s identity, maintaining a heritage language is especially necessary for children in migrant families, in order for them to develop a sense of belonging and preserve their cultural identity (Hamagarib, 2018). According to some studies (Akinnaso, 1993; Angrist, 1997; Baker, 2006; Pong, 1993), children who learn their heritage language always performs better at school

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when compared to children not learning heritage language or often using the second language (Akinnaso, 1993). Benson (2000) indicates that heritage language learning is also important and beneficial to strengthen self-concept, self-confidence as well as cognitive skills. Therefore, heritage language maintenance and attrition become a critical issue in both first- and second-generation children of Chinese immigrant families.

Such situations motivated the current study’s focus on heritage language maintenance and attrition. In previous research, second language attrition was the main focus of attention (Bardovi-Harlig & Stringer, 2011; Gardner et al., 1987). It was not until the last thirty years that researchers began to pay more attention to L1 loss, aiming to establish a theoretical and developmental framework (Bardovi-Harlig & Stringer, 2011). Also, inspired by Zhang (2009), who researched heritage language maintenance and acculturation of Chinese immigration families in America, this study will concentrate on Chinese immigrant families in the Netherlands as an example.

1.2 Purpose and significance of the study

As worldwide immigration increases, children in migrant families who are exposed to two languages have to face more language-related challenges. They need to learn the majority language of the host country and their family’s heritage language. As schools in the Netherlands mainly use Dutch as the medium of instruction and also provide other European languages, children from Chinese immigrant families have less opportunity to use Chinese except at home. Thus, the situation of their heritage language attrition become more severe.

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for children and parents (Kouritzin, 2000). If the heritage language cannot be maintained, some challenges such as the loss of heritage language itself and cultural identity which are always interrelated will be encountered by immigrant families (Guardado, 2002; Ro & Cheatham, 2009). According to Ro and Cheatham (2009), if people lose their heritage language, their identity and culture will also gradually disappear. In order to decrease the disadvantages attached to this, this study aims to research effective methods for heritage language maintenance, especially in terms of advanced digital tools. And it is necessary to figure out the factors that mostly influence heritage language attrition in several aspects.

To maximally support heritage language maintenance and development, Kouritzin (1999) considers that the roles of the school, community and family are important. Children’s language attitudes are often influenced by parents’ attitudes in heritage language maintenance (Luo & Wiseman, 2000). In this regard, parents’ attitudes towards the heritage maintenance and attrition should be emphasized.

Overall, this study contributes to drawing attention to children’s heritage language learning in Chinese immigrant families. In addition, the approaches mentioned and researched in this study can be taken into consideration to support heritage language learning. Most importantly, the study is meant to investigate the current situation of heritage language maintenance and attrition in Chinese immigrant families in the Netherlands, which can have reference meaning in the future. Therefore, there are three research questions analyzed in this study:

(1) What factors contribute to the home language maintenance or attrition of Chinese-speaking families in the Netherlands?

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language (including digital tools)?

(3) What attitudes do Chinese immigrant parents hold towards home language attrition or maintenance?

1.3 Structure of the study

In the following section, the study will explore the studies on heritage language maintenance and attrition, after which the situation of the Chinese diaspora will be reviewed. Next, the studies on parents’ attitudes towards heritage language maintenance and attrition will be reviewed. As the study will have a particular focus on digital tools, literature on digital approaches for heritage language maintenance, will also be highlighted. The methods that are used to investigate the research questions are questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews, which will be described in the methodology section, followed by the analysis of the results. The discussion and conclusion will finalize the study.

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Chapter 2. Literature review

This chapter reviews literature on theoretical and empirical studies on heritage language maintenance and attrition. The review of the literature followed four major aims. The first aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of research on heritage language maintenance and attrition in terms of importance, factors, and approaches. The following aim was to review the background of Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands and their language use situation. Thirdly, the study focuses on parents’ attitudes towards heritage language maintenance and attrition of their children. And the last aim is to focus on (digital) technologies for intergenerational transmission of languages of children in an L2 environment.

2.1 Heritage language maintenance and attrition 2.1.1 Relevance of heritage language maintenance

At present, heritage language retention is a persistent concern for children of immigrant families when they are in a bilingual or multilingual environment (Kheirkhah & Cekaite, 2015). According to past research (Fishman, 1966; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001), language shift is increasingly becoming more general than language retention among children of immigrant families, which is not beneficial for heritage language retention. Therefore, the issues of heritage language maintenance for children, especially in a dominant language environment, are central for many immigrant families.

Generally, heritage language refers to the language that is used the most at home or in the community but which is the minority language in a foreign country. Language maintenance was defined by Mesthrie (1999, p. 42) as using a language continuously in the case of facing

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competition from a powerful or stronger language in a region and society.

As many families choose to settle in other countries aiming to make a life, the issues about preserving the relations to the home country become very important, as they can lead to maintaining the cultural identities of immigrant families (Duff, 2008). Language as a symbol can reveal people’s identity, thus also when using a mother tongue (Tabouret-Keller, 1997). By means of understanding the heritage language, children can recognize their identities, which can help them to integrate faster into a new and unfamiliar environment. Berry (1997) considered that this can support them to coexist in a multicultural environment.

In addition to preserving their identity, some studies indicate that parents believe heritage language maintenance plays a vital and indispensable role in communication with family members (Li-Yuan & Larke, 2008; Zhang & Slaughter-Defoe, 2009). However, only using the heritage language is not enough, proficiency in the language is significantly the major factor to the quality of family relationships (Oh & Fuligni, 2010). For immigrant families, heritage language is considered as the only usable tool to fluidly communicate with the immediate and extended family, keeping a strong intergenerational relationship (Park, 2009). The quality of life can thus be improved by heritage language maintenance, as parents can use it to transfer the culture and values of their own country to children.

In addition to preserving family bonds and self-identification, heritage language skills influence the learning process of the second language. If children only improve their second language proficiency rather than use the heritage language, they may ultimately not be skilled in both languages (Wong Fillmore, 1991). Children’s attitudes towards heritage language learning are closely related to second language learning. In fact, Lambert (1977) suggested that

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learners who have positive attitudes towards their own L1 and culture are also more likely to learn the L2 successfully.

In addition, some parents also have much higher expectations towards children’s future developments in the heritage language which may lead to higher literacy skills and academic achievement. In the study of Hong (2016), Chinese parents in Canada stated that it is beneficial for children to learn and speak the heritage language, as such language skills can help them in future careers. These parents were optimistic about the favorable situation and economic development, politics and culture which can provide more valuable opportunities for their children in the future. Hence, one can see that maintaining heritage language can not only offer more career opportunities but also improve some other potential competences.

In conclusion, heritage language maintenance is a basic need for many immigrant families. The advantages of heritage language maintenance are evident and significant in the aspects of self-identification, family communication and bonds, language skills and career opportunities.

2.1.2 Factors influencing heritage language attrition

Schmid (2008a) considered “first language loss” as a process and a phenomenon. With respect to its procedural aspect, language attrition performs as a decrease of language skills that had been individually mastered before. From this perspective, language attrition can be defined as a “progressive loss” of the competency of using a language (Schmid, 2002) and a “decline in the level of language proficiency” (Gardner, 1982, p.24). And regarding the phenomenon, due to the attrition of the language skills previously acquired by speakers, the perspective shifts may become from dynamic to more static (Bortolato, 2012).

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Heritage language attrition may not only result in failure of language maintenance and promotion but also a sense of disconnection with ethnic community (Kaida et al, 2015; Sakamoto, 2006). Heritage language attrition is always impacted by diverse factors, which have been divided into two types by Kipp, Clyne and Pauwels (1995): an individual aspect and a group aspect. In terms of the individual aspect, age of immigration, and frequency of language use are often included. And in terms of the group aspect, language environment and attitudes of children and parents are necessary to take into account.

Length of residence

In some cases, heritage language attrition does not manifest itself evidently in the first several years after migration, but it may have some influences in the access to certain wordsand phrases in daily conversation after long-term residence in the L2 environment (Waas, 1993). Most studies indicated that the proficiency in heritage languages would be retained following its attrition throughout some decades (Gürel, 2002; Schmid, 2002). Hutz’s (2004) analysis of the heritage language use of a German-English bilingual in Germany for 57 years showed two trends. Firstly, the language attrition always firstly occurs on lexicon at a progressively rapid speed, but other areas are very slow and gradual.Secondly, even if most of the language loss occurs within the first 10 to 15 years, it will continue to occur at a slower rate in all areas after that.

Consequently, research on how this factor influences heritage language attrition is not conclusive yet (Köpke & Schmid, 2004). As it is difficult to assess due to its strong dependency on age. And since this study focuses on children that grow up in the host country, these children

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may proceed to improve their home language.

Age of immigration

Typically, children in immigrant families are either born in the home country or move with families to another country during childhood. Ammerlaan (1996) and Kaufman (1998) stated that most younger children who have not entirely concluded L1 acquisition before immigration and children in pre-puberty age more easily and quickly lose their heritage language skills than adults who have fully completed their heritage language development upon immigration. And if children acquire their home language in a foreign language setting, the influence of language attrition may be more severe, even if L1 was their dominant language before immigration (Flores, 2010). Therefore, age of immigration is considered to be an important predictor of heritage language proficiency. Montrul (2008, p. 161) believes that if children are exposed earlier to the majority language in their immigrant countries, the situation of heritage language attrition would become worse, as they will spend much time contacting with L2 rather than L1. There are some studies that applied a longitudinal design in order to record the emergence of heritage language attrition in speakers (Bingham, 2007; Kaufman & Aronoff, 1991; Yoshitomi, 1994). However, many studies are found to use a common observation: if the bilingual speakers lose contact with a language in childhood, the language attrition may occur within the first 15 months after the language input situation changes (Flores, 2015a). So, in this study, a common observation will also be used to reveal the effect of age of immigration on home language loss.

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age of immigration, simultaneous bilingual children are exposed to two languages concurrently, but sequential bilingual children acquire two languages successively (Gharibi, 2016). In other words, simultaneous bilinguals may be in contact with the majority language in the host country and their heritage language at the same time since birth. And sequential bilinguals learn the second language after they have already obtained the basic knowledge of their heritage language, mostly around three years old (Genesee, Paradis & Cargo, 2004; McLaughlin, 1978). Considering the age of acquisition, it is normal that children who are only heritage speakers prior to immigration can retrieve L1 vocabularies much more easily than whose who acquire L1 after immigration (Hulsen, 2000; Montrul, 2009; Montrul & Foote, 2014).

Frequency of language usage

There is less research focusing on the influence of the frequency of language use on heritage language attrition. In studies so far, restriction in language use resulted in loss in linguistic form and lack of linguistic proficiency (Andersen, 1982, p. 87). Results in two further studies showed that speakers who irregularly used their heritage language indicated experiencing more language loss than those who frequently put it into practice (de Bot et al., 1991; Köpke, 1999). It can be seen that heritage language loss is closely linked to usage frequency. Lexical items of a language are often influenced by disuse which finally also affects grammatical knowledge (Paradis, 2004, 2007). Namely, if children in immigrant families seldom use their heritage language, it will be more difficult for them to learn and retrieve the lexical and grammatical knowledge of first language in the long run.

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majority language in the host country which may lead to heritage language attrition, such as media and linguistic landscapes (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). These may affect the productive competence of heritage language use among immigrant children without sense, more likely followed by the result of end of heritage language transmission.

Language environment

Children who immigrate to a new foreign country with their families are always in the status of incomplete L1 acquisition. In some informal situations such as home and community, children may use more L1 than L2, while there is a greater chance that L2 is used in most formal domains like shops and services. Meanwhile, they attend school under a second language environment. This asymmetrical language environment may lead immigrant children to gradually replace their home language with the majority language.

Hinton (1999) claimed that due to the frequent exposure to the majority language at school in the host country, most younger children were likely to unconsciously forget the heritage language. Moreover, the study of Wong Fillmore (2000) reported a research of one Chinese family who immigrated to America. The results showed that it is common for children to lose their home language skills, especially after having attended school for several years after immigration.

According to Clyne and Kipp (1997), children who are younger than school age living with their families have less chance of language attrition than those who have attended school and communicated with local people. More immersion in the L2 environment and less contact with L1 definitely leads to a growing impact of second on heritage language which may become

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a non-dominant language. On the other hand, children who lack formal education in their heritage language will fall behind other children who are monolinguals (Montrul, 2010; Rothman, 2007), since they lose the opportunity to acquire the formal tutoring of complicated language structures.

Furthermore, if children seldom interact with native speakers, they will not obtain a wider range of input on the heritage language. In this way, these children will have more retrieval problems than those who often participate in the community networks with other immigrants (Stolberg & Münch, 2010). And if their families do not take some intentional measures to establish a heritage language environment, attrition is likely to happen (Wong Fillmore, 1991, 2000).

Children and parents’ attitudes

Parents’ attitudes generally are at the center of their language choices, meaning that they determine heritage language use of their children, especially at home. On the one hand, parents look forward for their children to master the majority language proficiently, which can help children immerse into the local culture and community. While on the other hand, some potential issues and challenges about identity and culture of their home country begin to rise once they frequently enter into contact with people in the host country.

Therefore, parents’ language choice can influence heritage language maintenance or loss to a certain degree. If parents hold negative attitudes towards heritage language acquisition, including failing to transfer the traditional function of heritage language and encourage language development, children may be at risk of losing interest in learning heritage language

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(Muramoto & Karsten, 2017). In the study of Guardado (2002), heritage language maintenance and attrition in Hispanic children in Canada was examined. Results indicated that parents who support and encourage children’s heritage language learning have more positive attitudes and enthusiasm in their children’s heritage language maintenance than those who tolerate heritage language loss.

Most importantly, according to Prescher (2007), the intention to lose one’s home language actually reflects the desire to separate oneself from one’s origins for both native speakers (Schmid, 2002) and their descendants (Cordero, 2008). In response to this, children will be negatively affected and, to a great degree, doubt themselves and even avoid heritage language learning.

In addition, a very important reason for heritage language attrition is the individual perspective of the children themselves. As immigrant children may receive strong assimilative pressure from their classmates at school, they may think that they are different from other students, which leads them to feel ashamed about their cultural identity and home language (Hinton, 1999). This way, children will reject developing their family language skills, as well as have the feeling of alienation and marginalization of the language (Cashman, 2009; Gogonas, 2009, 2012; Kouritzin, 2006). In addition to this, after some children immigrate to a new country, they may question their parents about the function of learning home language, in particular if seldom use it outside the home. And gradually, they may lose the consciousness of maintaining their home language, which brings about language attrition.

Young and Gardner (1990) revealed the role of self-perspective among Chinese-Canadians in relation to heritage language maintenance and loss. Their results showed that participants

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who had positive motivation in heritage culture and language were more likely to develop Chinese language skills. Conversely, if children do not devote much attention, or have less interest and more negative beliefs in heritage language improvement, language attrition will naturally happen.

2.1.3 Practices for heritage language maintenance

In addition to their ethnic origin, heritage language maintenance plays a significant role in immigrant families since the effects are considerably beneficial to the whole families. It is not enough to only speak heritage language at home, fully using the proper resources is also necessary (Kondo, 1998). In the pursuit of heritage language preservation, parents are always the strongest supporters with diverse maintaining strategies, such as personally teaching heritage language to children, using the language to communicate with their children, as well as providing helpful materials of learning the language (Becker, 2013).

Regarding the first aspect, parents should communicate with their children in the heritage language from an early age on or from birth, since parents can cultivate the habit that children get used to hearing and using that language (Yates & Zielinski, 2012). Moreover, parents can create opportunities for children to acquire a mature command of their home language (Wong Fillmore, 2000). For example, for heritage language maintenance, parents can encourage children to discuss some interesting topics in their heritage language with parents or other families, which also helps strengthening the relationships between them.

The communication and interaction between children and parents or even extended family are also critical to heritage language maintenance, as the first generation of immigrants

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generally prefers to speak the home language while children of the second generation are often bilinguals (Fishman, 1991; Veltman, 1983). Some studies found that parents’ positive attitudes affect children’s development of heritage language skills at home (Alzayed, 2015; Li, 2006, p. 360). Namely, the communication and interaction between them can support and enhance language maintenance.

However, without formal institutional guidance and support, heritage language maintenance is generally “fighting a lonely battle” (Guardado, 2006, p.67) or “like swimming against the tide” (Kopeliovich, 2011, p.111). Therefore, heritage language schools play a significant role in language maintenance. According to Wang’s (2009) study, many Chinese immigrant parents expect to set up a language course of Chinese as a foreign language in the public schools of the host countries. And the parents are eager to meet with school officials, aiming to provide more opportunities for their children to learn the heritage language. For instance, in Finland, public schools establish lessons of heritage languages as much as in the majority language (Protassova, 2008). In this case, by the common efforts and cooperation of parents, teachers and school officials, children can acquire and maintain heritage language successfully. In Wong Fillmore’s (2000) view, teachers and parents can collaborate together to maintain heritage language through by sharing suggestions in detail (Lao, 2004). And instructors of heritage language can figure out children’s background and also the difficulties as well as the challenges children may encounter outside the home.

There are also other possibilities for formal heritage language learning. As a result of parents’ busy schedules during work days, they often send their children to heritage language schools to acquire more cultural and linguistic knowledge in the weekends (Park & Sarkar,

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2007; Zhang & Slaughter-Defoe, 2009). Home language schools may be at the core of home language acquisition and traditional culture retention because children can talk to their co-ethnic peers by sharing the traditional customs and values of their home country. From the studies of Chow (2001), Kawaguchi (2014) and Park (2011), most Asian immigrant parents motivate their children to receive formal heritage language education in language schools, which is beneficial for children in several aspects, including learning heritage language and culture and establishing the friendships with co-ethnic children.

Additionally, to motivate children to learn the heritage language, interacting with other home language speakers is also effective. Children can participate in some community-based activities, such as national festivals celebrations, which can provide an additional environment in which children can improve the understanding of heritage language and culture (Yates & Zielinski, 2012). Children can make friends with co-ethnic peers by using the language.

However, to foster language maintenance, children who live in communities without many heritage language speakers can use text-based materials such as, printed books and newspapers, which can provide more opportunities to be exposed to heritage language. And some reading materials written by their heritage language about history, culture and stories of their home country can be shared with children, aiming to inspire their interests in learning that language.

Moreover, another aspect that cannot be ignored is multi-media in children’s home language. Some of the reviewed literature showed that Asian immigrant children preferred to watch TV programs and surf the internet using their heritage language (Duff & Kim, 2012; Man, 2006; Sakamoto, 2006). These children learned grammar and sentence structure in their heritage language by engaging with multi-media, as they were accustomed to visually and

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acoustically use the language. Hinton (1999) previously described that some children themselves think that TV programs speaking their heritage language can help them maintain their first language. According to one Chinese student of Hinton’s (1999) study, Chinese television programs as a medium led him to become more proficient and confident with Chinese Mandarin (which is his heritage language). In terms of web-based approaches, there are many helpful websites that immigrant children can view to learn and enhance their heritage language proficiency and fluency. These websites are designed for immigrant children or temporary residents who live abroad to learn heritage language with diverse resources which correspond to children’s different language levels and interests (Hong, 2016). The internet also transmits news from their home land and it becomes increasingly significant or even replaces more traditional mass media in heritage language (Leuner, 2008). In addition, electronic video games are also helpful for heritage maintenance. While they are unsuitable to educate children in knowledge learning domain, children can acquire heritage language skills through simultaneously presented audio and textual language in the games (Eisenhart & DeHaan, 2005).

In addition to utilizing printed materials and technologies, it is important to offer various and rich repertoire of practices for heritage language literacy improvement of immigrant children, which can enhance the motivation for improving language skills. However, for children who have received education at school, it is necessary to add some other practices. Parents can require their children to write postcards and emails to their extended families in their home country, helping children improve the writing skills and at the same time promote the relationships with other families (Kim, 2013; Minami, 2013).

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families is also a supportive method to the improvement of heritage language. Under such environments, children can be exposed to the ethnic language environment and also have more opportunities to communicate with native speakers (Jeon, 2012; Minami, 2013). In the studies of three generations of Greek immigrants in America (Demos, 1988) and Greek immigrants in the New Zealand (Holmes et al., 1993), the frequency of visits to the homeland improved the levels of children’s heritage language proficiency, and also anticipated the subsequent visits which also activated children to maintain the home language.

In conclusion, parents are always responsible for a majority of the practices for heritage language maintenance, as they can use the language, help their children to learn and also encourage children to use more heritage language. And educators and school officials also play key roles in this by means of providing teaching support and resources. The other methods for heritage language maintenance also contribute more help to facilitate children’s language acquisition. In the current study, practices towards maintaining Chinese as a home language in immigrant families in the Netherlands will be explored, focusing particularly on digital tools.

2.2 Chinese families in the diaspora

2.2.1 Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the Chinese immigrant group is one of the oldest immigrant communities and the population of Chinese immigrants in continental Europe is also the largest and earliest (Li, 2016).

The first wave of Chinese immigrants to move to the Netherlands could be traced back to more than one century ago. They gradually settled in the harbor cities such as Amsterdam and

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Rotterdam where they also developed their own neighborhoods, the Chinatowns (Li & Kasper, 2016). Most of these immigrants mainly originated from the Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces in southern China (Chen, 1991).

During the period of the Second World War, as a consequence of economic recession, the number of Chinese people who were living in the Netherlands was less than 1,000 (Cheung & Lam, 2006). But with the economic rebirth after the second war, a second wave of Chinese immigrants to the Netherlands occurred. A majority of Chinese people who made a living by developing the catering business began to settle in other cities, villages and towns. And at that time, the number of Chinese restaurants in the whole Netherlands also increased by more than two thousand (Chen, 1991, p.29; Li, 1999, p.34). That is to say that Chinese immigrants and their children scattered all over the county to open Chinese restaurants. In addition, some Chinese people from other countries including Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and even Suriname were a large group of Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands (Sybesma, 2017). However, due to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, it became difficult to immigrate to other countries (Sybesma, 2017). Therefore, Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong became the most important restaurant workers in the Netherlands (Sybesma, 2017).

Afterwards, as a result of the political and economic development of China, the country reopened to the world and Chinese people’s migration from mainland China became much easier than before. And the Chinese restaurants floundered from big cities to almost every place in the Netherlands.

And by 2000, the number of Chinese immigrants increased again. This increase of the population was due to new groups of Chinese immigrants who were highly skilled employees

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and well-educated students (Li, 2002). In recent years, more Chinese immigrant families moved into the Netherlands than those who left (CBS, 2010). And the reasons for immigration are not only family trajectories and working, but also individual advanced study pursuit. According to the study of Gijsberts et al. (2011) and the statistics of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS, 2015), the number of Chinese immigrants and their descendants from China including Hong Kong increased from 77,000 in 2011 to 84,310 in 2015. This figure includes not only people from diverse places of origin and also people who claim their self-identification to be ethnically or culturally Chinese (Sybesma, 2017).

2.2.2 Contexts for Chinese language use

As mentioned above, Chinese immigrants were mainly from the Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces in the earlier 20th_{century, so Cantonese and Wenzhounese were the major languages}

of the Chinese diaspora in the Netherlands during that period. But as a majority of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong immigrated to the Netherlands for work and the popular culture of Hong Kong, such as music and film industry, attracted many young Chinese people (Van den Berg & Pieke, 1991), Cantonese became the lingua franca within the Chinese community in the Netherlands in the last decades of 20th_{century (Pieke, 1998).}

Subsequently, with the politically and economically development of China from the 21st

century on, increasingly more Chinese people from mainland China immigrated to the Netherlands. As a result, the Chinese diasporic population was increasingly diverse and contributed to the change of language status, meaning that Chinese Mandarin instead of Cantonese and other Chinese dialects became the dominant language among Chinese

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immigrants from the 2000s onwards (Li & Juffermans, 2016). Gijsberts (2011) researched Chinese language use of a few Chinese immigrants residing in the Netherlands. When questioned about the most frequent use of Chinese languages, about 48% of them answered Chinese Mandarin, 42% Cantonese, 7% Wenzhounese and 3% other dialects. But there were also 8% participants not proficient in any Chinese languages.

Due to the diverse composition of the Chinese immigrant group in the 21st_{century, Chinese}

language schools also totally shifted the teaching language from Cantonese and traditional characters used in 20th_{century to Chinese Mandarin and simplified characters used today in}

the Netherlands (Li, 2016). Previously, Cantonese was the medium of instruction in most Chinese language schools, but now parents (even from Hong Kong) send their children to learn Chinese Mandarin (Sybesma, 2017).

In general, the diversification of the Chinese immigrant population has a profound influence on people’s language and identity, contributing to linguistic homogenization and standardization of Chinese Mandarin (Li & Juffermans, 2014).

2.3 Parents’ attitudes towards home language maintenance and attrition

The use of heritage language by children is significantly related to family relationships in immigrant families (Tannenbaum & Howie, 2002), but the proficiency of language and fluency of communication decrease as a result of the abandonment of their heritage language use (Wong Fillmore, 1991). Therefore, as numerous studies (García, 2003; Lao, 2004; Park & Sarkar, 2007; Wong Fillmore, 2000) over the past decades have claimed, parental attitudes towards heritage language maintenance and attrition are the significant factor in children’s heritage language

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maintenance. The findings of these studies indicated that positive parents’ attitudes are directly associated to successful language maintenance.

As children get older, parental influence will conversely decrease, which highlights parents’ significant role in language learning in children’s early life. For children’s language learning, home is their first school (Honig & Brophy, 1996). In immigrant families, parents’ attitudes towards the heritage language, language use patterns and also the proficiency of the second language can affect children’s language enhancement. According to De Houwer’ s studies of early bilingualism (1999), parental language attitudes are reflected in the children’s general belief and value system of the whole development. De Houwer (1999) also considered that parental language attitudes and their heritage language practices can infer and predict their children’s language behaviors. Therefore, their attitudes towards heritage language are also showed in the linguistic practice and maintenance strategies, such as the implementation of heritage-language-only policy at home (Li, 2006, p.360). And some studies (King & Fogle, 2006; Park & Sarkar, 2007) of immigrant parents’ attitudes explored how parents often teach their children the home language with high expectations, which aims to transmit ethnic culture and improve family interaction. In response to this, children will perform at high levels of language proficiency and hold positive attitudes also.

The study of Zhang and Slaughter-Defoe (2009) researched Chinese parents’ and children’s attitudes towards the maintenance of Chinese in America. They selected 12 Chinese parents who spoke Mandarin from a university and a suburban area, as well as 6 Chinese parents who spoke Fujianese from Chinatown. The parents all moved to America after adulthood and their children who were aged between 6 to 14 years old were either born in

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America or moved to America at a young age. A five-year observation by conversation with them in activities and formal interviews revealed that Chinese immigrant parents greatly valued their home language on the whole. Some parents considered that their children could take advantage of their heritage language to improve academic skills and achieve future career advantages. In particular, all parents hoped to maintain Chinese Mandarin as their dominant heritage language due to the superior status of Chinese Mandarin as a standard and academic language, and also a lingua franca in China. As some parents had a strong sense of Chinese national identity, they believed that heritage language could highlight their ethnic identity and also connect their children to their homeland and culture. And some other parents stated that heritage language as an important family bond could strengthen family relationships and improve family cohesion.

Some other studies (Guardado, 2010; Lao, 2004) also revealed that most parents value heritage language maintenance as an enrichment to life, as it is beneficial for their children. In Guardado (2010) and Oriyama’s (2010) studies, parents with positive attitudes understand how to improve other languages learning of their children by maintaining their heritage language, thereby becoming multilingual and world citizens. Parents in the study of Guardado (2010) also believed that heritage language maintenance can raise their children as cosmopolitan people who are able to establish relations between the local community and the world.

However, attitude is always defined as an instruction for behavior, or a predilection to respond in a manner to an attitude, including things, locations, people, conditions, or thoughts (Oskamp, 1977, p.8). Therefore, a positive attitude alone towards home language without more frequent use of the language is not able to guarantee language maintenance (Bennett, 1997;

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Cherciov, 2012). Pearson (2007) believed that heritage language use influenced and promoted by parents’ attitudes plays a significant role in heritage language maintenance. With positive attitudes towards home language maintenance, Chinese parents prefer to invest more time, money, and energy in developing heritage language learning of their children.

In addition, McGroarty (1996) indicated that parental attitudes are always formed by their own experiences. Parents who experienced prejudice due to their home language may be not enthusiastic about their children learning heritage language. And if some children hold negative attitudes towards their heritage language, parents may simultaneously receive the negative response from their children, which might lead to a reversal of parents’ previous attitudes towards heritage language maintenance (Zhang & Slaughter-Defoe, 2009). In this study, Chinese immigrant parents’ attitudes towards heritage language maintenance and attrition will be revealed.

2.4 Digital tools for intergenerational language transmission

Most parents have strong motivation for their efforts towards heritage language maintenance, but children may lose interest in it due to a lack of web-based technologies or digital tools aiding in this process. Many immigrant groups seek to implement strategies to use web-based technologies for their heritage language maintenance (Cazden, 2003; Crystal, 2001; Dyson & Underwood, 2005). Online environments can be more accessible for immigrant families to interact with extended relatives without geographical constraints, directly providing children heritage language learning and use experiences. In the research of Szécsi and Szilágyi (2012), the development of children’s heritage language and the establishment of relationships

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with extended families by using digital technologies are highlighted. If children use these effectively through the influence and transmission of parents, digital technologies have the potential to foster home language maintenance.

In fact, intergenerational transmission plays a vital role in parenting which refers to the influence of parents’ experiences on their children raising practices (Van IJzendoorn, 1992). For instance, children may emulate their parents’ behaviors by observation or develop their parents’ styles of interaction, which may be replicated after they become parents (Bandura, 1977; Van IJzendoorn, 1997). In terms of heritage language maintenance, Fishman (1991, p.113) indicated that it could not be realized without intergenerational transmission. A few studies (Chrisp, 2005; Fishman, 1991, 2000, 2001; Lewis, 2009) showed that in order to pass the heritage language from one generation to the next, the process of intergenerational transmission is consistently considered as a significant way for supporting the maintenance of the heritage language. Such transmission can guarantee the interaction between younger and elder generations in their home language on a regular basis. Therefore, the use of their heritage language can be normalized, which becomes an ordinary and universal characteristic in their social life (Chrisp, 2005, p.150).

Meanwhile, the advancements in technology and the internet play a significant role in especially raising immigrant children’s awareness of heritage language improvement and also provide more opportunities to take the language into practice. The influence and capability of technologies and social media have been brought into families of the general population, which creates opportunities for them to share information and communicate with family members and friends (Cross, 2011; Safko & Brake, 2009).

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In addition to face-to-face communication, children can share ideas and engage in conversations in their heritage language by the online community as an extending environment. Some social platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, WeChat and Weibo, are appropriate methods for heritage language speakers to connect with other people who are from the same language group in spite of their residency in different places or countries around the world. A case study of two Korean heritage language learners who used online blogs indicated linguistic benefits (Lee, 2006). The results of his study also underlined the importance of Web 2.0 tools, such as, social media and blogs, which serve as a forum for Korean speakers to advance their linguistic skills and cultural identity. Lee (2006) also pointed out that heritage language speakers can practice and maintain their first language proficiency for authentic purposes through using digital tools to create social networks with other native speakers. The methods of expression online can lower children’s inhibitions of writing (use of symbols, grammar and spellings). Due to the lack of pressure to produce correct heritage language characters or words online, children can be more confident in using their heritage language (Lee, 2012). In response to this, children are not only provided with more opportunities to communicate with more native speakers in order to develop heritage language skills, but also much motivation and interests to maintain the language in daily life (Lee, 2012).

Most mobile phone applications have two advantages: cost-effectiveness and immediacy. After the applications are downloaded in mobile phones, children can contact and interact with heritage language speakers free of charge. They can talk to their families who speak the heritage language by one-on-one communication, or create a group chat to invite and interact with many family members in the homeland at the same time. In addition, immigrant families can share

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their pictures and videos of moments about the celebration of some occasions, such as, birthdays and children’s graduation ceremonies to some applications. In other words, through such social applications children in immigrant families can advance the receptive and productive language skills when they use their heritage language to communicate with the extended family members (Hong, 2016).

In general, web-based social change contributes to a considerable transformation of behaviors, communication, interaction, relations and expectation (Cross, 2011; O’Connor, 2012). Web-based technologies have changed the approach and frequency of daily communication and social interaction, which is improved by the strong desire to communicate intergenerationally and widely. Thus, heritage speakers tend to use their native language instead of the second or minor languages. And in terms of intergenerational transmission, while the major goal of it may not be transmission and learning, the manner of heritage language use can encourage more and new ideas, advance the fluency of language, as well as generally increase the heritage language visibility and health. In the current research, digital tools among Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands will be analyzed.

2.5 Summary

This chapter has given an overview of heritage language maintenance and attrition research including theoretical issues and empirical studies corresponding to the current research. The first section reviewed the importance of heritage language maintenance, the potential factors of language attrition and methods for maintenance. The review reveals that heritage language not only plays key role in family communication and relationships, but also in self-identification. And in terms of factors contributing to language attrition, age of immigration,

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use frequency, individual and parental attitudes as well as language environment will be focused on, aiming to analyze the potential factors for heritage language attrition in Chinese immigrant families in the Netherlands. As for language maintenance, parents may choose diverse approaches including traditional approaches and digital tools. So in this study, an analysis of the most frequent methods of Chinese immigrant families for language maintenance becomes significant.

The second section reviewed the Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands, which reported the background information and Chinese languages’ use situation. While Chinese Mandarin as a standard and national language in China, some parents also prefer to use their Chinese dialects as major home language.

The third section reviewed parents’ attitudes towards heritage language maintenance and attrition. Most parents support their children to learn heritage language with positive attitudes and expectations. However, there are also some parents that may hold the negative or neutral attitudes. This study also tends to address this issue.

And the last section reviewed the technologies used for intergenerational transmission. As heritage language is critical for family communication and interaction, children can use an array of multi-media tools to engage in heritage language practices with extended families in the homeland. In this case, children can be motivated to use heritage languages on social media, which develops language skills and increases intergenerational transmission.

Against this backdrop, the present study aims at answering the following research questions:

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speaking families in the Netherlands?

RQ2: What strategies do Chinese immigrant parents would make to maintain their home language (including digital tools)?

RQ3: What attitudes do Chinese immigrant parents hold towards home language attrition or maintenance?

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Chapter 3. Methodology

This chapter presents an overview of the research methodology used in the current research. The first section provides a detailed description of the participants, followed by the process of data collection for the quantitative and the qualitative components as well as the required instruments and materials for data collection. And the subsequent section focuses on how data was analyzed in both quantitative and qualitative investigations.

3.1 Overall design

The aim of this study is to research heritage language maintenance attrition occurring among Chinese-Dutch bilingual children of Chinese immigrant families in Dutch learning environment. It examines language use of and parental attitudes towards Chinese Mandarin. To answer the research questions, a mixed-methods approach (Wisdom & Creswell, 2013) was adopted. A questionnaire focusing on the background and language use of Chinese immigrant families was designed for the purpose of obtaining possible reasons for language attrition and parents’ language attitudes. To supplement the data of the questionnaire, semi-structured interviews were important to elicit more information from parents. Finally, data was collected from a story-retelling task aimed at eliciting information regarding the heritage language proficiency of children.

In terms of data analysis, quantitative analysis was applied to the questionnaire and the story-retelling task where the factors of attrition and language proficiency were derived from. In order to study parents’ attitudes towards heritage language maintenance and attrition, a

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qualitative content analysis was conducted on some data of the questionnaire containing open-ended questions and on the semi-structured interviews with parents.

3.2 Instruments and procedure 3.2.1 Questionnaire

In order to answer the three research questions, a sociolinguistic questionnaire (Keijzer, 2007) was applied. This questionnaire aimed at collecting the linguistic and extralinguistic information about the parents and their children, such as age, family members, the children’s age at the time of emigration, as well as languages use and frequency. These background variables were collected for the purpose of statistical analysis with different dependent variables.

The questionnaire was based on Keijzer’ (2007) questionnaire used to investigate language attrition. Due to the fact that the target population of the original questionnaire was adult immigrants, some adjustments were made to fit the current sample and research questions. The questionnaire of this study comprised 66 questions divided into six sections (see Appendix A) that participants were required to complete first. Brief instructions were offered respecting the purpose of the questionnaire, and how to respond. Most of the questions were set as multiple-choice format and the participants could directly choose the appropriate answer. As the target population of the research was Chinese immigrant families, the questionnaire was specially designed in simplified Chinese characters.

The first section focused on the languages that parents and child (children) spoke in daily life. There were five choices of languages which were Chinese Mandarin, Dutch, Chinese

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dialects, Frisian and others. Chinese Mandarin is the most commonly used language among Chinese immigrant families and communities. It was regarded as the most significant heritage language researched in this study. Dutch, as the majority language in the Netherlands, is spoken by them outside home. Besides, some Chinese dialects, such as Cantonese and Wenzhounese, are usually used more than Chinese Mandarin in many Chinese immigrant families. The Frisian language used by a majority of people in the province of Friesland, was also included. More and more Chinese immigrants who have stayed here for a long time are able to use Frisian. Therefore, these four languages were mainly chosen for the questionnaire due to the universality and available of usage.

In the following section, the parents were required to self-rate their and their children’s language proficiency in listening, speaking, reading and writing over the years they have been living in Netherlands. The scales for this assessment ranged from 0 to 5 which referred to “none”, “beginner”, “intermediate”, “proficient”, “fluent”, and “native.”

The next section focused on language use. Parents were asked to indicate in which language their family members spoke to each other. Specially, parents were asked to name the languages they speak to their children before and after school, as these might differ. In order to acquire more detailed information, each question had one column to be filled which was the language mostly used. Similarly, some questions regarded parents’ and children’s language use in diverse situations in which they could have the opportunity to maintain and improve their productive and receptive abilities in Chinese Mandarin.

Following these, the fifth section was about parents’ attitudes towards their children’s heritage language maintenance and attrition, as well as approaches for supporting language

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development. Regarding the literature for heritage language maintenance, this research not only focused on traditional ways but also on the use of digital tools. In the last section, background information was collected. It included seven questions that elicited information on the important extralinguistic variables including age on immigrant of parents and children, number of family members, as well as children’s age. The reason for adding this section in the end was that participants could concentrate on themselves to complete major parts of this questionnaire (Keijzer, 2007).

3.2.2 Story-retelling task

The second instrument aimed at gathering data on children’s heritage language proficiency and fluency. It was designed by Perdue (1993) to replay the audio-recording of pictures (see Appendix B) as a cue for recall, and ask children to retell the story again independently in Chinese Mandarin. To gain better understanding of the mechanisms of heritage language attrition among Chinese children, this task was effective to provide more information. In order to more accurately indicate the performance, the three stories were selected respectively according to the complexity and difficulty for three different age groups of children (4-8 years old; 9-12 years old; 13-16 years old). Parents were asked to record children’s voices by using phones, laptops or other devices. Generally, the measure of this task was in terms of overall frequency of errors, code-switching, empty pause and self-correction. Once one of the above situations occurred, the score would be increased by one point. Eventually, adding all the points could obtain the total score, and a high score on this task reflected low proficiency.

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3.2.3 Semi-structured interviews

Lastly, semi-structured interviews were used to explore experiences of individuals (Tong, Sainsbury & Craig, 2007). Therefore, this interview was designed to complement the questionnaire in order to obtain the knowledge of the participants’ thoughts about their children’s heritage language, to broaden the topics raised in the questionnaire and provides the flexibility to indicate new questions when required (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006). Eight participants (see Table 3.1) who had different family structures and backgrounds were selected for the interview on behalf of other participants. This open interview consisted of 12 questions divided into two sections (see Appendix C). Time spent on completing the interview varied from around 20 to 40 minutes for each participant. Due to the COVID 19-crisis, the interview was completed by video chat. Therefore, parents could choose to conduct the interviews in their homes or any other places they stayed. All the verbal conversations were audio-recorded. In order to obtain a holistic understanding of participants’ thoughts, the interview questions were asked from the following domains: support for home language maintenance, parental attitudes towards heritage language maintenance and attrition, and difficulties in Chinese Mandarin maintenance. All interviews were carried out in Chinese Mandarin. Parents who participated in the interview were provided the opportunity to freely share any experiences concerning Chinese language use and maintenance with their children. In addition, it was necessary to establish a more empathetic environment, where the participants felt more at ease and could easily overcome the barriers of the formal roles between the interviewee and interviewer.

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Table 3.1. Characteristics of participants’ family of the interview.

3.3 Participants and sampling

As it was impossible to carry out a longitudinal study which would require to contrast the changes of children’s heritage language use undergone after a long term of migration, the participants were selected by using purposive sampling methods (Creswell, 2002). Based on the knowledge of and involvement in the Chinese community, most participants were contacted and identified by asking for help from the principals of several Chinese language schools in the Netherlands. And there were still some participants introduced via snowball sampling methods. To protect confidentiality, all participants were treated anonymously.

In total, forty-four parents took part in this research. However, two of them were excluded after the initial contact, as their children were under four years old and were not able to speak or had not attended school yet. The reason for selecting children starting from four years old was that children at this age have contacted and communicated with peers and adults. Most of the time, they undergone the “tough assimilative pressure” (Hinton, 1999, p. 5) from their peers

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at schools to a large degree (Harris, 1995). Therefore, the final sample (see Figure 3.1 and Figure 3.2) consisted of 42 parents who immigrated to the Netherlands at different times, of which 6 parents had only one child and 36 parents had two children, meaning that there were 78 children in this research. Regarding their age (see Figure 3.3), 43 children were between 4 and 8 years old, 25 children were between 9 and 12 years old, as well as 10 children were between 13 and 16 years old. And the average age of children was around 8.6 years (see Table 3.2).

Table 3.2. Characteristics of participants’ children.