Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language: An Australian Perspective 9781783094295

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Series Editor: John Edwards, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada Multilingual Matters series publishes books on bilingualism, bilingual education, immersion education, second language learning, language policy, multiculturalism. The editor is particularly interested in ‘macro’ level studies of language policies, language maintenance, language shift, language revival and language planning. Books in the series discuss the relationship between language in a broad sense and larger cultural issues, particularly identity related ones. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS: 162

Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language An Australian Perspective

Guanglun Michael Mu

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Mu, Guanglun Michael. Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language: An Australian Perspective/ Guanglun Michael Mu. Multilingual Matters: 162 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Chinese language–Study and teaching–Australia. 2. Chinese–Australia–Languages. 3. Political sociology–Australia. 4. Language policy–Political aspects–Australia. 5. Language and culture–Political aspects–Australia. I. Title. PL1068.A9M8 2015 306.442’951094–dc23 2015019439 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-428-8 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2016 Guanglun Michael Mu. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services Limited. Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Books Group.

Contents

Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Foreword Preface 1

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ix xi xiii xvii

From the White Australia Policy to Multiculturalism: Chinese Immigrants and Chinese Language in Australia Sunnybank: A Chinese-Populated Community in Queensland, Australia What Does ‘Culture’ Mean? Cultural and Language Policies in Australia Chinese Immigrants in Australia Chinese Language in Australia Empirical Questions around Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia Chapter Summary Chinese Heritage Language and its Learners in the West: Empirical Knowledge, Theoretical Framework and Research Method What is a Heritage Language and Who are its Learners?

1 2 7 9 15 20 21 22

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Commitment to Chinese Heritage Language Learning: Motivation, Investment and Capital Identity Issues in Chinese Heritage Language Learning: Self-Identification, Constructed Identity and Habitus

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Theorising Chinese Heritage Language Learning: A Bourdieusian Framework

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Contents

Bourdieu’s Methodological Pluralism Chapter Summary 3

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Sociological Mechanism for Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia: A Quantitative Investigation The Survey Design: Operationalisation of Theoretical Constructs Confucian Dispositions The Pilot Phase: Face Validity and Internal Consistency Reliability Chinese Australian Participants in the Main Study: A Demographically Diverse Group of Young People Instrument Validation: Reliability and Validity Hypothesis Testing: Structural Equation Modelling Chapter Summary A Qualitative Exploration of the Profits of Chinese Heritage Language Learning: You Reap What You Sow! Research Design: One-to-One Semi-structured Interview Who Were the Interview Participants? Negotiating the Power Relations during the Interviews: Bourdieu’s Advice Data Analysis What did Chinese Heritage Language Mean to These Participants? Are the Findings Consistent Across the Quantitative and the Qualitative Investigation? Chapter Summary Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language: A Perplexed Project Chinese Australians, a Heterogeneous Group of Chinese Heritage Language Learners Habitus, Capital and Social Practices in Fields Field of Forces Learning Chinese Heritage Language Across Time and Space A Final Remark on Habitus of Chineseness

50 52 55 55 59 66 68 76 77 87 90 91 93 98 101 103 120 126 130 130 134 139 141 143

Contents

Some Practical Implications Overall Conclusion

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147 150

Bibliography

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Index

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Figures and Tables

Figures Figure 1.1 2013 Chinese New Year Parade in Sunnybank (author’s own picture)

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Figure 1.2 Glamorous Wok – a popular Chinese Restaurant in Sunnybank (author’s own picture)

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Figure 2.1 Distribution of Confucius Institutes/Classrooms in the world (adapted from http://www.hanban.org/ confuciousinstitutes/)

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Figure 2.2 A ‘map’ of the literature

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Figure 3.1 Age distribution of participants

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Figure 3.2 Distribution of participants’ resident cities

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Figure 3.3 Composition of participants’ birthplace

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Figure 3.4 Composition of participants’ generation

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Figure 3.5 Composition of participants’ language usage at home

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Figure 3.6 Composition of Chinese dialects used at home

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Figure 3.7 Four forms of capital

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Figure 3.8 Chineseness and capital in direct relation to CHL proficiency

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Figure 3.9 Chineseness in indirect relation to CHL proficiency

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Figures and Tables

Tables Table 3.1

Summary results of internal consistency reliability test

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Table 3.2

Item sets and their corresponding constructs in the main study

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Table 3.3

Reliability and validity measures of each construct in the instrument

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Table 3.4

Modified item sets and their corresponding constructs

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Table 3.5

Correlation between CHL proficiency and other variables

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Table 3.6

Correlation matrix for different forms of capital

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Table 4.1

Overview of participants

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Table 4.2

Interview data summary

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Table 4.3

Contributing factors to CHL proficiency

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Table 5.1

Correlation between CHL proficiency and demographic variables

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Table 5.2

Model summary – CHL proficiency regressed on independent variables

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Table 5.3

Significant predictors for CHL proficiency

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Table 5.4

Correlation between forms of capital, Chineseness and social practices

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Table 5.5

Correlation between Chineseness and related variables

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Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to many people who have encouraged, supported and accompanied me over the entire writing process of this volume. First and foremost, I would like to extend my utmost gratitude to Associate Professor Karen Dooley, Associate Professor Catherine Doherty and Adjunct Associate Professor Paul Shield, who introduced me to this body of scholarship, guided me through my research project and pushed me to be the best that I can be. I will remember their inculcation all through my life. As the Chinese saying goes, ‘一日为师, 终身为师’ (Be my teacher for a day, be my teacher for a lifetime). Special thanks are also due to Professor Allan Luke, who shines the lights that guide me down the academic road that I am walking along. Secondly, my appreciation goes to the participants in my research. Two hundred and thirty young Chinese-Australian adults volunteered their time to complete the online questionnaire. Five of them gave extra time to participate in the subsequent interviews. They shared their stories and life experiences with me and helped me produce and enrich my data. I have given my thanks to the five participants before and after their interviews, but I have no way to thank the rest of my participants in person because their questionnaires were completed in an anonymous way. I therefore owe thanks to these people. Their generosity in donating their time and effort to help my research urged me to work even harder on this project. The publication of this monograph is one way to show my respect and to recognise the contribution of these lovely participants. Last but not least, I am indebted to my beloved family members: Ms Weiming Li (李伟明), Mr Shuhuai Mu (穆书淮) and Mr Shizhuo Gui (桂士卓), who accompanied me through the ups and downs along my writing journey, helped me build up my confidence and taught me never to give up. I hope I have not failed their love and expectations. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our family friends: Ms Marion Welburn,

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Mr David Welburn and Dr Cassie Welburn. I appreciate the time that they spent on proofreading my work. Over the entire writing journey, all these people have witnessed me struggle along and cheered me on. Without the help, support, encouragement, concern, trust and love of these people, I would not have been able to complete this monograph. This fulfilment does not belong to me alone. Instead, it belongs to all these beloved people. By the publication of this monograph, I would like to show them how my research has become a miracle in my life!

Foreword: On Chineseness

Learning Chinese As a Heritage Language is an important contribution to the study of the significance of Chinese language as an element of cultural identity amongst ‘overseas’ Chinese living in predominantly White, Englishspeaking societies. The literature on migration and multiculturalism offers numerous models of the intergenerational retention of one’s ‘first’ language as a core value (Fishman, 2004). Here Guanglun Michael Mu has undertaken an ambitious empirical study that attempts to define and, indeed, measure key elements of ‘Chineseness’: the values, practices and habits of Chinese families, parents and youth living in Australia. But in so doing, this book also raises key sociological questions about what will count as cultural, ethnic and racial identification and affiliation – at a time when these things matter. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology, Guanglun Michael Mu’s work here is an important, exploratory analysis of ‘the Chinese habitus’. Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus has become a key interpretive concept for explaining intergenerational cultural, social and linguistic reproduction. Bourdieu would have encountered the term in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, in Marcel Mauss’s work on gifting in traditional societies, and from his teacher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whose phenomenology focused on the embodiment of habit in lived experience. While the term brings together several philosophical traditions – it enables Bourdieu to relocate habit and custom, agency and social class within the body. At the same time, he makes the case that social structures are always also cognitive structures: the mental schemata that guide and shape everyday action. This provides the sociology of education with a unique model of the generative acquisition, learning and internalisation of social practices. It also enables a shift in focus from the coding and formation of ideology and social structure - to the empirical study of the human ‘uptake’ and internalisation of cultural practices, messages, discourses and, indeed, habits. xiii

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Earlier this year, Guanglun Michael Mu, our Queensland colleague Karen Dooley and I convened a group of Chinese scholars at Beijing Normal University to discuss our shared interest in the use of Bourdieu’s sociology to study Chinese education. The occasion brought together a brilliant group of young sociologists in China who are studying and documenting issues of gender, social class and cultural identity in Chinese education. In the midst of an animated theoretical discussion of habitus and social field – the conversation shifted from English to Chinese. As the sole nonPutongua (Standard Mandarin) speaker in the room – I witnessed the studied bilingual fluency of my colleagues Lorin Yochim and Karen Dooley, both visibly White (respectively, European/Canadian and Irish/Australian) and both having spent more time living and working in China than me. As a second-generation American-born Chinese of Cantonese-speaking parents, I have self-identified as ‘Chinese’ since birth. I’ve also experienced the “racialisation” of my visible difference and color by White, Western institutions (Luke, 2008). For that moment in Beijing, as the conversation continued in Putongua … I drifted off and could hear my Father’s voice telling me that I’d regret it if I kept skipping Cantonese lessons after school and didn’t properly learn Chinese. That code-switching moment in Beijing was nothing less than an embodiment and linguistic performance of the differences in ‘Chineseness’ between us. At that moment, in that speaking context - who was more or less Chinese? We were living and performing the very issues that we were attempting to theorise. If we take the Chinese habitus to be manifest principally through shared language, cultural practices and values, as many of the diasporic Chinese studied in this volume do - then, indeed, some of my White Canadian and Australian colleagues might indeed be more ‘Chinese’ than me. However, if we follow an essentialist model of Chineseness that is based on ancestry and racial phenotype – the Guandong lineage of my grandparents and parents matters (cf. Ang, 2001), as it apparently does to Beijing colleagues and friends who repeatedly ask where my family is from in China. Finally, to complicate matters further, neither of these explanatory models of cultural affiliation and identification fully explain the embodied memory of this habitus (Luke, 1992). For when I am in China, I hear and recognise pitch and voice, sounds and tone, even when I do not formally comprehend them. I smell fragrances and taste flavors that are part of my childhood – and that of my parents and their parents. In museums, I see pictures that remind me of my parents’ stories of my Grandmothers’ bound feet and suffering. This goes unsaid. These complex questions of cultural, ethnic and racial identification and affiliation, of lineage and identity, and, indeed, of story and memory are

Foreword: On Chineseness

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even more salient in globalised societies dealing with complex and difficult issues of diversity, culture, race and citizenship. In a recent tabloid case of racial identity in the United States, a community organiser of European/ Native American family origin was accused of fraudulently representing herself as African-American. The case has raised complex issues of racial and cultural self-identification and public representation, particularly in the context of a history of Anglo/European/American jurisprudence and social science where ‘race’ has been and continues to be taken as an essentialist marker of difference. If we are to move beyond debilitating histories of ‘racism’, ‘racialisation’ and ‘minoritisation’ - specifically, those dominant ideologies and institutional technologies that tar and feather human beings on the basis of their skin color, genetic ancestry or racial phenotype (Omi & Winant, 2015) – then we must engage in powerful interpretive discussions about how one gains entry to (and departs from) cultural and ethnic communities and practices, where choice, volition and agency might come into play (and where not), with what consequences and forms of capital. Is Chineseness simply an intergenerationally acquired set of dispositions, values and beliefs? Is it something within and remembered by the body? Is it through an originary relationship to kin and place, land and spirit – as Indigenous peoples worldwide maintain about their cultures and lives? Is it something maintained through language and in discourse? For me and, I trust, for my friend and colleague Guanglun Michael Mu – these are not purely scholarly and scientific questions. They are autobiographical questions. They are nothing less than questions about who and what we are, how we came to be, about our kinship as scholars, and indeed what we will pass on to future generations of translocated, transnational Chinese like ourselves. And finally, for a China that suddenly finds in this millennium that it must discover and contend with its own cultural, ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity – these may be the key sociological and educational questions. Allan Luke Brisbane, Australia July 1, 2015

References Ang, I. (2001) On not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West. London: Routledge. Fishman, J.A. (2004) Language maintenance, language shift, and reversing. In T.K. Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie (eds) The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 406–436). Oxford: Blackwell.

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Luke, A. (2009) Race and language as capital in school: A sociological template for language education reform. In R. Kubota and A. Lin (eds) Race, Culture and Identities in Second Language Education (pp. 286–308). New York: Routledge. Luke, A. (1992) The body literate: Discourse and inscription in early literacy training. Linguistics and Education 4 (1), 107–129. Omi, M. and Winant, H. (2015) Racial Formation in the United States (3rd edn). New York: Routledge.

Preface

一言兴邦, 一言丧邦。(A single word may bring prosperity to a state; but it may destroy this state as well.) Confucius, 551–478BC, Chinese philosopher Even the smallest nations cherish the great deeds of their forefathers in and through their languages because language is the collective treasure of group feeling. Gottfried von Herder, 1744–1803, German philosopher Language is the ‘spiritual exhalation’ of a nation. Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1767–1835, Prussian philosopher In every survey of human cultural history, there is no inadequacy of evidence on human beings’ ingrained attachment to language. In this book, however, it is by no means my intention to simply echo the salience of language in defining and positioning who we are. Instead, I will complicate and enrich the fundamentality of language in our being, thinking and doing. Specifically, I will scrutinise how Chinese-Australian young adults negotiate their Chineseness and capitalise on resources through learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in the social fields of Australia and beyond. The complexities and intricacies associated with Chinese-Australian young adults’ language choice, usage and learning will gradually emerge from the exposition when I move on to discuss how these young people in diaspora are constantly shaping, and are shaped by, language when crossing geographical and cultural borders. Before I speculate on this perplex phenomenon, I would like to share some of my personal experiences with the reader in terms of how language has come to define and challenge my own identity. I was born into a middle-class family in China. Because of my parents’ career mobility, I spent my school years alternately in two cities – Beijing and

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Yinchuan. The latter is the capital city of Ningxia, an autonomous region in northwest China where Hui ethnic minority people are populated. The ancestors of the Hui people are mostly Arabic and Persian traders who came to China through the ancient Silk Road. Although Muslims are normally endogamous, some of these early Arabic and Persian traders married Han Chinese people1 who converted to Islam. Due to the intermarriage with the Han Chinese, some of these early traders chose to settle down in China. Their descendants, who are Chinese speakers, have been called ‘Hui’ since the Tang Dynasty (618–907AD). When I was in Year 2, I moved with my parents from Beijing to Yinchuan. As soon as we arrived in the city, we sensed its ‘cultural hybridity’, an entanglement of the Han Chinese culture and the Arabic culture. In my memory, the food there was delicious, though it was different from the food that I had usually eaten; I also had no idea that the artistic signs in the street were actually Arabic language, which looked so different from what I had usually read. However, the sense of curiosity and excitement soon faded away when I found that the local people considered us to be different from them in the same way that we considered them to be different from us. When I was in Yinchuan, I was different because my Beijing accent distinguished me from my local peers. I was teased by them for the ‘funny’ language that I used. When I was back in Beijing, I was also different because of my mixed accent. As soon as I spoke to my schoolmates, they knew that I was another species. The function of language as an identity marker constantly troubled me over my childhood. The sense of alienation took hold of me time and time again. Each time I moved, I had to laboriously convince my peers that I was one of them. Despite the challenge brought about by the transient lifestyle, I was always among the best performers in school, partly because of my family inculcation. Over the years, my parents have incessantly urged me to obtain as much education as I can because they expect me to reproduce the cultural capital of my grandparents. My paternal grandfather MU Keming (穆克明) had a university degree and worked as a professor at Dalian University of Technology. My maternal grandfather LI Hai (李海) received part of his education in the former Soviet Union and held a senior position in the Chinese Communist Party. He was sent to work in the northwest of China by the former Premier ZHOU Enlai (周恩来), and hence served there for many years. This also explains my parents’ work experiences in Ningxia. Unfortunately, my grandparents’ education history made them victims of the Cultural Revolution. This disastrous movement also deprived my parents of further educational opportunity.

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As my parents wished, I fulfilled their lost dreams when I went to do my undergraduate study at Beijing Normal University (BNU). I settled down in Beijing and this brought my transient lifestyle to an end. I did not continue my study after the completion of my science degree at BNU. Instead, I became a chemistry teacher in Beijing No. 15 High School. After four years of teaching, I decided to make a change in my life – I made up my mind to do my postgraduate study in Australia. This decision became the starting point for a series of transcontinental moves later in my life. Upon the completion of my Master’s study at the University of New South Wales, I returned to China and worked in the Office of Exchange and Cooperation at BNU. This job gave me numerous opportunities to travel. I visited Europe, North America and Southeast Asia; and of course, I revisited Australia a couple of times. Five years later, I made another big decision – I chose to pursue my PhD at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia. After I completed my PhD, I worked at QUT for some time. This was followed by a brief lectureship back at BNU. Then I went on to move again – I came to work at the University of Calgary in Canada. One year later, I decided to take up a research position back at QUT and hence returned to Australia and remain there at the time of writing this book. The transcontinental moves that I made over the past decade underlined the relevance of language to my life. When I was in China, on an internationalised campus like BNU, my native-like command of English drew attention from both local academics and international visitors. They came to talk to me, asking ‘Where did you learn your English? Where have you been?’ When I was in Australia, I was asked over and over again the question of ‘where are you from’ simply because of my skin tone and black eyes as well as my Aussie-Asian accent. In Canada, I have to repeatedly respond to the question of ‘where does your lovely accent come from?’ These nuances and dynamics in daily life, however, are by no means insignificant minutia or trivia for me. In contrast, I have been framed and reframed by these issues, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously. These issues also push me to contemplate my own identity as a bilingual scholar within the increasingly culturally diverse academic community. Nevertheless, the question remains with respect to what inspires me to research overseas Chinese and what prompts me to write this book. Now I will turn to these questions. In each of us, in varying proportions, there is part of yesterday’s ourselves and it is the yesterday’s self who inevitably predominates in us (Durkheim, 1938). Quite often, the past drives our intention to do what we are doing and becomes an unconscious consciousness inscribed in our mind and body.

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We seldom rationally reason this subconsciousness because its existence is often taken for granted. It is seen but unnoticed. Nonetheless, each time we intentionally revisit our yesterday, we feel it, we appreciate it and we make sense of it. This leads to my assumption here: it is my prior life history that enlightens my interest in the predicaments and expectations of a group of young people that I met several years ago; and it is this part of my personal history that encourages me to write this book. In 2008, I had an opportunity to get involved in the China Synergy Program for Outstanding Youth (CSP). This is an annual program initiated and sponsored by Mr CHAN Sui-Kau (陈瑞球) and Ms LIANG Guozhen (梁国珍). Mr CHAN Sui-Kau is a prominent industrialist and philanthropist. As the founder and the Executive Chairman of the Yangtzekiang Garment Limited, Mr Chan is one of the leading marketers and builders of apparel brands in Asia. He also has a long record of distinguished public service, offering his counsel on various government boards. He was a member of the eighth and ninth Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee from 1993 to 2003. Mr Chan has a strong belief in the value of education and magnanimously supports academia. As just one example, Mr Chan helped found the China Synergy Program for Outstanding Youth in 1999 that enables ethnic Chinese students who are attending renowned overseas universities to visit Hong Kong, Macau and the Chinese mainland to learn first-hand about the current socio-economic, technological and cultural developments of China. Ms LIANG Guozhen is an active industrialist and philanthropist. She is currently a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee. Working with Mr CHAN Sui-Kau, Ms Liang has been continuously dedicated to the organisation and to fundraising for the China Synergy Program for Outstanding Youth. Ms Liang has made a tremendous contribution to the development of this program. The program, now in its 16th year, has had a profound influence on Chinese and overseas Chinese communities alike. Each year, the three-week China Synergy Program for Outstanding Youth offers the opportunity for hundreds of outstanding Chinese youth who were born and/or brought up overseas to come back to China, their cultural motherland, to learn the history, culture and society of ‘the home away from their homes’. I was chosen as one of the mentors in the sixth China Synergy Program for Outstanding Youth, where I had considerable contact with a group of lovely young overseas Chinese – Australian-Chinese, American-Chinese, Canadian-Chinese, British-Chinese,

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Indonesian-Chinese, Singaporean-Chinese and Malaysian-Chinese, amongst many other ‘Chineses’ from across the world. It was my observation that many of these young people expected to walk away from the program with answers to the ‘who-am-I’, ‘wheream-I-from’ and ‘where-do-I-belong’ questions. As such, they came to join the program with anticipation, excitement, curiosity, and sometimes bewilderment. During the three weeks, discourses such as ‘it’s an amazing trip’, ‘I feel connected to this place’ and ‘it’s emotional to revisit my genealogical heritage’ were repeatedly echoed. However, I was shocked when some youth came to talk to me upon the completion of the program. I recalled that one of them lamented: I am completely lost. I am struggling with my belongingness. I am different in Australia because I look Chinese. I am also different here because I look Chinese but I can’t speak Chinese. I wish I had learned it [Chinese] harder when I was in Saturday schools. At that particular moment, there was a period of silence, but it was not in a vacuum. Instead, it was full of resonance. There was a strong sense of empathy that took hold of me. I was very aware of the completely different life trajectories of these young people and me, but at that time, I felt that we were largely identical because of the same Chinese bodies that we have and the same Chinese origin that we share. Nevertheless, the same root can vegetatively spread into different routes and the same past can develop into different presents. Even though the present is different, these young people cannot elude the same questions – How and why do I learn Chinese? What does this language mean to me? Does this language tell me where I came from, who I am and where I belong? These questions continue to fascinate me to this day and prompt me to resolve the predicaments of the young people that I met in 2008 and the numerous others that I have met ever since. This is my true intention for writing this book. The book is entitled ‘Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language’. In this book, I invite the reader to engage with the sociological reasons behind, and returns on, Chinese Australians’ social practices related to Chinese Heritage Language (CHL) learning. These practices are not constrained within a particular context. Instead, Chinese Australians perform these practices across a variety of actual and hypothetical social milieus – the domestic sphere, schools, communities, work and everyday life – in Australia, China and beyond. We will also look at the cultural histories, present positions and future projects of Chinese Heritage Language Learners

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(CHLLs), Chinese Australians in this case, and discuss the challenges and benefits in relation to their CHL learning. To this end, I will work through diverse theoretical perspectives – social psychological, poststructural, and sociological; and count on pluralistic research methods across quantitative and qualitative spectrums. In this vein, the contextual, theoretical, methodological, as well as the practical knowledge built and lessons learnt in this book will, I hope, intrigue and benefit a number of people: scholars of Heritage Language (HL) research in general and those of CHL research in particular; language policy makers in multicultural Australia; as well as diaspora Chinese readers and teachers of Chinese as a foreign/second/ additional language. The opening chapter will set the scene for the book. This chapter will present a penetrating and panoramic overview of the Australian cultural field, an idiosyncratic historical, cultural and linguistic space for Chinese Australians, their ancestors and their descendants. The chapter will also provide a diachronic discussion of the vicissitudes over Australia’s transition from a racist colony to a multicultural society. Nevertheless, in contemporary Australia, how Chinese Australians negotiate their Chineseness and capitalise on resources through learning CHL and the sociological reasons behind their CHL learning are largely unknown. To help conceptualise these phenomena, Chapter 2 will zoom out to look at CHL and CHLLs in the West. This chapter will outline the conceptual domain and construct the theoretical underpinnings of the book through a succinct introduction to CHLLs and an extensive review of extant research regarding CHLLs in the West. The theoretical framework will be deduced from Bourdieu’s sociological work. Bourdieu’s methodological pluralism will also be discussed to help excavate the perplexities and dynamics behind CHL learning. The empirical knowledge, theoretical framework and methodological concerns debated in this chapter will establish the foundation of this book. This will be followed by three chapters that will zoom in on the investigation of young Chinese Australian adults with respect to their CHL learning. Specifically, Chapter 3 will quantitatively scrutinise these young people’s ethnic identity construction through, and their commitment to, CHL learning. Chapter 4 will qualitatively exploit the meaning evolving from this learning. How young Chinese Australian adults count on the benefits produced through their CHL learning and negotiate the tensions around their CHL learning will be discussed. Chapter 5 will weave together the quantitative and qualitative evidence. The sociolinguistic complexities of young Chinese Australian adults will be analysed in relation to their CHL learning. This chapter will also revisit and highlight the notion of

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Chineseness. The chapter will conclude with some implications for CHL research and practice in Australia in particular, and in Western societies in general. In this vein, the three empirical chapters will provide an in-depth speculation on learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia and beyond. To start the discussion, I will now turn to the opening chapter.

Note (1)

The Han Chinese people constitute 92% of the population of the Chinese mainland, 94% of the population of Hong Kong, 95% of the population of Macau, 98% of the population of Taiwan, 74% of the population of Singapore and approximately 20% of the entire global population. Hence, Han Chinese is the largest ethnic group in the world. An overwhelming proportion of Han Chinese can speak, or at least understand, Mandarin.

1 From the White Australia Policy to Multiculturalism: Chinese Immigrants and Chinese Language in Australia Historically, human beings have never been constrained within territorial borders. The exclusion of Jews from Europe, the exile of Messenians under the Spartan rule, the African trans-Atlantic and the Chinese trans-Pacific slave trade, and the Eurocentric colonial migration are all early forms of human dispersion. Contemporarily, the compression of time and space by the innovation of science and technology has unprecedentedly facilitated and intensified the transnational mobility and connections of people, which is creating a more or less borderless world. The world is thus moving from territorially distant and mutually distinct spaces towards a multidimensional space of overlapping layers. There is a transition underway from a geographically separate, socially distinct, culturally heterogeneous and linguistically unintelligible world of nations to an interconnected and intermingled one. People are intersecting and interacting in such a world where they are on the move as they have never been before. This migration has shaped the present time as an era of growing dynamics. It has introduced new cultures and languages to destination regions, and rapidly increased the cultural and linguistic diversity of modern societies. Against this background of regional and global migration as well as transnational communications and interactions, the opening chapter will set the scene for the book. It will diachronically elaborate on how past and present come to shape the cultural and linguistic diversity of Australia, a space of complicated entanglement. Specifically, the chapter will introduce the diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, needs, aspirations and potentials of Chinese immigrants and their descendants, who are faced with the challenges and opportunities in Australia, a place of ‘togethernessin-difference’ (Ang, 2001: 17). Before I explicate how the shifting Australian

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

cultural and social orders come to shape Chinese Australians’ being, doing and thinking, I would like to invite the reader to have a taste of the status quo of the Chinese community in Australia.

Sunnybank: A Chinese-Populated Community in Queensland, Australia Figures 1.1 and 1.2 demonstrate some Chinese elements omnipresent in a suburb in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. This is Sunnybank, a vigorous and dynamic community with a proliferating population of Chinese. What you see in the photos is the epitome of Sunnybank. If you visit the

Figure 1.1 2013 Chinese New Year Parade in Sunnybank (author’s own picture)

From the White Australia Policy to Multiculturalism

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Figure 1.2 Glamorous Wok – a popular Chinese Restaurant in Sunnybank (author’s own picture)

place, you will catch sight of a whole bunch of Chinese people, Chinese characters, Chinese cultural activities, Chinese restaurants, Chinese supermarkets, Chinese agencies and Chinese weekend schools, amongst many other Chinese elements. Each time I visited Sunnybank, I thought I was somewhere in China. Hence, it is hard to believe that only three decades ago, Sunnybank was a very white area. The first settlers of Sunnybank were believed to be the Jagera indigenous people who came to inhabit the area over 20,000 years ago. Over the centuries, this beautiful loamy land and its adequate precipitation have produced rich displays of natural plants and flowers. The attributes of this area were discovered by the white settlers in the early 19th century soon after their arrival in Queensland. Hence, they developed Sunnybank into a farming area. With the growth of the population, farmland in Sunnybank gradually gave way to suburbia during the first half of the 20th century. With the 1982 Commonwealth Games and the 1988 World Expo held in Brisbane, suburbs like Sunnybank were given the opportunity to speak to the world about their prosperity. Since then, an increasing number of Asian immigrants have started to settle in Sunnybank and neighbouring suburbs. This has transformed Sunnybank from a white suburb into a thriving multicultural residential area, particularly with a strong Chinese influence in the community design and development. Today, 30.62% of Sunnybank residents are of Chinese ancestry (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011).

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

Many Chinese living in Brisbane or even across Queensland come to visit Sunnybank frequently, for food, party, business and cultural activities. My friends Jenny, Ryan and Helen are among those Sunnybank-lovers. My considerable contact with them has given me opportunities to witness and document their life experiences that are of particular relevance to the main themes of this book: Chinese ethnic identities and CHL learning. My friend Jenny is successful in her career. She opened her housing agency in Sunnybank in 2012. Jenny was originally from Fujian, a neighbouring province of Canton. At the age of nine, Jenny’s parents brought her to Australia. The family firstly lived in Sydney and then moved to Brisbane. Jenny is now a mother of three. She always feels proud of having three sons, as she said, ‘我给我们家传宗接代做了巨大贡献。(I made a big contribution to the prosperity of our clan.)’ This attitude is a traditional Chinese one, a particular disposition of Chineseness rooted in Confucianism, which only entitles males to continue the family line. I will explicitly debate Confucian dispositions in Chapter 3. For the time being, let’s go on with Jenny’s story. Indeed, Jenny considers herself to be very Chinese. Once, she said to me, 我是中国人我很开心。中国人就得会说汉语, 我和华人都讲汉语, 我做事情的方 式也完全是中国式的, 因为我要和这里的华人和国内的人做生意。中国人太有钱 了, 到哪她们都想买房子。这对我的生意来说是好事。哈哈哈…… (I am happy to be Chinese. Chinese have to be able to speak Chinese. I speak Chinese to Chinese people. I work in a completely Chinese way because I do business with Chinese immigrants here [in Brisbane] and Chinese people in China. Chinese are rich and they want to buy houses no matter where they live. It’s really good for my business. Hahaha…) Jenny has seen the value of her Chinese language, a language that facilitates her business. In recognition of the instrumentality of Chinese language, Jenny sends her three sons to Miao Miao Chinese School in Sunnybank every Saturday morning, with the hope that her sons can maintain their Chinese language in Australia for better career opportunities in future. Miao Miao Chinese School is close to my rented house. Sometimes she sneaked away to meet me while her sons were bound to Chinese lessons. She often lamented over the conflict between the boys and her, saying 他们不愿学汉语, 但我得逼他们, 小孩痛苦我也痛苦, 每周六下课后我还得教他 们一小时, 每次都很累因为他们根本不爱学, 还不停跟我抱怨, 我跟谁抱怨去? 他们不懂我是为了他们好, 现在澳洲和中国联系越来越多, 学汉语也许将来机 会多一些。再说了, 中国人不会说汉语岂不是很搞笑。他们现在不明白, 希望将 来有一天他们能明白。

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(They don’t like learning Chinese, but I have to push them. It’s painful not only for the kids but also for myself. Every week I have to tutor them for another hour after their Saturday school. It’s a heavy training because they are not motivated to learn Chinese at all. They keep complaining to me, but who can I complain to? They just don’t understand I do this for them not for myself. There are more and more connections between Australia and China. Chinese language may open up job opportunities for them in future. In addition, it’s ridiculous if a Chinese person can’t speak Chinese. They don’t understand this now, but I hope one day they will understand.) The parent-child conflict over language policy is common in Chinese immigrant families. My own research participants also recalled their strong resistance to, and their parents’ consistent investment in, their Chinese learning when they were small. Despite this conflict, Chinese immigrant parents often impose their language policy on their children because they tend to believe that the Chinese language will bring their children better job prospects in the labour market. Moreover, Jenny spoke of Chinese language with respect to Chinese identity. She seems to consider it is hard to claim Chinese identity without Chinese language proficiency. Like Jenny, my friend Ryan also runs his own business – a Chinese acupuncture and massage shop. Ryan’s family was from Shandong and Ryan was brought to Australia by his parent when he was 12. I often eat with Ryan in Sunnybank because we are both Chinese food lovers. Ryan’s Chinese listening, speaking, reading and writing are all very good, given his six years of schooling in China and his continuous commitment to Chinese learning in Australia. However, both his younger brothers, who are university students, are Chinese illiterate, given that their education was primarily received in English and given their limited formal Chinese learning. Ryan recently went to China with his brothers, travelling around the country. Upon his return, he met me and told me a story. 在公园里我两个弟弟走丢了, 我打电话给他们, 但是他们说不清楚他俩在哪, 他 们看不懂公园里的指示牌。我费了半天劲才找到他们, 又急又气, 然后好好教 训了他俩一顿: ‘不会说汉语还不跟紧点, 平时让你们学汉语你们不听, 这下傻 眼了吧, 书到用时方恨少。你俩都快成 ‘香蕉人’了, 外黄里白。长个中国脸, 不会 说中国话。’ (In a park, I lost my brothers. I called them but they couldn’t figure out where they were because they don’t understand the road signs in Chinese. It took me a while to find them. Stressed and angry, I gave them

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

a good bullocking, ‘you don’t speak Chinese and why don’t you follow me! I’ve told you to learn Chinese but you don’t listen to me. Now you are dumbfounded. It is when you want to use the knowledge that you wish to have more [a Chinese saying]. You are almost a “banana man” now, yellow outside but white inside. You look Chinese but you can’t speak Chinese.’) It is interesting that Ryan talked about Chinese language in relation to the physical dimension of Chinese identity. He seems to have the stereotype that Chinese-looking people have to be able to speak Chinese. My research participants reported similar stereotypical perceptions, which I will analyse in detail in Chapter 4. Of further relevance to the topic of my book was Ryan’s strong sense of being Chinese. In our everyday conversations, Ryan repeatedly said ‘我们山东人都很传统。(We Shandong people are very traditional.)’ This does make sense to me because Shandong is the origin of Confucianism and Shandong people have the reputation of being traditional and Confucian. It is likely because of Ryan’s strong sense of Chineseness that he always considers sons to be of genealogical importance in a family. He once explicitly said to me ‘我将来必须有一个儿子。(I must have a son in future).’ The term ‘must’ connotes a strong gendered perspective that is shaped by Confucianism. This attitude is similar to Jenny’s account – a Confucian disposition that I will explain in subsequent chapters. Compared to Jenny and Ryan, my friend Helen seems to have more bewilderment and predicaments associated with her own identities and language choices due in part to her complex personal and familial life trajectories. Helen is a third-generation Vietnamese Chinese, but she can add many other elements to her identity ‘label’. Her grandparents are native Cantonese speakers. For some political reasons, they had to flee Vietnam by boat after the Vietnam War. Also on the boat were Helen’s parents and Helen, who was an infant at that time. Her family landed in Malaysia. This was followed by a transient stay in the country. A few months later, the family was cruelly pushed back to the sea. After long, gruelling days at sea, they arrived in Australia. Many years later, her family claimed Australian citizenship. Helen wondered, ‘What kind of Chinese am I? Indonesian Chinese, Indonesian-Malaysian Chinese, Australian Chinese with a refugee background or “Vietnamese Boat People”1?’ She also confessed to me, It pains me to admit that I am Chinese illiterate. How I wished I could have opportunities to learn some Chinese when I was small. Because of my refugee background, it was way too luxurious for me to learn Chinese back then. Now I have the opportunity and I won’t miss it. I am learning Chinese calligraphy and I so much love it. I’ve found

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I love it with a passion, like it’s something really for me. I also need to catch up with my Chinese learning so that I can better understand the meaning of the calligraphy I write. I think this is something I belong to, something I lost in the past and reclaim now. I use the above three vignettes to suggest the fact that Chinese identity requires a foundational basis. Chinese language can be the cultural foundation of Chinese identity. Chinese identity is indispensable to Chinese culture and Chinese language is an embodied form of Chinese culture. Nevertheless, culture is a perplexing notion that deserves some more scrutiny. For this reason, I will spend some space here to explain the notion of culture.

What Does ‘Culture’ Mean? Culture is one of the most complicated concepts in the English language mainly because it has come to be used across several distinct intellectual disciplines. Given the abstruseness of culture, I do not intend to define it here but to debate some elements that culture denotes and connotes. The discipline of sociology has engaged in extensive and intensive debates with culture. For German sociologist Georg Simmel (1858–1918), culture refers to the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms that have been objectified in the course of history (Frisby & Featherstone, 1997). Simmel’s understanding indicates that culture is a historically inherited, not genetically inherited, system of objectified forms that come to shape individuals. However, some notes of caveat are in order here. Although culture is indispensable to history, it does not stay fossilised in the past. Instead, it has ubiquity at present and may have continuity into the future, with maintenance, enrichment, modification, improvisation, evolution or involution. Although culture does present itself in objectified forms, such as physical artefacts and written texts, it also exists in intangible, non-objectified forms, such as languages, traditions and propensities. In this way, culture can be considered as an ensemble of symbolic codes of material and non-material being that comes to shape, and is shaped by, people’s ways of thinking and doing. Since the current book is largely built on Bourdieu’s sociology, I will now turn to a brief discussion of culture within a Bourdieusian framework. For Bourdieu, culture does not only refer to the objectified cultural entities and cultural goods that belong to consumers, but also refers to consumers’ embodied competence in the consumption of these objectified cultural forms. Culture thereby constitutes appropriate and legitimate tastes for these cultural goods, where taste is ‘the faculty of perceiving flavours’

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

and ‘the capacity to discern aesthetic values’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 474). It is a ‘gift of nature’ born from a family and ‘the product of upbringing and education’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 1). To clarify, although culture is given by the past (e.g. born from a family), it is not a static or fixed attribute because it is constantly informed by ongoing external structures (e.g. upbringing and education). Due to the socially recognised hierarchy of familial origin and educational system, taste, ‘a system of classificatory schemes’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 174) or ‘an acquired disposition to differentiate and appreciate’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 466), is predisposed to classify people into different cultural groups. It should be noted, however, that tastes are cultural schemes of dispositions, instead of culturally schemed dispositions. That is to say, it is a logical and epistemological fallacy to assume members within each group are miniature replicas moulded by the same cultural taste. Instead, each group is a heterogeneous one, with diversities, differences, variances and deviants. Consequently, people with different tastes are marked to have different culture, from the ‘authentic’ culture to the ‘imitation’, from the ‘true’ culture to the ‘popularisation’, or from the ‘high culture’ to the ‘middlebrow culture’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 250). This hierarchy is what Bourdieu meant by ‘distinction’ (Bourdieu, 1984). In this sense, to have the authentic, true and high culture is to ‘know the best that has been said and thought in the world’ (Arnold, 1999: xxxiii). Arnold’s elitist conception of culture, though concise, is problematic. What is considered ‘the best’ is not fixed but highly contingent on time and space. While the colonial age purported European culture to be the most advanced form of civilisation, the two World Wars shook this complacency. Those wars in concert with subsequent anti-colonialist movements contributed to changes in attitudes toward culture and how it was understood (Louie, 2008). Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803), the German philosopher, argued against the high and dominant position of European culture purported by the colonial age, ‘the very thought of a superior European culture is a blatant insult to the majesty of Nature’ (Williams, 1988: 89). Within European culture, different tastes may be used to distinguish culture considered to be of higher value from that considered to be of lower value. However, these tastes should not give more value to European culture than non-European cultures. Along the cultural spectrum, there are different cultures of the same value. Within each culture, there will be a hierarchy of ‘high’ to ‘low’ culture. In Williams’ term, this is culture conceived as ‘a general process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development’ (1988: 90). In this book I speak of culture not only in the hierarchical sense of certain social and economic groups within a particular social space, but also in the specific and variable cultures of

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different nations and periods across spaces. In Williams’ term, this is culture conceived as ‘a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period, a group’ (1988: 90). In what follows, it will soon become clear how a (dominant) culture distinguishes itself from other cultures through political power, social orders and legitimate verdict.

Cultural and Language Policies in Australia Australia was already inhabited and owned by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples before the history of Australian immigration started. The early interactions between these peoples and those from nearby islands were documented in archaeological work (Macknight, 1976): fishermen from Makassar in the southern Celebes (Sulawesi) frequently visited the coast between the Cobourg Peninsula and the Sir Edward Pellew Group in the early 18th century. Given these early interactions, it is not surprising that some Aboriginal languages contain a substantial number of Makassan words (Macknight, 1976). The first cohort of British immigrants landed on this continent at Botany Bay on 26 January 1788. Since this historical moment, people with different cultures and languages have immigrated to the continent from different parts of the world. The immigrant population of Australia continues to grow rapidly. As shown in the 2011 Australian Census, three out of ten Australian residents were born overseas, compared with one out of ten and two out of ten in 1947 and 1971 respectively (Castles & Davidson, 2000). A wealth of linguistic and cultural resources are available in Australia through its culturally and linguistically diverse population. This diversity will continue to be a characteristic of future Australia (Holmes et al., 2007). The wealth of cultural diversity in Australia has been valued and supported by the nation through its implementation of multiculturalism as a political strategy to accommodate and include ethnic minorities (Ang & Stratton, 2001). However, in Australia, tensions exist between a ‘unified nation’ and a ‘multicultural one’ (Holmes et al., 2007). A narrative summary of these tensions as reflected by Australia’s immigration policy over complex processes could include (Holmes et al., 2007): 1901 to the early 1970s (the White Australia policy); 1950s to the early 1970s (the gradual dismantlement of the White Australia policy and the implementation of assimilation); and the early 1970s onwards (the policy of multiculturalism). One of the first pieces of legislation enacted by the new national parliament upon Federation was the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. This act was meant to manage competition and labour disputes in the gold fields and growing tensions around Australian nationalism. The Act signified

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

the commencement of the so-called ‘White Australia Policy’ and formed its legislative basis. The White Australia Policy, including the 1901 Act and the subsequent acts that strengthened it, intentionally restricted non-white immigration to Australia from 1901 to the early 1970s. During World War II, the arrival of thousands of refugees in Australia with the Japanese advance; the service of numerous Australian Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders, Papua New Guineans and Timorese on the frontline defending Australia; and Australia’s vulnerability in the Pacific War because of its small population brought Australia’s racially discriminatory immigration and political rights policies into focus. After the conclusion of World War II, the White Australia Policy was dismantled in stages by successive governments with the encouragement of the settlement of the first non-British and later non-white immigrants. Wartime service also gave many indigenous Australians confidence in the claim of their equal rights upon return to civilian life. In the post-war period, assimilation became the dominant policy in Australia, where assimilation refers to the process by which indigenous people and immigrants were expected to relinquish their culture and become indistinguishable from the Anglo-Australian dominant group (Holmes et al., 2007). The ideal or illusion of national-cultural homogeneity was that all indigenous people and immigrants would be incorporated smoothly within the dominant national white culture, leaving their original cultures happily behind. The dominant culture was considered the national culture on which national identity was to be constructed. Ethnic cultures were defined by the dominant white culture as ‘different’. The national identity was homogeneous and it denied ethnic cultures that threatened it. The assimilation model was a political strategy to balance inclusion and exclusion. On the one hand, the model incorporated ethnic cultures only insofar as they could contribute to the ideological discourse of cultural diversity in Australia. On the other, this model, per se, marked immigrants as others to the dominant white group. As such, assimilation could never be fully successful. The acquired rather than inherited or ascribed character of cultural traits gained in the process of assimilation turns the assimilating subjects into less than ‘real’ and still inferior Australians (Ang, 2001). This led to the introduction of multiculturalism, which marked the dismantling of the White Australia Policy in the early 1970s. In the 1970s, the Australian Ethnic Council adopted a formal statement against assimilation and immigration policy moved away from assimilation towards multiculturalism (Holmes et al., 2007). Since then, multiculturalism has become a key element of governmental cultural policy and the description of Australia as a multicultural nation has become commonplace

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(Ang & Stratton, 2001; Holmes et al., 2007). However, a distinction between multicultural Australia and multiculturalism in Australia has been made in terms of the distinction between practice and policy. Multicultural Australia refers to the cultural diversity in which interaction between different cultures is in process (Holmes et al., 2007). It is a shifting and dynamic interweaving of cultures and diversities actually happening and existing in Australia. In contrast, multiculturalism in Australia, as a centrepiece of national cultural policy, refers to the management of cultural diversity (Ang & Stratton, 2001) but within certain and well-demarcated limits without disturbing or threatening national unity (Ang, 2001). This policy expects that all members of society have equal rights, regardless of ethnic background (Holmes et al., 2007). It is an ideology to prescribe what should be happening or speculate what could be happening through the acceptance and promotion of multiple cultures in the demographic context of a specific place, such as organisations, communities, cities or nations. Multiculturalism, as a national policy in Australia, has several functions. Firstly, the adoption of multiculturalism functions to discard the racist past in Australia. The exclusionary and homogeneous White Australia Policy was replaced by multiculturalism, a discourse in favour of pluralism and heterogeneity and recognition of valuable cultural diversity. Secondly, multiculturalism functions to convince Australians of the public fiction that they live in a harmonious and inclusive society. Multiculturalism becomes an ideological discourse addressed to Australians to promote unity within diversity. Thirdly, the ideological discourse of multiculturalism has a political orientation. It functions to serve the policy of the government. Politicians have announced with pride that Australia is one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world, though support for the creation of a multicultural Australia has always been less than whole-hearted (Ang & Stratton, 2001). Language policies in Australia largely reflect Australia’s complicated cultural history. During the ‘White Australia’ era, English was assumed to be the national and only necessary language. Immigrants were expected to learn English, leaving their native languages happily behind. There was no concept of multiculturalism as there is today. In the 1950s and 1960s, the White Australia Policy was gradually dismantled. Although the period saw little change from the traditional and classical ‘English only’ approach, there were remarkable improvements in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL), in order to enable immigrants arriving in Australia from different parts of the world to assimilate more readily. The Adult Migrant Education Program was very innovative in its approach to English teaching and learning to support ‘assimilation’. However, white culture was still the dominant core surrounded by multiple minority ethnic cultures.

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

From the dysfunction of the White Australia Policy in the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, Australia probably led the English-speaking world in systematic language policy making (Ingram, 2000). The 1970 review, Teaching Asian Languages and Cultures in Australia, made the first attempt to direct language policy towards Asia (Commonwealth Advisory Committee, 1970). The review reflected Australia’s growing political realignment towards Asia, but paid little attention to the economic importance of Asian languages to Australia. Following the review, there was a sudden realisation that Australia, almost accidentally, imported numerous languages that would be wasted if no language policy enabled them to survive and to be used. It was also realised that many children entered schools speaking their Heritage Language (HL), a language other than English that is associated with the children’s cultural history and ancestral roots. These children needed an opportunity to commence their education in their HL. Accordingly, there were many unsystematic attempts to reform language education. The Department of Education advocated that there were ‘strong educational and social reasons for migrant children’ entering schools with ‘inadequate’ English proficiency to continue the learning of their HL (1976: 35). Guided by this initiative, funds were allocated to schools to establish HL programs and to community schools to support the teaching of HL. Another important document during the multicultural period of the 1970s was the Galbally Report released by the Australian Federal Government in 1978. It took the position that ‘every person should be able to maintain his or her culture without prejudice or disadvantage and should be encouraged to understand and embrace other cultures’ (Galbally, 1978: 4) and further that ‘cultural and racial differences must be reflected in educational programs designed to foster intercultural and interracial understanding’ (1978: 104–105). These fundamental initiatives, though unsystematic, were to encourage enrichment and diversity within an adherence to certain core values in the society. These initiatives also provided the foundation for the development of the first National Policy on Languages (Lo Bianco, 1987) in the English-speaking world. On its release, the National Policy on Languages became the standard against which State and Territory policies could be compared. This policy renewed language policy in Australia, stressing such aspects as the support for the maintenance of HLs, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ languages, and the extensions to programs for teaching ESL. It made a wide range of recommendations, taking account of the breadth of the social context in which the policy was placed (Ingram, 2000). Moreover, the policy focused on the labour market and the ways in which tackling adult illiteracy levels, extending English proficiency and teaching ‘trade languages’ would benefit

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Australia’s economic performance (Lo Bianco, 1990). To a large extent, the National Policy on Languages culminated the phases of pluralistically oriented language policy of the 1970s and 1980s (Lo Bianco, 2000). However, the policy lacked rigorous frameworks to address teacher education and teacher supply. Funding distributed to stimulate the teaching of other languages was mainly through projects. Unfortunately, when such funding dried up, the long-term effect of the projects was questionable. There was scant on-going monitoring and evaluation of the policy and its programs to ensure that the policy was continually evolving in response to emerging needs. These deficiencies of the National Policy on Languages begged further development of the language and culture policy in Australia. Subsequently, the Australian Language and Literacy Policy was released by the Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) in 1991. The Australian Language and Literacy Policy explicitly claimed to be derived from, and closely influenced by, the National Policy on Languages (DEET, 1991). The 1991 policy had the basic position that ‘Australian English’ was the ‘national language’, but that national priority languages, such as Asian languages, helped to ‘enrich the intellectual and cultural vitality’ of Australia and secure the ‘future economic well-being’ of Australia (DEET, 1991: iii–iv). Accordingly, it foregrounded English and Asian languages and tied the skills of these languages to education, employment and trade. Despite the value attached to multiculturalism and the maintenance and development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ languages and HLs, the policy reflected the prevailing economic rationalism that had dominated Australian language policy thinking and making since the late 1980s (Ingram, 2000). In other words, it placed more emphasis on economic reasons for language education than cultural or multicultural importance. As such, it focused more on language skills and problems than language rights and resources. As a complement to the Australian Language and Literacy Policy, another policy, Asian Languages and Australia’s Economic Future, released by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 1994, continued to highlight the importance of teaching and learning Asian languages, in particular the four priority languages of Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian and Korean. Similar to the previous policy, the 1994 report emphasised the economic value of Asian language skills as tools to facilitate competitive international trade. The report set proficiency targets to be achieved in schools, encouraged early commencement of learning Asian languages in Year 3, and recommended that a nationally agreed minimum skill level be specified for Asian language teachers (Council of Australian Governments, 1994). However, the report was criticised for being impractical in its

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

targets and assumptions (Lo Bianco, 2000). An under-supply of qualified Asian language teachers stood in the way of its implementation. A further criticism concerned the over-emphasis on economic reasons for language learning and the neglect of cultural and intellectual values (Ingram, 2000). Building on previous experiences, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) released the Shape of Australian Curriculum: Languages in 2011 to guide the development of the language curriculum in Australia. The language curriculum recognised the importance of a capability in languages in economics, diplomacy, trade, cultural exchange and national security. It was also aware of the need to develop languagespecific curricula for different languages and different groups of language learners that include First, Second and Heritage Language Learners (HLLs). Within each of these groups there are differences in proficiency in using the target language, with the span of language experiences of HLLs being particularly wide and the affiliations with their HLs particularly diverse (ACARA, 2011). Being aware of these differences, the language curriculum designed the aims, pathways, programmes, hours of study and achievement standards for language learning. Therefore, the language curriculum is expected to improve language education in Australia, increase investment in research and in public services dealing with languages, support ESL programs for immigrants and the intergenerational maintenance of immigrants’ HLs, ensure recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ languages and facilitate language revival initiatives for indigenous languages at risk of extinction (ACARA, 2011). In this respect, the linguistic pluralism addressed by the 2011 language curriculum largely mirrors the linguistic diversity of contemporary multicultural Australia and serves the dynamics of multiculturalism in contemporary Australia. Being conscious of the ‘unstoppable’ transformation of the Asian region into the economic powerhouse of the world and the ‘gathering pace’ of this transformation, the Australian Federal Government released the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper in October 2012, aiming to help ‘seize the economic opportunities’ and ‘manage the strategic challenges’ of this development (Australian Government, 2012: ii). To broaden and deepen the people-to-people links between Australia and the Asian region, particularly to strengthen the nation’s principal relationships with China, India, Indonesia and Japan, the White Paper urged Australians to become more ‘Asia literate’ and ‘Asia capable’ (Australian Government, 2012: iii). Detailed strategies for Asian studies will become a core part of school education and all schools will engage with at least one school in Asia to support the teaching of a priority Asian language. These languages are Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese. All Australian students will be encouraged to

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study and will have access to at least one priority Asian language. Measures to track how Australian students are increasing their knowledge of Asia will be developed. Industries and communities will be encouraged to increase their understanding of the benefits of learning priority Asian languages so that the demand for Asian language studies will be boosted. Australian universities will be supported in increasing the number of students who undertake Asian studies and Asian languages as part of their university education, and will be encouraged to establish an exchange arrangement involving transferable credits with at least one major Asian university. Funding will be available, through the Australian Research Council and other mechanisms, to strengthen research and teaching links between Australian and Asian institutions. In brief, support and encouragement for teaching and learning Asian languages through school education, university teaching and research, and industrial and community engagement are key elements of the White Paper. The White Paper not only addresses the economic demand for Asian languages but also makes cultural diversity available in Australia through its support and encouragement of language pluralism (Australian Government, 2012). To sum up, the current model of multiculturalism and language policy in Australia conceptualises ethnicity, national identity and globalisation. This is a model of ethnicity as flux and flow, national identity as a heterogeneous construction and globalisation as a set of ongoing processes that challenge the boundaries and sovereignty of the nation-state (Holmes et al., 2007). This model reconfigures Australian nationalism, shifting from a racially exclusionary form to an inclusive and open-ended form. It offers a view from the traditional margins of Australian society and challenges the dominant group’s views on ethnicity and nationalism. It is a vision of negotiated social cohesion predicated on the acceptance of cultural difference as an integral part of contemporary Australia. The transformation of Australia’s cultural orders has inevitably come to shape and reshape Chinese immigrants’ ways of doing, thinking and being. It has also come to position and reposition Chinese language within the complex cultural and linguistic market of Australia. In the next two sections, I will detail how Chinese immigrants and the Chinese language have struggled to survive and thrive through the vicissitudes of the Australian cultural history.

Chinese Immigrants in Australia As immigrants from every corner of the world continue to seek entry into Australia, Australian cultural and language policies have to deal with

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

the question of how to manage proliferating differences and diversities. These policies have a remarkable impact on immigrants in Australia. As one of the earliest non-white settlers, Chinese immigrants and their descendants have formulated various forms of life politics in response to the shifting cultural and language policies in Australia. The following discussion focuses particularly on Chinese immigration in Australia, looking at both the impact of cultural and language policies of Australia and that of the historic situations of China. The Chinese people have a long history of emigration overseas. One of the earliest emigrations can be dated back to the Ming Dynasty when ZHENG He (1371–1435) became the envoy of the Ming Dynasty. He sent people to explore and trade in the South China Sea and in the Indian Ocean. The great Chinese diaspora began in the 19th century, the boom age of European colonialism. Due to the lack of labourers in many colonies and the poverty brought on by population pressure, natural disasters, heavy taxation, destructive rebellions and widespread opium smoking in southeast China, many Chinese emigrated from southeast China to work in Southeast Asia, where they had established earlier links during the Ming Dynasty. Many other Chinese migrated to countries in North America and Australasia, where there was a great demand for labour in gold mining and railway construction. This was mutually beneficial, as on the one hand, widespread famine and poverty in southeast China impelled many Chinese to work in these countries so that they could earn more money to improve the living conditions of their family members and relatives. On the other hand, the demand for labour in these countries was addressed. Since the early 19th century, Chinese emigration has been directed primarily to North America and Australasia. From the very beginning of Australian immigration history, links with China were established when several ships dropped off their convict loads in Australia then sailed for southeast China to pick up goods for their return to England (Cushman, 1984). The earliest documented Chinese immigration to Australia dates back almost 200 years, with Mak Sai Ying being the first recorded Chinese settler in 1818 and with the first large group of immigrants arriving from southeast China in October 1848 (Cushman, 1984). From this time onwards till the late 19th century, Chinese immigration was seen as part of a solution to labour shortages in Australia (Cushman, 1984). In the mid-1850s, many more Chinese gold-seekers arrived at various diggings. Large numbers of early Chinese immigrants worked on gold fields. Others started to open stores and became merchants and hawkers. During the 1860s and 1870s, the fishing and fish curing industry were commonly

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operated by Chinese immigrants in Sydney, supplying dried fish to Chinese people throughout New South Wales as well as Victoria. Stores and dormitories run by Chinese people soon developed to support the miners in the fields as well as those on their way to the diggings or back to China. The attraction of gold and competition in gold mining aroused the resentment of European diggers towards Chinese diggers due to cheaper Chinese labour. At the same time, attempts to maintain Chinese as indentured labourers were difficult because some Chinese diggers often deserted their employers for more lucrative individual gold mining. These problems regarding the Chinese population drew the government’s attention and resulted in restrictive antiChinese legislation in the late 1850s and the early 1860s. The objection at this time to Chinese immigration was economic competition and cultural differences between the white and Chinese ways of life, rather than feelings of racial superiority (Choi, 1975). These restrictive measures effectively reduced the inflow of Chinese. However with a labour shortage in the gold-mining industry and the dramatic decrease of Chinese immigrants, the government repealed the restrictive Acts in the 1860s (Choi, 1975). The Chinese population continued to decrease for a short while after the repeal but then rapidly increased. Again, the government became concerned with the growing number of Chinese in the mining areas and feared that conflict between Chinese and European diggers and breaches of law and order might occur. This resulted in more restrictive Acts in the 1880s. Despite the shifting immigration laws, Chinese immigrants managed to remain and often prosper (Choi, 1975). While the majority of Chinese immigrants was digging on the gold fields, many others endeavoured to try other ways of earning a living very soon after their arrival. By the 1890s, Chinese people were represented in a wide variety of occupations as scrub cutters, cooks, tobacco farmers, market gardeners, cabinet-makers, storekeepers, laundry workers and drapers, though by this time the fishing industry seemed to have disappeared. They ran stores and imported trade and several Chinese language newspapers. They were also part of an international community involved in political events in China such as sending delegates to the Peking Parliament and making donations at times of natural disaster. By the 1890s, the colonial parliaments had placed a series of restrictions on the migration of ‘coloureds’ in general and Chinese in particular (Jones, 2005). Continuing competition and labour disputes in the gold fields, as well as Australian nationalism, created an environment of racial antagonism during the second half of the 19th century. This led to the new Federation’s Immigration Restriction Act in 1901, the so-called White Australia Policy.

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

It was this policy that severely curtailed the development of the Chinese communities from the late 19th century onwards and led to the steady decline of Chinese population in Australia (Jones, 2005). Continued discrimination, both legal and social, at both institutional and individual levels, reduced the occupational range of Chinese people. Gardening became one of the major occupations. Chinese immigrants, throughout the first 30 years or so of the 20th century, relied on successful Chinese merchants to assist them to negotiate with the Immigration Restriction Act bureaucracy. It was the rise of a new generation of Australian-born Chinese people, combined with new immigrants sponsored by merchants and others, that prevented the Chinese population from dramatically declining (Choi, 1975). At the beginning of World War II, Australian-born Chinese began to outnumber China-born Chinese for the first time. However, with the Japanese invasion in China and other Asia-Pacific regions, large numbers of refugees boosted the arrivals from China again (Jones, 2004). Some were Chinese crewmembers who refused to return to Japanese-held areas. Others were residents of the many islands of the South China Sea evacuated in the face of the Japanese advance. Still others were of Australian birth and were able to leave Hong Kong for Australia on the approach of the Japanese (Jones, 2004). After the conclusion of World War II, the White Australia Policy was gradually dismantled. At the same time, restaurants began to replace gardening as the major source of employment and provided an avenue for bringing in new Chinese immigrants. These changes brought about the end of the dominance of south China in the link between China and Australia that had existed for over 100 years. For the first time, numbers of Chinese immigrants from non-Cantonese speaking regions of China significantly increased. During the decades from the 1950s to the 1970s, Australia’s restrictive immigration policy was gradually relaxed before its formal abolition. However, following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, movement from China was most difficult, with only a small number of Chinese arriving each year. There was almost an absence of Chinese emigration from the 1950s to the 1970s. During this period, China placed severe restrictions on the movement of its citizens. From 1973, the White Australia Policy was for all practical purposes defunct. In 1975, the Australian government passed the Racial Discrimination Act, which officially signified the end of the White Australia Policy. Multiculturalism started as official policy in Australia. Only a few years later, China opened its doors again to the world. The end of the White Australia Policy and the commencement of the Chinese Opening-up Policy

From the White Australia Policy to Multiculturalism

19

saw new arrivals from China in Australia. Since then, immigrants from the Chinese mainland have arrived in increasing numbers. From the 1970s onwards until the end of the 20th century, there were two significant booms of emigration from China, in the late 1970s and the early 1990s respectively. In the late 1970s, emigration restrictions in China were eased as a result in part of the Opening-up Policy. More liberalised emigration policies were enacted to facilitate the legal departure of increasing numbers of Chinese who joined their overseas Chinese relatives and friends. At the same time, the ‘Four Modernisations Program’2 that required Chinese students and scholars, particularly scientists, to attend foreign education and research institutions brought about increased contact with the outside world. Anyone who had the necessary economic resources could apply for permission to study abroad. Other political events in China also promoted immigration. In 1984, the UK agreed to transfer sovereignty of Hong Kong to China, and in 1989, a student movement broke out at Tiananmen Square. These two historical events triggered a lack of confidence in the Chinese government and accelerated another wave of migration to the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the USA and other parts of the world in the early 1990s. The wave calmed after Hong Kong’s transfer of sovereignty in 1997. Australian immigration policy has been transformed from racism to multiculturalism. Almost at the same time, Chinese diplomatic policy has changed from ‘closing-down’ to ‘opening-up’. These policy changes saw new arrivals from China to Australia. New institutions were established for these arrivals and old ones, such as the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, revived. Chinese language newspapers were once again published. Shortwave and longwave radio channels began to broadcast in Cantonese and Mandarin. The Australian public broadcaster SBS also provided television and radio programs in both languages. The Chinese languages, mainly Mandarin and Cantonese, became available as a subject in some secondary schools. Community language schools started to operate on weekends. Several Chinese Australians have received the Order of Australia award and there are currently Chinese Australian representatives in both State and Federal parliaments (Jones, 2005). The population with Chinese ancestry keeps increasing in Australia. Today, Chinese are the third largest group among all immigrants in Australia, just behind settlers from the United Kingdom and New Zealand (ABS 2011 Census). With Chinese immigration, the Chinese language was brought to Australia. It is now the most widely spoken language other than English at home (ABS 2011 Census). The following section provides some background knowledge about Chinese language in Australia.

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

Chinese Language in Australia Chinese immigrants have brought and continue to bring Chinese language to Australia. With the increase of Chinese immigrants in Australia, the population that speaks Chinese at home has also increased. Where it was 401,357 in 2001 (ABS 2001 Census), it was 574,200 in 2011 (ABS 2011 Census). This makes Chinese the most common of all languages other than English brought to Australia. Three percent (3.0%) of the national population speaks Chinese at home (ABS 2011 Census). On the international stage, China continues to speak to the world about its sheer vastness, its huge population, its fascinating history and culture, its idiosyncratic Chinese socialism and its rapid economic growth. There has been growing interest in China as an emerging international power and a potential cooperative business power (D. Zhang & Slaughter-Defoe, 2009). For Australia, China is now a regional neighbour and trade partner. It has been recognised that the development of the relationship with China and the mutual benefits of such require a solid pool of Australians in a range of sectors who can understand China deeply and speak Chinese well (Orton, 2008). This strategic viewpoint was stressed in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper released by the Australian Government in October 2012. The teaching and learning of Chinese began two decades ago to produce Chinese-speaking graduates from Australia’s schools to serve the country’s economic, cultural and political interests (Sturak & Naughten, 2010). However, the share of Australian students learning Chinese is relatively small and has fallen in recent times. In recognising this decline as well as the need to build a sound knowledge of Chinese in schools, the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper advocates that the languages component of the Australian curriculum will enable all students to learn a language other than English, with a curriculum for Chinese being one of the first in development. Compared to the previous situation, ambitious targets have been set, especially in curriculum design, assessment mechanisms, textbook development and in the diversity of Chinese programs offered. There has been increasing attention to teaching and learning Chinese as a foreign language in Australia, not only due to the effort of the Australian Government but also because of the recent sponsorship of China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (abbreviated Chinese name: Hanban). Recognising the importance of promoting Chinese language and culture to the international community, China began to establish non-profit institutions in 2004. These institutions were given the name ‘Confucius Institutes’ or ‘Confucius Classrooms’. They aim to promote Chinese language and culture in foreign countries. Since 2005,

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17 Confucius Institutes and 49 Confucius Classrooms have been established in Australia, offering diverse Chinese programs at various levels outside the regular education systems. Chinese is now one of the major languages taught, both in the education system and in other Australian settings. Interestingly, the majority of Chinese learners in Australia are Chinese Australians. At senior secondary level, an overwhelming proportion (90%) of Chinese learners are Chinese Australian students (Orton, 2008). In higher education, the positive gains in Chinese language learners’ enrolments largely reflect the growing number of young Chinese Australian adults (McLaren, 2011). In these contexts, Chinese language is taught and learnt as a HL rather than a foreign language. This raises the question as to how well Chinese Foreign Language programs match the needs of Chinese Heritage Language Leaners (CHLLs). Teaching and learning Chinese as a foreign language is becoming a topic of interest in Australia. However, teaching and learning Chinese as a HL has not been effectively addressed in relation to the unique population of CHLLs (McGinnis, 2008). Though Chinese language is the most common HL and is associated with a growing number of CHLLs in Australia, very little is known about the nature and dynamics of CHL learning or the rate and route of CHL maintenance and development. CHL learning has received little attention in terms of theory-building thus far (Wang, 2007). Many empirical questions remain unanswered around the waxing and waning of Chinese Australians’ CHL learning orientations and stances.

Empirical Questions around Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2011 Census, Chinese ancestry, either alone or with another ancestry, was claimed by 866,200 permanent residents, while there was a population of 574,200 who spoke Chinese at home. These statistics raise some questions. For those who speak Chinese at home, why might they be committed to learning or speaking the Chinese language? What does the Chinese language mean in their lives? What role does a sense of their Chinese identity play in the process of their learning and speaking Chinese? For the rest who do not speak Chinese at home, what has happened? Have they shifted entirely to English or are they struggling to maintain their CHL? How does CHL loss or CHL maintenance shape their Chinese identity? In Australia, CHLLs may be mistaken for native Chinese speakers in some situations, largely because of looking Chinese, but they may also be

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

criticised for their incomplete mastery of Chinese in other situations (Ang, 2001). This results in a challenge, more or less, for CHLLs to find a comfortable way of living within the overlapping boundaries of Australian society and their heritage community. The core of the challenge is the internal balance between being nationally Australian and being ethnically Chinese through the tensions between nationalism and multiculturalism in contemporary Australia (Ang, 2001). If Chinese Australians choose either to live a lifestyle of their Chinese heritage or move completely into the Australian lifestyle, their choices appear to be mutually exclusive. Alternatively, they may choose to lead lives that include elements of both languages and cultures. As a reflection of these challenges, some fundamental but complex questions that Chinese Australians keep asking themselves may be: Who am I? Where am I from? Where do I belong? How do others define me? What does Chinese heritage mean in my life? Why do I learn Chinese? How do my decisions to use and learn Chinese and/or English affect my identity? The questions mentioned implicate ambiguity and complexity in Chinese Australians’ identity and their commitment to CHL learning. Within the micro and macro linguistic markets, this ambiguity and complexity often reflects how Chinese Australians position themselves and how they have been positioned, sometimes unfavourably and sometimes in contradictory ways, by their family members, their peers, their communities and their lived worlds. The phenomena here are multifaceted and complicated. The complicated linguistic histories, profiles and needs of CHLLs, their diverse language learning and socialisation processes and outcomes, and the benefits and challenges of developing their CHL proficiency require further scrutiny. To unpack the tendencies and intricacies of these multilayered and internested phenomena calls for a variety of methods, across the quantitative and qualitative spectrum. This call will soon be echoed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5, where both quantitative and qualitative evidence will be provided to analyse and discuss CHLLs’ commitment to, and identity construction through, CHL learning in Australia and beyond.

Chapter Summary My book sets its scene in Australia, an idiosyncratic cultural and social place for Chinese Australians, their ancestors and descendants. The ‘goldrush’ age saw the agitation of European diggers towards Chinese diggers due to the lure of gold and the competition in gold mining. This agitation resulted in restrictive anti-Chinese legislation in the late 1850s and the early 1860s. Later, the so-called ‘White Australia Policy’ promulgated in 1901 constructed

From the White Australia Policy to Multiculturalism

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the legal basis for the racial superiority of ‘whiteness’ over Chineseness and other ‘colouredness’. Nevertheless, the dismantlement of the White Australia Policy in the late 1970s saw the arrival of multiculturalism in Australia. Furthermore, the 2012 Australia in the Asian Century White Paper increased the linguistic value of Chinese language and favoured the cultural identity of Chineseness. In brief, Australia is a complex social place for Chinese Australians who firstly suffered from the potholes and distractions brought about by the historical discrimination against their Chineseness, and then enjoyed, consciously or unconsciously, the rejuvenation of this Chineseness brought about by the multicultural ideology. Therefore, it is compelling to speculate how Chinese Australians inherit the cultural history, negotiate the contemporary tensions and project future imaginations. The point of departure of my book is to contemplate the intricacies of Chinese Australians’ CHL learning in relation to their capture of diverse forms of capital and embodiment of habitus of Chineseness within social fields of Australia and beyond. The book differs from the bulk of the previous scholarship contextually, theoretically and methodologically. In the following chapter, I will present a critical review of extant research that is concerned with CHLLs in the West, mostly in North America. I will also debate how the existing knowledge about CHL learning has helped me to develop the sociological, mixed methods study reported in this book.

Notes (1)

(2)

Vietnamese Boat People refers to refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship after the Vietnam War, especially in the late 1970s but continuing until the early 1990s. The estimated population of the Vietnamese Boat People are 2 million. These people’s first destinations were the Southeast Asian countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, plus the then British colony of Hong Kong. The massive arrival of the Vietnamese Boat People in these countries and regions led to an international humanitarian crisis with Southeast Asia increasingly unwilling to accept more refugees. Later, the great majority of the Vietnamese Boat People were resettled in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, France and Germany. The Four Modernisations Program was initiated by the former Premier ZHOU Enlai in 1963. The Program formally started in 1978 to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology in China. The Program was adopted as a means of rejuvenating China’s economy in 1978 following the death of MAO Zedong. It was among the defining features of DENG Xiaoping’s government.

2 Chinese Heritage Language and its Learners in the West: Empirical Knowledge, Theoretical Framework and Research Method The absolute number of Chinese language learners remains relatively low in many non-Chinese-speaking countries, especially in the West. However, Chinese language programs have been growing steadily worldwide since the 1990s (Xing, 2006). This growth has continued to accelerate since the early 2000s when the Chinese Central Government initiated the establishment of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms outside China. This initiative has been welcomed by numerous universities and schools worldwide. By virtue of the continuous sponsorship of the Confucius Institute Headquarters located in Beijing and the joint commitment of the participating universities and schools outside of China, by the end of 2013, there have been 440 Confucius Institutes and 646 Confucius Classrooms established across 120 countries and regions in the world (Confucius Institute Headquarters, 2013). Figure 2.1 demonstrates the geographical distribution of these Confucius Institutes and Classrooms. The current century has seen and will continue to see rapid growth in the number of Chinese leaners all over the world, indicating the potential for the development of Chinese into an international language after English (Tong & Cheung, 2011). Currently, Chinese has secured its place among the priority taught languages in African, European, Australasian and wider American settings (Lo Bianco, 2011). For example, Chinese language has long been one of the four priority languages in Australia (Australian Government, 2012; Council of Australian Governments, 1994). The success of these initiatives turns ultimately on the willing commitment of effort, time and other resources from learners and the social world over an extended 24

Chinese Heritage Language and its Learners in the West

25

149 93 50

153

144 384 37 10

17 49

Number of Confucius Institutes

Number of Confucius Classrooms

Figure 2.1 Distribution of Confucius Institutes/Classrooms in the world (adapted from http://www.hanban.org/confuciousinstitutes/)

period in which learners construct certain understandings of themselves, others and this social world. There is widespread agreement that the nature of this commitment and understanding varies with social contexts and learners’ characteristics. Differences between learners of Chinese origin and those of other linguistic and cultural groups are considered by some to be consequential for successful Chinese language programs (He, 2006; Tsung & Cruickshank, 2011; Xing, 2006). As such, the phenomenon of Chinese populations learning Chinese in countries where Chinese is neither the medium of instruction nor a mandatory subject of study deserves due attention. The estimated Chinese diaspora population is approximately 50 million (H. Wang, 2012) – probably the largest diaspora population in the world. As such, this population is becoming increasingly prominent in Englishspeaking societies of the West – the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and bilingual Canada included. The heterogeneity and complexity of this population and its associated social, cultural and historical ramifications have drawn growing interest in these countries. One of the emerging challenges in relation to this population is the maintenance of the home language, Chinese in this case, and the shift to English. The literature engaging with this phenomenon often looks at the commitment to learning the home language and the identity constructed through the learning process. Following this route, the current chapter aims to unpack the intricacies within the subtle, multilayered identities and nuanced, internested learning commitment of CHLLs, and to contemplate the nature and dynamics, as well as the potholes and distractions, of CHL learning within the contemporary world of increasing linguistic and cultural diversity.

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

In the previous chapter, I have briefly touched on the notions of Heritage Language (HL) and Heritage Language Learners (HLLs). Now I will treat these notions as theoretical concepts and turn to a more penetrating conceptualisation of these terms.

What is a Heritage Language and Who are its Learners? The notion of Heritage Language (HL) has existed in English-speaking countries for a long time along with various alternative terms such as ‘home language’, ‘mother tongue’ or ‘community language’ (He, 2008). In a broad sense, HL can refer to immigrant languages, indigenous languages and colonial languages (Fishman, 2001). Specifically, HL denotes a language other than English that is associated with one’s cultural background and may or may not be spoken at home or formally learnt in schools (Chinen & Tucker, 2005; Cho et al., 1997). The learners of HLs are hard to define given their diverse backgrounds. In this respect, the definition of Heritage Language Learners (HLLs) varies with contexts and foci in relation to place, HL proficiency, heritage membership and identity. All definitions are of validity and value within particular contexts. However, as HLLs cover a very heterogeneous population living in and sometimes crossing diverse sociocultural and geographical spaces, there is no universal definition capable of embracing all individuals under the heading of HLLs in all situations. The optimal definition will function in a specific context where this definition emerges. HLLs in the United States are defined as individuals who are members of a community with linguistic roots in a language other than English and who are learning the language of that community (Cho, 2000). The main determinants of being a HLL in this definition are association with a HL community and identification of membership in that community. Proficiency in the HL, however, is not taken into account. This definition may apply to HLLs in a community that has a strong sense of HL maintenance and development. Where there are limited numbers of HL speakers who are struggling to establish a community and striving to reverse language shift, this definition might be overly narrow. Other definitions of HLLs extend to the ancestral language of an individual or group, regardless of whether that language is still used at home or in a community. For example, HLLs are individuals who have the desire to learn the language spoken by their ancestors or previous generations of their families, which is not the language of the current dominant society (Cummins, 1998; Noels, 2005).

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This definition, again, does not take account of HL proficiency. However, it does highlight intentional commitment to HL learning. Some definitions are more comprehensive. For example, HLLs are those with some degree of bilingual proficiency, a cultural connection to their HL, a motivation to perceive that cultural connection (Van Deusen-Scholl, 2003), as well as identity and/or linguistic needs for HL learning related to their heritage background (Carreira, 2004). These learners, raised in and belonging to a home and community where a language other than English is spoken, can speak or at least understand the HL, and therefore are to some degree bilingual in English and the HL (Valdés, 2001). These definitions indicate that proficiency in and commitment to a HL, as well as membership in a heritage community are criteria for determining the status of HLLs. This is a point of distinction from the definitions of Cho (2000), Cummins (1998) and Noels (2005). However, the assumptions that HL is necessarily used at home or in a heritage community, and that HLLs have a certain level of HL proficiency are untenable. Previous definitions of HLLs have their own highlights and problems. Mindful of this, I will zoom in on the definition of CHLLs. In this book, Chinese Heritage Language Learners refers to those who have Chinese ancestry; who are educated primarily in English, and therefore may or may not speak or understand a Chinese language; and may be bilingual in a Chinese language and English. Specifically, in the Australian context, CHLLs are Australian citizens or permanent residents with Chinese ancestry. If born outside Australia, they had to have moved to Australia before the age of 13, as children below 13 are considered less shaped by their learning experiences (Bhatti, 2002). Consequently, their language learning experiences in Australia would be more salient than those in their birthplace. Since they would have been educated primarily in English, they meet the conventional age criterion for designation as HLLs (Bhatti, 2002; Mu, 2014b; J. Zhang, 2009). In this respect, CHLLs in Australia consist of a diverse group of people in terms of language use patterns and countries of origins. They may or may not be able to speak a Chinese language. They could have been born on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan. They could have been born in other Asian countries where Chinese is widely spoken, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia or Vietnam. They could also have been born in Australia or any other Western country. They are all considered to be CHLLs, as people who immigrated at an early age and were primarily educated in English in their host country, or children born in an Englishspeaking country but exposed to their immigrant parents’ or ancestors’ native language in a community are likely to become HLLs (Cho, 2000; Cho et al., 1997).

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

A point of clarification is in order here. Chinese is an umbrella term embracing many dialects used mainly in China but also in Chinese diasporas as far as Southeast Asia, North America, Australasia and the UK, among many other places in the world. It is widely acknowledged that CHLLs within diverse Chinese-speaking communities basically use seven major mutually unintelligible spoken but orthographically similar varieties of dialects, including northern Chinese (the majority dialect, a sub-variety of which is Mandarin), Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Wu, Xiang and Gan (W. Li, 1994). Returning to CHLLs, the definition that I posed above is considered to be an inclusive one. It is useful because it can describe the complexity of the CHLLs who comprise a heterogeneous group ranging from those fluent in a Chinese language to those with no Chinese language proficiency at all. At one end of the spectrum, they may be those who grew up with a Chinese home language other than English. At the other end of the spectrum, they may be either third generation or further removed or inter-racial adoptees with no exposure to CHL but some degrees of feelings of cultural connection to their Chinese heritage. In this vein, CHLLs, alongside other HLLs, are special groups of learners. This specialness is not only because of their internal heterogeneity mentioned above, but also due to their distinct differences from non-Heritage Language Learners (NHLLs) in terms of background knowledge of and previous contact with the language, as well as forms of desire for learning the language. Given the speciality of HLLs, HL learning for this very diverse population is a complex but compelling process that has gained increasing scholarly attention. With respect to CHLLs, there is a steady stream of literature that documents their commitment to and identity construction in CHL learning. I will now turn to analyse and synthesise this literature.

Commitment to Chinese Heritage Language Learning: Motivation, Investment and Capital The benefits of learning and retaining HLs, both for individuals and for society, have been well documented (Baker, 2003; Cho, 2000; McGinnis, 2005; Tse, 2001), but in English-dominant countries, loss of HL occurs with the shift from HL to English (Baker, 2003; Fishman, 1991; Tse, 2001). In these contexts, CHLLs’ commitment to CHL learning is apt to vary considerably. Reasons behind their commitment have been investigated through different theoretical frameworks. In this section, I will review empirical work on CHLLs’ commitment to CHL learning underpinned by the social psychological notion of motivation and the poststructural notion of investment respectively. Building on the critical analysis of the social

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psychological and poststructural schools, I propose the use of the sociological notion of capital to theorise CHLLs’ commitment to CHL learning.

Motivation: A social psychological drive In language learning contexts, social psychological approaches to motivation seek to explain the individual characteristics that affect language learning, and sometimes how social context influences these characteristics. Motivational studies with classical social psychological perspectives in second language learning were pioneered by Gardner and Lambert (1959, 1972), who identify two major types of motivation, namely integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. By their accounts, integrative motivation is characterised by the learner’s positive attitudes towards the Target Language (TL) group and the desire to learn the TL to help the learners to integrate into the TL community. Integrative motivation includes the desire to learn a TL in order to communicate with people who speak that language, the desire to identify closely with the TL group and the desire for cultural understanding of the TL community. The concept of integrative motivation implies that successful language learning depends on a willingness or desire to be like valued members of the TL group (Gardner, 1968). In contrast, instrumental motivation, by Gardner and Lambert’s (1959, 1972) accounts, refers to the desire to fulfil certain pragmatic and utilitarian goals to gain some social or economic rewards through the TL achievement. It refers to a more functional reason for language learning, such as getting a job or passing an examination. The typologies of motivation are widely used in second language learning research. These concepts also shed light on CHL learning research. Informed by Gardner and Lambert’s (1959, 1972) motivation theory, Wen (1997) investigated the motivation of CHLLs at a US university. Findings indicated that integrative interest in Chinese culture and the desire to understand that cultural heritage were the initial motivation for students to start learning Chinese. This suggested that integrative motivation played an important role in the preliminary stage of Chinese learning. At the same time, students’ presumption that Chinese courses were less demanding than other courses also motivated them to choose Chinese. This suggested that in the beginning students were also instrumentally motivated in learning Chinese to fulfil course requirements. These results were largely consonant with a later study conducted in a Canadian university. Li (2005) revealed that most CHLLs were driven by both motivational orientations. They were integratively motivated to learn more about themselves and their ethnic cultures. At the same time, they were instrumentally motivated, hoping to increase their future career opportunities in relation to the growing Chinese economy.

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language

Nevertheless, findings from Yang’s (2003) examination of motivational orientations suggested integrative motivation to be more important than instrumental motivation for CHLLs at a US university. Heritage was the most important variable affecting their integrative motivational orientations. This seemed to be at odds with other studies (Wen, 1997, 2011), which found that instrumental motivation was a significant predictor for continuing to learn Chinese. In these studies, CHLLs who chose to continue studying Chinese tended to think that learning outcomes and performance would lead to certain meaningful results or valued instrumentality. Consequently, their decision to continue Chinese learning was closely related to perceived usefulness of the language career-wise, and the perceived importance of the language in the current global economy. Interestingly, some comparisons between CHLLs and NHLLs yielded inconsistent results. Lu and Li (2008) contended that CHLLs were more influenced by instrumental motivation to pursue Chinese than NHLLs. In contrast, Wen (2011) observed no significant difference in the instrumental motivation between CHLLs and NHLLs. The study indicated that all learners valued the usefulness of Chinese language proficiency and studied the language for future opportunities. Although Gardner and Lambert’s integrative versus instrumental orientation approach is prevalent in motivation studies, it is not the only social psychological approach for motivation research. Drawing insights from SelfDetermination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Deci & Ryan, 2000), Comanaru and Noels (2009) found that commitment to CHL learning resulted from both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of CHLLs at a US university. The more CHLLs felt that learning Chinese was personally meaningful and fun, or that learning Chinese was imposed on them by others, the more they engaged in the learning process. CHLLs were reportedly more intrinsically motivated than NHLLs: they felt much more strongly that Chinese was a central part of themselves, or they had a stronger self-imposed feeling that they ought to learn the language. Within the social psychological camp itself there has long been a call to transcend the motivational categorisations of integrative versus instrumental, as well as intrinsic versus extrinsic. For example, Dörnyei (2000) takes a diachronic perspective and considers the temporal dimension to be important when studying learners’ motivation at the pre-actional, actional and post-actional phases. This work enriches the traditional dichotomous motivations and reconceptualises motivation as a changing and accumulative arousal that ‘initiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies, terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes and desires are selected, prioritised, operationalised, and (successfully

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or unsuccessfully) acted out’ (Dörnyei, 2000: 524). This definition indicates that motivation is a situated, dynamic, relational and contextual concept (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009b). Despite the wide use of the fluid, processoriented conceptualisation of motivation in language learning research, and in second language acquisition research in particular (Dörnyei, 2005), there is little, if any, empirical HL research built on such a framework. In summary, empirical studies have acknowledged the challenges of distinguishing types of motivation in CHL contexts. Traditional dichotomies of motivation become blurred and blended among CHLLs. Empirical studies have also revealed that CHLLs’ motivation in CHL learning is not fixed but shifts over time. For example, contrary to childhood CHL learning experiences, which were reportedly ‘annoying’, CHLLs considered their Chinese learning experiences at the university to be ‘interesting’, ‘rewarding’ and ‘important’ (D. Li, 2005). These findings pointed out the limitation of Gardner’s and other analogous motivation theories in CHL contexts. In other words, investigation of the link between motivation and CHL learning within cognitive, linear and reductionist frameworks is problematic. Additionally, these frameworks assume that motivation is no different than a static physical entity that individual learners either have or do not have, or either have or do not have enough of; and that the more disposed and motivated learners are to master a language, the more successful they will be in doing so. These views put the full blame for ineffective language learning outcomes on the learners, as they are believed to have failed to sustain a necessary level of commitment and drive in the language learning process. These theories overlook the fact that motivation and social context are indivisible and that motivation is anchored in individual learners’ reciprocal relationships and collective practices (Celik, 2007). Unlike the classical social psychological approaches to motivation, poststructuralist theorists view commitment to language learning as a co-construction with discursive and social structures that cannot be simply and easily compartmentalised into one type or another originating uniquely from or residing within the individual learner (D. Li & Duff, 2008). I will now turn to analyse the poststructural scholarship regarding the commitment to CHL learning.

Investment: A poststructural commitment In light of feminist poststructuralism, Norton (1995) argues that the classical social psychological concept of motivation does not pay attention to the complex and dynamic relationship between the learner and the social world. She criticises this conceptualisation for viewing learners as static

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individuals who are inadequately labelled as a constellation of binaries, including ‘motivated’ versus ‘unmotivated’. In an attempt to critically conceptualise the relationship between the language learner and the social world, Norton (1995) challenges the static conceptualisation of motivation in Gardner and Lambert’s (1959, 1972) model and proposes the concept of ‘investment’ to recast the concept of ‘motivation’. According to Norton (2000), investment denotes learners’ commitment to learning a TL in order to achieve some imagined future self. By her account, language learners will expect some return on that investment, which is commensurate with the effort expended on language learning. The metaphor of investment is economic in origin, but differs from the economic understanding of investment. The economic approach to investment is underpinned by the rationality of individuals, implying that investment is based on individual decision making (Coyle, 2002). In contrast, Norton’s feminist poststructuralist approach to investment emphasises the perplexity of individuals. As a result, language learners’ ‘investment in the target language may be complex, contradictory, and in a state of flux’ (Norton, 2000: 11). The concept of investment in this context was expanded to include material and symbolic resources rather than being restricted to economic resources. For this reason, learning a language is investing with the hope of gaining access to a wider range of symbolic resources, such as education, occupation and friendship, along with material resources, such as real estate and money (Norton, 2000). The concept of investment necessarily complicates the ways in which motivation has been traditionally understood as a fixed personality trait. The concept conceives of language learners as having a complex identity, which is multiple, negotiable and changeable. The notion recognises that learners’ imagined future uses of TL affect their choices of engagement in the language-learning process. The notion also considers the relationship between the learner and others, and between the learner and the social world, both playing significant roles in the language learning process. As with poststructuralist perspectives, reframing ‘motivation’ into ‘investment’ offers a theoretical instrument to examine how individual commitments to TL learning are shaped and reshaped in and by particular social contexts and how individual learners are rewarded through their commitment to TL learning at a given time and place (Pavlenko, 2002). Since the development of the notion of investment, there has been proliferating literature that engages with second language learners’ investment. The use of investment is also emerging in CHL research. Drawing insights from Norton’s (1995) concept of investment, WegerGuntharp (2006) investigated CHLLs’ commitment to CHL learning at a US

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university. The results demonstrated that the reasons behind these learners’ commitment to CHL learning included the intended use of Chinese for future work, the attainment of advanced levels of Chinese and the understanding of cultural heritage. This indicated that investment in CHL helped them gain access to a wider range of (potential) resources. The results also indicated that investment was changing and shifting across time. In many cases, participants felt learning Chinese was not ‘cool’ (Weger-Guntharp, 2006; 37) because their parents made them do so when they were small. However, when they were learning Chinese at university, they were fond of learning it instead of being pushed to do so by their parents. This phenomenon was also documented in the social psychological literature mentioned above (e.g. D. Li, 2005). The ‘hate-to-love’ shift, which social psychological approaches have struggled to explain, can make sense through the poststructural notion of investment. This is evidently argued by Wong and Xiao (2010). In their study, many university-level CHLLs admitted that learning Chinese was once an unpleasant activity forced on them by their parents. Later, however, they considered learning Chinese a wise and worthwhile investment. They considered Chinese to be a prominent currency in the world economy and contended that Chinese proficiency would enhance their job prospects and favourably position them in global markets. All the students reported that Chinese learning would give them a competitive edge in their careers and help them realise their goals. In addition, most students viewed Chinese learning as a means of fostering their connection to Chinese-speaking networks. Their investment was expected to pay off financially and socially. These findings confirmed Norton’s (2000) standpoint that language learning enables learners to access a wider range of resources as a return on their investment in language learning. For CHLLs, investment in CHL learning becomes a means of acquiring greater access to symbolic and material resources.

Capital: A sociological mechanism As argued earlier, the two concepts, motivation and investment, are constructs rooted in significantly different research frameworks of language learning, and therefore function in different contexts and serve different research purposes. Gardner and Lambert (1959) engaged in quantitative investigations of motivation as an individual trait from a classical social psychological perspective, whereas Norton (1995) looked qualitatively at language learners’ complex and multiple strategies of investment within the social world and was prompted to reconsider and extend the concept of motivation through a feminist poststructuralist perspective.

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However, the concept of investment has not gone without criticism over the past decade. Menard-Warwick (2005) suggested that the construct does not adequately consider both the structural and agentive forces that shape a learner’s language development. Briefly touching on learners’ histories and inadequate inquiries into learners’ trajectories are not enough to examine the sources of learners’ investment (Menard-Warwick, 2005). To address this challenge, I propose to use Bourdieu’s sociological notion of capital because investment does demand capital and capital enables investment. To clarify, capital refers to accumulated resources and has the potential to produce profits and to reproduce itself in an identical or expanded form (Bourdieu, 1986). These forms include economic capital – financial wealth or assets directly convertible into money; cultural capital – valued cultural objects; embodied knowledge, behaviour and modes of thought; institutionally recognised credentials; social capital – the possession of durable networks of acquaintance and recognition (Bourdieu, 1986); and symbolic capital – ‘a reputation for competence and an image of respectability and honourability’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 291). Although existing CHL research does not explicitly use Bourdieu’s concept of capital, the capital metaphor could make sense in the empirical research. Friendships in Chinese community schools (J. Zhang, 2009) and relationships with Chinese peers in regular schools (Luo & Wiseman, 2000) were found to be important contributors for CHL retention and development of Chinese American children. Parentchild and grandparent-grandchild cohesion as well as communication with family members at home and relatives in China were regarded as salient reasons behind the CHL maintenance of Chinese American children (Luo & Wiseman, 2000) and Chinese British children (Francis et al., 2009) respectively. Similarly, Chinese American parents considered effective communication within a family milieu and Chinese-speaking community an important reason behind their decisions to maintain their children’s CHL (Lao, 2004). In Bourdieu’s term, social capital in forms of friend networks, family ties and community engagement drives the commitment to CHL learning. Furthermore, frequent winning of Chinese speech contests (J. Zhang, 2009), which can be understood as institutionalised cultural capital in Bourdieu’s term, encouraged Chinese American children to learn CHL. In contrast, the observed inadequate Chinese reading materials in Chinese immigrant families in the US, or the print-poor environment at home, could impede further development of children’s CHL (Lao, 2004; Xiao, 2008). For Bourdieu, the scarcity of objectified cultural capital at home may hamper children’s CHL learning.

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Moreover, Chinese American children felt proud when their bilingual skills were praised by schoolteachers (J. Zhang, 2009). This made them eager to learn CHL at community schools. On the contrary, Chinese British children considered not being able to speak Chinese a ‘disgrace’, ‘embarrassing’ and a reason for being ‘ashamed’ (Francis et al., 2009: 529). In Bourdieu’s term, the symbolic capital accrued through CHL learning motivates these children to learn CHL. In addition, Chinese British children reported that Chinese learning would facilitate future employment opportunities in China (Francis et al., 2009). This view was also shared by Chinese-American parents who encouraged their children to learn Chinese to have a better job in future (Lao, 2004). University-level CHLLs in Canada and the US reported similar career-related tactics (D. Li, 2005; Weger-Guntharp, 2006; K.F. Wong & Xiao, 2010; J.S.R. Yang, 2003). These future job opportunities, potentially convertible into ‘economic capital’ in Bourdieu’s term, can be understood as benefits gained through CHL learning. It is noteworthy here that capital must be understood in relation to field, or a structured social space, the entry to which requires individuals to have certain quality and quantity of capital (Bourdieu, 1986, 1996), and on entering individuals bring capital at their disposal to define, defend or improve their positions (Bourdieu, 1993). Although there is no research conceptualising Bourdieu’s ‘capital’ and ‘field’ in CHL contexts, some empirical studies have intimated the mutual constitution between ‘capital’ and ‘field’. For example, CHLLs may use CHL in personal conversations among themselves so that no one else can understand them (J. Zhang, 2009). Entry into this field of conversation demands CHL as a form of cultural capital, without which entry will be rejected. Furthermore, CHL can be used to favourably position CHLLs in the economic field (K.F. Wong & Xiao, 2010). In other words, CHL can be valuable cultural capital and symbolic capital in the global job market, enabling CHLLs to become members of the dominant economic group. It has to be reiterated that empirical studies did not explicitly use Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and field to understand CHLLs’ commitment to their CHL learning. However, the examples enumerated above indicate that Bourdieu’s capital metaphor and typology within social fields can shed light on extant empirical work. The notions of capital and field may give answers to questions that neither the social psychological approach nor poststructural approach is able to manage by itself: What are the personal and social reasons behind CHL learning and what are the material and symbolic returns on CHL learning? In recognition of the strong potential of using the notions of capital and field in CHL research, I will now make an attempt to theorise CHLLs’ commitment to CHL learning in different social contexts through a Bourdieusian framework.

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Capitalising on language: A Bourdieusian approach to CHL learning According to Bourdieu (1986), capital has the capacity to produce material and symbolic profits and to reproduce itself in an identical or expanded form in certain situations. The reproduction of these resources depends on the value of the profits expected from the investments of the quantity and quality of capital in different forms (Bourdieu, 1996). Language competence, in particular, can be a form of capital because it is both the outcome of the investment in language learning and the generator of new capital through the process of language learning. This is termed as linguistic capital, which can be understood as a form of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1999a), and more specifically, as a form of embodied cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1977a). Linguistic capital has two dimensions: the mastery of, and relation to, language (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). The mastery of a language can produce linguistic competence in that language, while the relation to a language can produce legitimate competence in that language. Linguistic competence is the capacity for ‘infinite generation of grammatically regular discourse’, which may not be valued either ‘in the social conditions of its constitution’ or ‘in the social conditions of its operation’ (Bourdieu, 1977a: 646). In contrast, legitimate competence is the capacity to produce judicious and appropriate language, which is used in strategies invested with all possible functions rather than only communicative functions. To clarify, what is often rare in practice is not the competence to speak, which, being part of our biological capacity, is ‘universal and therefore essentially non-distinctive’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 55), but rather the competence to speak the legitimate language, which produces ‘a profit of distinction on the occasion of each social exchange’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 55). In this way, in the mid-20th-century French context, Bourdieu differentiated between a literary orientation, which may include Latinate vocabulary and constructions, as well as a striving for rare and novel expressions, and a situational orientation, which may include vocabulary that is acquired rather than learned and reliance upon figures of speech shared by a particular group. In short, the concept of linguistic capital makes language competence move ‘from syntax to semantics and pragmatics’ (Bourdieu, 1977a: 646). Valued vocabulary, accent and parlance (Bourdieu, 1991, 1999b), together with legitimate linguistic strategies, such as ‘tension or relaxation’, as well as ‘vigilance or condescension’ (Bourdieu, 1977a: 654), can be valuable aspects of linguistic capital. Language competence becomes linguistic capital only when it is valued and recognised in a specific language market. For Bourdieu, there are ‘hierarchies of legitimacy’ or ‘the hierarchy of the arts, of genres etc’

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(Bourdieu, 1984: 86). As such, there is a hierarchical situation in terms of the legitimised languages and their value in the linguistic market. That is to say, different ways of speaking in a language can accrue different amount of linguistic capital when being legitimised with different values in different situations. Along the spectrum of a given language competence, there is a hierarchy of different ways of speaking with different values, from the most legitimised to the least legitimised. Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital also sheds light on people’s choice and pursuit of different languages in a multicultural society where there is a spectrum of different languages existing with different legitimised values. This is particularly true for HLs in a dominant language context. Gogolin (2002) argued that German was positioned at the top of the hierarchy in the German school education system, followed by different ‘layers’ (126) of HLs, such as English, Turkish, HLs spoken by legal immigrants and their descendants, and HLs spoken by illegal immigrants and their descendants. Likewise, there seems to be a perceived hierarchy among different varieties of Chinese language. In Li and Zhu’s (2011) study, British-Chinese pupils, their parents, and their teachers considered Mandarin most popular, Cantonese better than Hakka or Hokkien, and other regional varieties ‘rough’ and ‘uncultured’ (18). Given its potential to illuminate multilingual settings, Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital offers a meaningful theoretical tool to examine the positioning of CHL in increasingly linguistically diverse Western societies, for example Australia, where linguistic plurality amongst settlers has been a reality since the landing of the first cohort of white immigrants in the late 18th century. When CHL is recognised and valued in a given situation, Chinese Australians may invest their available capital to cultivate their CHL. At the same time, they may expect a return on their investment: an access to a wider range of different forms of capital. In contrast, Chinese Australians may not engage in CHL learning when and where their CHL does not accrue any recognised value. As Bourdieu (1986) argues, capital, in its different forms, has the potential to produce profits, which determine the chances of success for certain practices, and to reproduce itself in an identical or expanded form through successful practices. Accordingly, linguistic capital can realise the exchange of value and form through successful language learning. The opportunities for language learners to cultivate a language are determined by the amount and structure of various forms of capital available to them. When the language accrues value and becomes linguistic capital in the process of language cultivation, this language helps its learners gain access to a wider range of resources in the forms of economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. The reciprocal relationship between capital and language learning

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only makes sense at a certain place and time. Firstly, language learning can be understood as a form of practice. As Bourdieu (1986) argues, the chances of success for practices are determined by the capture of different forms of capital at a given moment in a given social space. These powerful moments and spaces are what Bourdieu meant by ‘field’, or a language market that may decide whether a given individual will choose to cultivate a given language (Garnham & Williams, 1993). Secondly, the language market decides the value of the capitalised language, or linguistic capital, and decides the amount and forms of other capital that this linguistic capital can produce as a return on the language learning. One degree of language proficiency may be linguistically equal but not socially equal across different fields, in other words, may be worth more or less as linguistic capital. In a social field where multiple languages co-exist, when one language dominates the linguistic community, the linguistic field will make that language the norm against which the value of other languages is measured (Bourdieu, 1977a). This recognised domination will, in return, structure the rules of the field to measure other languages against the legitimate language. The inherent relationship between capital and field in language learning context has been explained by Bourdieu (1996): language functions as capital in relation to particular linguistic fields, where language learners invest in the language learning actions to construct social reality and in turn negotiate the very conditions under which their communicative exchanges take place. In this section, I have engaged with CHLLs’ commitment to their CHL learning in Western societies. In order to capture the nuances and dynamics of these learners’ commitment, I have expounded the necessary conceptual transformation from the social psychological notion of motivation, through the poststructural notion of investment, to the Bourdieusian notion of capital. In what follows, I will attempt to analyse another body of literature that engages with CHL research: the intricate identity issues associated with CHLLs in relation to their CHL learning.

Identity Issues in Chinese Heritage Language Learning: Self-Identification, Constructed Identity and Habitus Historically, the identity-language link has attracted a great deal of attention. Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803), the German philosopher, observed that even the smallest nations cherish the great deeds of their forefathers in and through their languages, and concluded that

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language is the collective treasure of group feeling (Barnard, 1969). Similarly, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), the Prussian philosopher, insisted that language is the ‘spiritual exhalation’ of a nation (Cowan, 1963: 277). Following these historical assumptions of a necessary language-identity link, the mutually constitutive relationship between language and identity construction has been widely recognised in recent literature. In HL research, there is a rich body of literature that addresses the ethnic identity-HL link. Through an extensive literature review, Mu (2015) synthesises the relevant studies by conducting a meta-analysis and provides quantitative evidence on the inherent relationship between ethnic identity construction and HL proficiency across different ethnic groups. Studies of CHLLs have also suggested that learners may study Chinese to search for their ethnic identities (Chao, 1997; He, 2008), indicating an innate relationship between CHLLs’ ethnic identity and their CHL learning (Lin, 2004). This immanent relationship has been examined in CHL contexts from different theoretical perspectives, predominantly from social psychological and poststructural perspectives. In this section, I will debate social psychological and poststructural schools of identity and review empirical work in each school that unravels CHLLs’ identity and CHL learning. Building on this debate, I consider the use of the sociological concept of habitus to be an insightful theoretical tool that has a strong potential to examine the relationship between CHLLs’ identity and their CHL learning.

Self-identification: A social psychological insignia The notion of identity has been the object of extensive scholarly treatment in the social psychological literature in recent decades. Some definitions of identity are based on the commonalities of belonging to the in-group as well as the uniqueness that distinguishes the in-group from the out-group. For example, identity is defined as a subjective feeling of sameness and continuity that provides individuals with a sense of self and serves as a guide to choices in key areas of one’s life (Erikson, 1968). Identity is also defined as part of an individual’s self-concept that derives from knowledge about the individual’s membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership (Tajfel, 1981). These definitions imply that identity is a distinctive character belonging to a given individual, or shared by all members of a particular group (Rummens, 2003). The characteristics shared by the in-group and distinct from the out-group determine the recognition of, and affiliation to, a membership. In these ways, identity marks the ways in which individuals are the same as others or in which the in-group are different from the out-group. These

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understandings are attuned to the psychological notion of ‘self-identity’ that concerns individuals with the state of being a unique person distinct from all others as reflexively understood by that individual throughout time (Rummens, 2003). Individuals are shaped and formed, in a relatively fixed worldview, by sharing common or similar beliefs and opinions, common or similar emotional attitudes, as well as common or similar behavioural dispositions. The social psychological understanding of identity makes sense when investigating ethnic groups’ HL loss, maintenance or development. Ethnic groups must collectively decide whether to maintain their HL or to let it erode (Giles & Johnson, 1987). In other words, HL erosion, maintenance or development depends, to a certain extent, on decisions being made and strategies being enacted. Following this traditional approach, some studies investigated the CHL-ethnic identity link from a social psychological perspective. Oh and Fuligni (2010) conducted a cross-ethnicity study in the US. Despite the focus on the influence of HL proficiency and use on the social development of adolescents from Asian backgrounds, the study examined the influence of HL proficiency on adolescents’ ethnic identity. The majority of these young people were of Chinese descent. The study revealed significant positive associations between the ethnic identity subscales and HL proficiency. When HL proficiency and language use patterns at home were taken together, it appeared that HL proficiency was the stronger predictor for ethnic identity and parent-child relationships. This finding was largely echoed in Kiang’s (2008) study where young Chinese American adults were found to have a stronger sense of ethnic identity when they possessed greater CHL proficiency and more positive family and peer relationships. Other studies also presented similar results. The sense of relatedness to Chinese family and community was found to be the most consistent predictor for a self-determined orientation to CHL learning (Comanaru & Noels, 2009). Examination of CHLLs’ preferences for simplified or traditional scripts and their attitudes toward different dialects demonstrated connections between CHLLs’ evolving identities and reasons for the preference of script and dialect (D. Li, 2005). This indicated the relationship between learning a CHL dialect and sub-cultural Chinese identity. In summary, ethnic identity has been commonly understood in social psychological treatments as one’s alignment, affiliation with or membership in a particular ethnic group. It is also a sense of the emotional ties that a person has with the group and the meanings of the ties to the person. The existing literature about CHLLs’ identity focuses heavily on ethnic identity. Key areas of investigation include CHLLs’ self-labelling, self-identification

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and sense of attachment and belonging (Kiang, 2008; Rosenthal & Feldman, 1992). Some studies have addressed the positive relationship between ethnic identity and CHL proficiency or usage (Comanaru & Noels, 2009; Feuerverger, 1991; Kiang, 2008; D. Li, 2005; Oh & Fuligni, 2010; Rosenthal & Feldman, 1992). As such, the emphasis is clearly on how individuals identify themselves, as well as on how related factors such as place of birth, generation, gender, age, socialisation and CHL proficiency help to inform such self-identifications. Nevertheless, the process of self-identification is a relative ‘self-system’ (Dörnyei, 2005). Its central concept is the ‘ideal self’ – the representation of the attributes that language learners would ideally like to possess, such as personal hopes and aspirations; while a complementary self-guide is the ‘ought-to self’ – the attributes that learners believe they ought to possess, such as others’ sense of duties and obligations (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009a). At the heart of the relationship between the ‘ideal’ and the ‘ought-to’ lies the question of the internalisation of the external structures. Given the salient social impact, it is important to look at the tensions around a desired possible identity between the ‘ideal’ possessed by the learner and the ‘ought-to’ imposed on the learner by others (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009b). The tensions between the internal and the external relate to another school of identity that I will now turn to: the school of poststructuralism.

Constructed identity: A poststructural state of flux In contrast to the social psychological perspective, poststructuralism conceptualises identity as the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of individuals, their sense of themselves and others, and their ways of understanding their relation to the world (Norton, 1995, 2000). Within this framework, identity is understood as the unpredictable outcome of a combination of diverse systems in which people come to terms with who they are in relation to others around them, and is strongly influenced by the way they view the past, present and future (Norton, 2000). To clarify, identity, firstly, explains how individuals perform, interpret and project their sense of themselves by their bodily features, language pattern and social behaviours. Secondly, identity offers an idea of how individuals understand others around them and how they relate to others. Thirdly, identity examines how individuals fit in or belong to the social world and links their social positions with social situations. In this vein, poststructuralist understandings of identity are concerned with how individuals are formed as subjects, how individuals adopt their subject position, and how individuals experience social variations across time and space (Holmes et al., 2007). The marking

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of commonality and difference is achieved not only symbolically through representational systems but also socially through inclusion and exclusion of certain groups of people (Woodward, 1997). Poststructuralism considers identity to be multiple and contradictory (Norton, 1995). Individuals sometimes live across social, geographical and linguistic borders. Consequently, they have to negotiate group boundaries when travelling between, or dealing with, different communities. Crossing the borders, their identities become destabilised. In order to reach equilibrium, they enter a period of struggle and negotiate the contradiction of differences. The entire process is conflictive and ambivalent as opposed to harmonious or steady. In contrast to the social psychological understandings of identity, the poststructural school implies that identity is neither innate nor genetically determined, but is socially emerging, modified, transformed and differentiated, open to continuous redefinition and constant slippage. Poststructuralism also argues that identity is socially constructed and produced through language (Norton, 1995). Identity is produced in a whole range of discursive practices in which individuals ‘are constantly organising and reorganising a sense of who they are and how they relate to the social world’ (Norton, 2000: 11). That is to say, when language learners speak, they are not only exchanging information but also constantly restructuring their social identities and negotiating the ongoing tensions between these identities and the social world. As individuals acquire language, they learn to give voice and meaning to their experiences and to understand language according to particular ways of thinking. This language learning process constitutes and structures consciousness and a sense of self, that is, identity. Through using a particular language, identity is expressed, enacted and symbolised in socially specific ways. In line with these poststructuralist perspectives, some empirical studies have examined CHLLs’ identity construction in CHL learning contexts. Chao (1997) reported the challenges that Chinese Americans had during their CHL learning. When younger, CHLLs’ priority was to seek identity in the English-speaking community and their CHL became an unnecessary burden that required extra effort to learn. However, during their adulthood, they looked at the opportunity to study Chinese on their own terms, with their ‘ethno-racial identity’ being the impetus towards learning their ‘native tongue’ (Chao, 1997: 8). The study reflected the multiple, contradictory and shifting identities of these CHLLs constructed through CHL learning. Resonating with a poststructuralist perspective, the study indicated that the identities of CHLLs were constructed in dynamic, diversified and openended ways, continuously shaped by changing social contexts.

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Wong and Xiao (2010) revealed that CHLLs in US universities were associated with a contingent side of their ethnic selves of being Chinese, Chinese American, American or somewhere in between, depending on the time, location and context. They also found that CHLLs’ identities are flexible formations, variously possessed, produced and practised through CHL learning. These findings are consonant with poststructuralist understandings of identity as changeable with shifts of social space and passage of social time. Ang (2001) engaged with her own predicaments of Chinese identity in diaspora. Despite her Chinese descent, she was different in China because she could not speak Chinese. Due to ‘not speaking Chinese’, she was positioned as a ‘fake’ Chinese by ‘real’ Chinese. That is, she failed to legitimise her Chinese identity because ‘not speaking Chinese’ did not give her a recognised identity as a ‘real’ Chinese. In the West, she was also different because she looked Chinese. A sense of alienation took hold of her. Nevertheless, she argued that diasporic Chinese have the potential to challenge the static, essentialist and universal conceptions of Chinese identity. Their complex and flexible positioning between host countries and China keeps a creative tension between current social place and cultural history. This tension fills the space in the bipolar dichotomy of the present and the past with new forms of syncretic identity in the collision of the two (Ang, 2001). In this mixed-up, interdependent, mobile and volatile world, clinging to a traditional notion of static, unified and homogenous Chinese identity is ultimately self-defeating (Ang, 2001). Chinese identity in a poststructuralist notion is not fixed or pre-given, but constantly renegotiated and rearticulated. It is a diverse, heterogeneous and ultimately precarious hybridity. To sum up, poststructuralist approaches acknowledge the multiplicity and open-endedness of identity processes. They see all individuals as users of multiple linguistic resources and as members of complex layers in multiple communities and societies. Transient language users are able to move between different and complex contexts. With a poststructuralist perspective, identity is understood as a cover term for ‘a range of social personae, including social statuses, roles, positions, relationships, and institutional and other relevant community identities one may attempt to claim or assign in the course of social life’ (Ochs, 1993: 288). Identity consists of multidimensional, contradictory and ever-changing images, descriptions and evaluations of oneself as an active and changing subject in the eyes of oneself, others and society. Identity is socially constructed rather than born, invented rather than given, always in a process of change rather than at a standstill. Drawing insights from poststructural perspectives, CHLLs’ identities are considered multiple, dynamic, contradictory and socially produced through language rather than innate or genetically determined.

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Habitus: A sociological system of embodied dispositions As argued earlier, social psychological scholarship contends that ethnic identity is an internal representation of CHLLs during the process of CHL learning. In contrast, poststructuralist scholarship considers identity to be multiple, shifting, contradictory and socially constructed through CHL learning. However, the poststructuralist concept of multiple identities without foundational basis has its limitations. The assumption that human identity is wholly malleable and that the body can be styled to assume an invented identity runs into problems when faced with the durability of human beings’ internal schemata (Luke, 2009). The body does remember so that human beings remain in many ways the products of kinship and blood (Luke, 2009). In light of Luke’s perspectives, I propose the use of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to better construe the identity of CHLLs. Habitus refers to embodied systems of durable, transposable, but not immutable dispositions, a predisposed set of structured and structuring structures (Bourdieu, 1977b). This is one of the most widely cited definitions of habitus in the literature. However, this definition by itself hardly makes any sense to readers who are not familiar with Bourdieu’s sociology. It is the connotations beyond the literal denotation of the definition that warrant more debate. Given the sociological abstrusity deeply embedded in the definition, I will use some space to elaborate on the notion of habitus. Firstly, as an embodied set of durable and transposable dispositions, habitus distinguishes itself from transient, ephemeral systems. It is durable because of its potential to last over time; it is transposable due to its capacity to perform across different contexts. This durability and transposability come to define habitus as a set of structured structures, rather than a set of random, arbitrary ascriptions. The structured structures that connote the habitual dispositions are often normalised and routinised, hence largely taken for granted. Secondly, habitus possesses a predisposed nature. This indicates that habitus is built on the past and related to history. Cultural roots, ancestral origin and genealogical heritage all come to inform and structure the enduring inclinations and propensities. In this vein, habitus is a past that survives in the present and tends to reproduce itself in future. Despite the durable, transposable and predisposed features associated with habitus, it does not mean that habitus should be contemplated through an essentialist, static or synchronic lens. Hence, my third point is in order here: habitus is not immutable; instead, it is a set of structuring structures. In other words, habitus is an open system of dispositions that are constantly shaped and reshaped by the external world. It is exposed and subjected to sociological conditions, such

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family upbringing, education and life chances and challenges. Sometimes, habitus has to be confronted with imposed, repeated counter-training. All of these experiences may help to create emergent properties for habitus. In this respect, habitus is never culturally fossilised or passively inscribed; rather, it is always potentially subject to change, with gradual evolution or involution, at least to a certain extent. Habitus underpins durable cognitive structures and a dispositional sense of action that direct people to appropriate responses to given situations (Bourdieu, 1998). Dispositions rooted in mind and body, as well as acquired characteristics, are the product of social conditions and may be totally or partially common to people who have been the product of similar social conditions (Bourdieu, 2005). Though it is impossible for all individuals of the same social group to have had exactly the same experiences and in exactly the same order, each individual of the same group is more likely than that of another group to have encountered situations common amongst members of the group. Accordingly, within a particular field, individuals who occupy similar positions are likely to have similar dispositions and therefore to produce similar practices (Bourdieu, 1985b). Here, Bourdieu tended to highlight that habitus cannot be understood independently of a given field. The unequivocal relationship between habitus and field has been explained by Bourdieu and Wacquant: On the one side, it is a relation of conditioning: the field structures the habitus, which is the product of the embodiment of the immanent necessity of a field. On the other side, it is a relation of knowledge or cognitive construction. Habitus contributes to constituting the field as a meaningful world: a world endowed with sense and value, in which it is worth investing one’s energy. (1992: 127) Informed by Bourdieu, identity can be understood in relation to how individual dispositions are defined, contained, and enabled by the bodily features that individuals possess, by the actions that they take, and by the languages that they speak. It concerns how individuals internalise various forms of external elements and produce their sense of self in response to the social structures. Ascribed attributes and identities, such as race, ethnicity, gender and native language, are not of people’s own choice, and thereby they remain an embodied presence and cannot be erased or made over. Habitus explains the tendency to perpetuate these attributes and identities (Bourdieu, 1996). But people may have their own intentions to hide, alter, redesign or garnish their identities by certain degrees in response to given social conditions (Luke, 2009). As such, certain aspects of identity, although durable

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and transposable, are not immutable. Therefore, habitus, as ‘structured structures’ and ‘structuring structures’, offers an opportunity to describe the tensions between the social psychological school that considers identity to be structured, endogenous and internal, and the poststructural school that considers identity to be structuring, exogenous and oversocialised. Drawing insight from Bourdieu, Costello (2005) conceives of identity as a set of largely unintentional dispositions, using the notion of habitus to explicate how identity affects cognitive style as well as embodied deportment. Similarly, Holland and colleagues (1998) emphasise the production and transformation of habitus, seeing it as a fundamental but not final or given aspect of identity construction. This emphasis is shared by Bartlett and Holland (2002), who use the concept of habitus as a way of describing and analysing identity formation in practice. Rowsell (2008) also emphasises the interplay between habitus and identity practices. In brief, identity construction is often less than fully conscious (Bucholtz & Hall, 2009) and is often tied to habitual practice (Bourdieu, 1977b). Identity draws upon and reflects habitus (Zacher, 2008). Habitus, in this way, comes to generate identity (Rowsell, 2008). Therefore, Bourdieu’s key concept of habitus offers a theoretical instrument to examine people’s identity. One of the ways in which attempts have been made to make sense of ethnic identity has also been through Bourdieu’s notion of habitus (Connolly, 2011). Drawing insights from this perspective, Connolly (2011) demonstrates how children have already begun to embody and internalise the cultural dispositions and ethnic awareness of their respective ethnic groups. These cultural propensities of the ethnic groups may not stem from people’s own conscious choice, and hereby may remain durable and transposable across different times and places in people’s lives. These embodied dispositions, such as affiliated cultural, experiential and historical memories, stay (Luke, 2009; Webb et al., 2002). In this respect, ethnic and racial dimensions are constitutive of habitus (Cockerham & Hinote, 2009; Diamond et al., 2004; Horvat & Antonio, 1999) and habitus can be shaped by these ethnic and racial dimensions (McClelland, 1990; Reay, 2004). Although the potential of employing Bourdieu’s concept of habitus in heritage research is promising, few studies have related habitus to an analysis of ethnic identity. Given this, I propose to examine CHLLs’ ethnic identity of Chineseness with reference to Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. To clarify, I interpret Chineseness as a set of propensities associated with people of Chinese ancestry, embedded within their physical attributes, rooted in their Chinese cultural history and heritage, emergent from their family upbringing and social learning, and potentially enduring and reproducible

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in prospective terms. The durable and transposable tendencies within CHLLs’ Chineseness prompt them to think and act in such a way that has been inculcated by Chinese heritage, shared tastes, values and way of life. Although this Chineseness may change constantly in response to new experiences, the change is ‘never radical, because it (habitus) works on the basis of the premises established in the previous state’ (Bourdieu, 2000: 161). In short, the construction of an ethnic identity makes sense through habitus (Jenkins, 1992) and derives from shared cultural history (Rowsell, 2008). Therefore, Bourdieu’s sociological notion of habitus constructs a possible conceptual underpinning for the notion of Chineseness used here. In what follows, I will make an attempt to theorise how habitus of Chineseness may inform CHL learning.

Habitus in fields: A set of structures coming to shape language choice The relationship between habitus and field helps make sense of agents’ language choices in certain situations, which can be understood as the product of a ‘sub-set of dispositions acquired in the course of learning to speak in particular contexts (the family, the peer group, the school, etc.)’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 17). These socially constructed dispositions imply a certain capacity to speak and a certain propensity to say given things in a particular situation. This capacity can be understood as the control over linguistic capital, which involves both the linguistic capacity to generate an infinite number of grammatically correct utterances, and the social capacity to use this competence adequately in a given situation. This argument illuminates the way that habitus is the generative basis for language choices and also suggests a sociological link between habitus and language choices in a given field (Bourdieu, 1991). At the same time, there is a widespread belief that embodied dispositions are produced through the usage of a shared language. For example, an empirical study involving interviews with Chinese parents in a region of central Scotland (A. Hancock, 2006) found that acquiring CHL literacy was perceived by the parents to be linked with the transmission of traditional Chinese cultural beliefs and values. When asked about the attitude towards children’s learning Chinese literacy, one parent replied: ‘Poor Chinese, poor Chinese person’ (A. Hancock, 2006: 363). What emerged from this investigation was that CHL literacy was considered to be inextricably bound together with the maintenance and development of Chinese cultural dispositions. The fact that CHLLs spend formative years learning CHL results in their acquiring a habitus of Chineseness that will endure into their

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adult life. Therefore, habitus of Chineseness is structured or restructured through CHL learning and CHL learning is central to habitus of Chineseness. For Bourdieu, the mutually constitutive effect between habitus and language choice and practice existed within a given language, namely French. In this book, I will extend this theoretical perspective to a mutually constitutive effect between habitus and language choices and practices across different languages in multicultural and multilingual settings. To specify, I intend to use habitus of Chineseness as a theoretical lens to trace the CHLLs who encounter structural forces while enacting their agentive will to choose or not to choose CHL learning in and across various social fields.

Theorising Chinese Heritage Language Learning: A Bourdieusian Framework So far, I have worked through the social psychological and poststructural views towards CHLLs’ commitment to and their identity construction through CHL learning. To recapitulate, I firstly engaged with how CHLLs’ commitment to CHL learning has been conceptualised through the social psychological notion of motivation and the poststructural notion of investment. I was then concerned with how CHLLs’ identity relates to CHL learning in light of the individualistic, oversimplistic social psychological school and the fluid, oversocialised poststructural school. Each school has its own contextual, conceptual, methodological and empirical foci, as well as its pros and cons. In contrast to the bulk of the extant work, I have tentatively proposed the use of Bourdieu’s signature notions of capital, habitus and field in CHL research. In this section, I will move on to explicate Bourdieu’s sociology with a particular focus on the three key notions just mentioned. My intention here is to formulate a framework that underpins the phenomenon of CHL learning. Capital, habitus and field are the three main ‘thinking tools’ (Wacquant, 1989: 40) of Bourdieu’s sociological approach. They form an inter-dependent and co-constructed triad, with none of them primary, dominant or causal (Thomson, 2008). They need to be taken together to realise the full value of a Bourdieusian perspective. Formally, Bourdieu (1984: 101) has offered the equation: “[(habitus) (capital)] + field = practice”, to summarise the conceptually and empirically essential relationship amongst capital, habitus and field which informs individuals’ practices. The equation implies that manners of being and thinking, routine behaviours and patterned sociocultural activities in which individuals engage (practices) result from the relations between their dispositions (habitus) and their social resources (capital), within the

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current state of play of a particular social arena (field). More specifically, Bourdieu (1991) theorises that people make language choices as a form of social practice according to the amount of different resources (capital) as well as the dispositions (habitus) that they have within a given social space (field). In other words, language has the potential to produce, and to be produced through, certain forms of capital and habitus within certain fields. Language learning and its usage, as forms of practice, receive their value and make sense only in their relations to a field (Bourdieu, 1991). Hence, the positions and the dispositions of language learners within a given field are essential to an understanding of their language choices. For Bourdieu, these language choices refer to a particular accent, a certain vocabulary or an appropriate way of speaking in a given language that would be legitimised within a given situation. In this book, I will extend this Bourdieusian stance to choices between different languages. As such, the choice of a particular language in a given field is then affected by the quantity and the quality of capital that are available to the agents in that field as well as by the forms and structures of habitus that are associated with the agents in the field. Possession of certain forms and combinations of capital and a certain habitus lead to the ability to anticipate the ‘language game’. This ability determines whether an agent has a ‘basic minimum of chances in the game, and therefore power over the game’ and hence can invest in the potential profits of that game (Bourdieu, 2000: 220). In the CHL context, some empirical studies have indicated the essential roles played by CHLLs’ commitment and their ethnic identity in CHL learning processes. These studies point to the fact that CHLLs learn CHL willingly or unwillingly, with manifold, dynamically ebbing and flowing reasons across multiple, evolving contexts within short-time range or longtime range frames, negotiating various, emerging internal and external tensions. In this respect, Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, habitus and field have the potential to shed light on these empirical findings. However, there is scant research that draws on the triad of capital, habitus and field to investigate CHLLs’ language choices. In light of the Bourdieusian sociological perspectives presented here, a theoretical framework can be proposed. This framework refers back to the informing theories and the existing literature, and guides the examination of this problem – the interdependence of Chinese Australians’ Chineseness qua habitus, their various resources as capital, and their CHL proficiency as a form of linguistic capital that results from their practice of CHL learning within particular fields. The problem under examination here is a complex and multilayered one. Hence, diverse research methods are required to unveil the general tendencies behind this problem and to capture the nuanced subtleties embedded in this

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problem. To this end, I will now turn to some of Bourdieu’s concerns about methodological pluralism.

Bourdieu’s Methodological Pluralism Bourdieu’s theoretical approach is intended to bypass or dissolve a plethora of oppositions and antinomies (Bourdieu, 1991). His theory is a systematic attempt to move beyond a dichotomy between ‘objectivism’ and ‘subjectivism’. By objectivism Bourdieu means ‘an intellectual orientation to the social world which seeks to construct the objective relations which structure practices and representations’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 11). This orientation is ‘independent of individual consciousness and wills’ (Bourdieu, 1981: 87). Objectivism presupposes a break with subjective experience. It attempts to elucidate the structures and principles upon which subjective experience is dependent but which it cannot grasp. In contrast, by subjectivism Bourdieu means ‘an intellectual orientation to the social world which seeks to grasp the way the world appears to the individuals who are situated within it’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 11). Subjectivism presupposes the possibility of the comprehension of the lived experience that is a form of knowledge about the social world where subjective lived experience is central to comprehension and knowledge. Traditionally, objectivism and subjectivism have been opposed to each other. However, ‘the coexistence of two opposing truths defines the full truth’ of the social world (Bourdieu, 1981: 89). This Bourdieusian dualist perspective indicates that neither objectivism nor subjectivism alone is an adequate intellectual orientation (Bourdieu, 1991). For Bourdieu, subjectivism concentrates too much on individual experience and perceptions of the social world and overlooks the power of structures within the social world, while objectivism refuses to take account of individual capacity, relegating and shackling individuals to objective relations of social structure. Therefore, Bourdieu chooses the term ‘structuralist constructivism’ or ‘constructivist structuralism’ to stress the dialectical articulation of the two moments, namely objectivism and subjectivism in his theory (Bourdieu, 1989: 14; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 11). One of the ways that Bourdieu’s work thinks through objectivism and subjectivism is its conceptualisation of capital, habitus and field. In the Bourdieusian nexus of capital, habitus and field, agents are socialised by an evolving set of roles and relationships in social domains (fields), where their dispositions (habitus) and various resources (capital) are at stake. Agents’ capital and habitus are valued and re-valued by the field and their agency is structured by the field. At the same time, various agents struggle for the transformation or preservation of the structure of the field (Bourdieu, 1998).

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In other words, fields are structured and restructured by the agents who operate their habitus and capital within the fields. Thus, the field is a ‘field of forces’, which imposes on agents and agents in turn conserve or transform the structure of the field by their agency (Bourdieu, 1998: 32). Bourdieu theorises the necessary relations between the concepts of capital and habitus in the existing fields in which capital and habitus are contextualised. This relational concern constructs a theoretical foundation to examine how CHLLs’ Chineseness qua habitus and their various resources qua capital are related to their CHL learning as a form of practice in their lived social fields. As agents, CHLLs inhabit the social world and therefore tend to adjust themselves to the structure of the social world. At the same time, they create their social lives and generate the structure of the social world, so the social world is continuously changing due to their dynamic agency. There is, therefore, a mutually influential relationship where CHLLs shape their lived social world by virtue of their agency, which, in turn, is structured by the social orders within their lived world. Bourdieu’s logic of research is ‘inseparably empirical and theoretical’ because ‘one cannot think well except in and through theoretically constructed empirical cases’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 160). The goal of such research is ‘to grasp the particularity within the generality and the generality within the particularity’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 75) and to uncover ‘the universal buried deep within the most particular’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 44). By ‘generality’, Bourdieu refers to the kinds, facts and patterns sought by quantitative approaches; by ‘particularity’, Bourdieu means the contextualised experiences of particular subjects sought by qualitative approaches. This viewpoint demonstrates Bourdieu’s attempt to think through the split between quantitative and qualitative positions. Bourdieu has shown the way for a kind of research that manages to combine both a quantitative and a qualitative methodology. He argues that ‘statistics are bound to be abstract’ but with the complement of interviews and texts, profound phenomenon can be revealed ‘even more clearly’ (Bourdieu, 1996: 174). He (1981: 96) contended that objective analysis does not contradict subjective analysis ‘of primary experience of the social world, and of the immediate comprehension of the utterances, acts, or works of others’. It is necessary to pass from the ‘statistical regularity or algebraic structure’ to the principle of qualitative investigation of subjective experience in the social world (Bourdieu, 1981: 94). Here, he seems to suggest that the objective analysis and the subjective experience could fit within the same methodological paradigm. In the operationalisation of theoretical concepts such as cultural capital and social capital, there is a need for a combination of various methods (Vryonides, 2007). Moreover, a fuller understanding of

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habitus and how it works in identity construction would benefit from the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods (Connolly, 2011). Thus, methodological pluralism is embedded in Bourdieu’s theoretical stances. In brief, the full value of Bourdieu’s theoretical and methodological thinking enables this book to depict a more complete portrait of CHLLs, embracing how they negotiate their habitus of Chineseness and capitalise on various forms of capital through learning CHL in the social fields of Australia and beyond. Drawing on Bourdieu’s methodological pluralism, I adopted a mixed methods design for the study reported in this book. The quantitative predictions and trends, the qualitative nuances and dynamics, as well as the trans-quant-and-qual empirical evidence will be elucidated in subsequent chapters.

Chapter Summary Both social psychological and poststructuralist schools have made meaningful sense of the phenomena regarding CHL learning in certain contexts but have been open to critiques from other contexts. The social psychological scholarship often quantitatively examines the phenomena and focuses on micro-level individual preferences as the sole explanation for individual language behaviours, while the poststructuralist scholarship, largely qualitative in methodology, tries to create macro-level socially constructed dynamics that shape individual language choices. To dissolve a plethora of oppositions between the social psychological inside-out approach and the poststructuralist outside-in approach, I propose to consider Bourdieu’s sociological framework that is composed of the triad notions of capital, habitus and field. Figure 2.2 presented below provides a conceptual summary of how social psychological and poststructural schools give rise to the Bourdieusian framework that underpins CHLLs’ commitment to, and their identity construction in, CHL learning. I will spend some space here to walk the reader through Figure 2.2. The left part of the figure is concerned with the inherent relationship between different schools that address language learners’ commitment to language learning. Classical social psychological scholarship recognises motivational binaries to be core predictors for language learning outcomes. Nevertheless, the dichotomy of motivational orientations for CHLLs becomes blended and blurred. As such, the static, individualistic, linear and synchronic view of the social psychological school has been criticised for not taking enough account of social impacts on language learning. In contrast, the poststructuralism accounts for CHLLs’ commitment in relation to their lived social world and recasts motivation into investment. As a return on

Chinese Heritage Language and its Learners in the West

Social psychological perspective on CHL learning

Motivation

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Ethnic identity

Bourdieusian perspective on CHL learning Reconcile

Recast Capital

Habitus Fields

Complement

Investment

Poststructuralist perspective on CHL Learning

Ethnic identity

Figure 2.2 A ‘map’ of the literature

this investment, language learners expect to gain access to a wider range of material and symbolic resources. However, the notion of investment did not conceptualise the nature of these resources or detail the full learning trajectories of language learners. In this respect, Bourdieu’s notion of capital can complement the notion of investment because investment demands capital and capital has value or adds value to realise the return on investment. The right part of the figure engages with different camps of scholarship that scrutinise language learners’ identity construction through language learning. The social psychological school understands ethnic identity as a set of internal and static attributes associated with CHLLs, while the poststructural school considers ethnic identity to be dynamic and socially constructed through CHL learning. As such, these two schools are largely opposed to each other. Some physical and biological entities, as dimensions within ethnic identity, cannot be elided, removed or changed, and do stay with the language learners all through their life. Other dimensions of ethnic identity, such as cultural awareness and values, are inculcated and cultivated through language learning, and thus are socially constructed. To reconcile these two camps of scholarship, I use Bourdieu’s notion of habitus to help understand CHLLs’ Chineseness as a set of embodied dispositions that have the tendency to internalise social structures through CHL learning.

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On the one hand, habitus of Chineseness is inherited from the same cultural origin, ancestral root and historical heritage. As a set of structured structures, habitus of Chineseness is therefore durable and transposable. On the other hand, habitus of Chineseness is constantly shaped and reshaped through language socialisation. As a set of structuring structures, habitus of Chineseness is thus adjustable to emergent social orders. In this respect, habitus of Chineseness is neither fully free of nor completely determined by cultural history. It has the potential to perpetuate its past to the future. In other words, it references the past structures but also makes due revisions according to future positions. In brief, habitus of Chineseness is both retrospective and prospective. The central part of the figure zooms in on Bourdieu’s sociological framework. The concept of habitus has a potential to grasp the generative principles that underlie CHLLs’ language practices in specific cultural contexts and social settings, or ‘fields’. Hence, particular practices should be understood as not only the product of the habitus but also the product of these fields, as well as the product of the relations between the habitus and the fields. These specific fields are structured spaces of interrelations where CHLLs’ positions are determined by the distribution of different kind of resources, or ‘capital’. CHLLs struggle to maintain or change the distribution of the forms of capital according to a specific interest of the fields. The interest determines the value of capital and allows one form of capital to be converted into another. Therefore, habitus, field and capital are three entangled concepts when interpreting CHLLs’ language choices and practices. To conclude, there is a dearth of research investigating CHLLs’ commitment to, and their ethnic identity through, CHL learning from a Bourdieusian stance; CHL research conducted outside North America has a relatively small body of literature. CHL with its heterogeneity and complexity in its speakers and their associated social, cultural and historical ramifications has not received its due scholarly attention (He, 2008). In this respect, there is a demand for sociological investigation into the complexities of CHLLs, not only in North American but also in other diasporic contexts worldwide where CHL has a relatively significant population of learners and speakers, such as Australia, a complex lived social world with an idiosyncratic historical and cultural background. The problem under examination is involute and multidimensional. Hence, contemplation of the problem requires diverse research methods, across a quantitative and qualitative spectrum. In the next three chapters, I will draw on data from multiple sources to look at how Chinese Australians negotiate their Chineseness and capitalise on resources through learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia and beyond.

3 Sociological Mechanism for Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia: A Quantitative Investigation The focus of this chapter addresses the sociological drives behind CHL learning in Australia. As argued in Chapter 2, CHLLs’ capture of habitus of Chineseness and various forms of capital theoretically project their CHL learning, a particular form of social practice. In response to this theoretical assumption, an empirical question is asked: is CHL proficiency of Chinese Australians influenced by various forms of capital at their disposal, the strength of their habitus of Chineseness, or both? Three constructs under investigation here are CHL proficiency, habitus of Chineseness and capital. The latter construct consists of four sub-constructs, namely economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and symbolic capital. If habitus and capital do represent the internal agency operating in social fields and do represent a set of dispositions and positions that are manifest, to some extent, in the regulation of particular ways of being, thinking and behaving, these patterns should be discernible and thus ultimately measurable at least to some degree. However, there is little documentation of a comprehensive quantitative interrogation on the interactions amongst the habitus of Chineseness associated with Chinese Australians, various forms of capital accessible to them, and CHL learning practices that they enact. This chapter will provide quantitative evidence to verify the application of the theoretical framework deduced from the extant literature and Bourdieu’s sociology. First and foremost, I will explain how the quantitative data were produced.

The Survey Design: Operationalisation of Theoretical Constructs Survey is one of the most commonly used methods in quantitative studies to collect data to test theoretical models (Groves et al., 2004). It offers the 55

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current quantitative study a systematic method for constructing numeric descriptors of the attributes of the target Chinese Australian population by gathering information from a sample of this target population. The quantitative study targeted young Chinese Australian adults living in urban Australia. This target population was selected for two reasons. Firstly, 94% of Chinese Australians and 97% of Chinese Australians who spoke Chinese at home lived in the eight capital cities (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011). It can be argued that an overwhelming proportion of Chinese Australians live in urban areas. As such, it is hardly possible to sample Chinese Australians living in rural areas. Secondly, identity develops over time, beginning in childhood, through a particularly salient process during adolescence and young adulthood (Oh & Fuligni, 2010; Phinney & Ong, 2007). Levinson called this life period the ‘novice phase’ (1978: 322–323) and argued that the overriding task of this phase is to move into the adult world and build a life structure. During this phase, young adults experience a considerable amount of change and instability while sorting through various possibilities in their social lives. Although Chinese Australians have to negotiate tensions around their CHL learning practices all through their lives, I am particularly interested in the complex negotiating process during a precarious and probably bewildering period in their life, young adulthood. For these two reasons, the quantitative study targeted young Chinese Australian adults living in urban areas. Also, because of these two reasons, the quantitative study chose to use an online questionnaire, given the ease of access to, and the widespread use of, the internet among urban young people. The sampling strategies will be introduced later when I go through the design of the pilot phase and the main study. There are four sections in the main body of the questionnaire. The first section collected demographic and background information from the participants. The next three sections measured participants’ attitudes towards attributes often associated with their cultural dispositions of Chineseness, various resources at their disposal, and their perceptions of their CHL proficiency respectively. Accordingly, Chineseness qua habitus, four forms of capital, namely economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital, and CHL proficiency were treated as latent variables in the quantitative phase, reflected by their corresponding questionnaire items. To measure items mapping to these variables, a seven-point Likert-type scale was used as a proxy interval level of measurement in line with common practice in educational research (Lehman, 1991; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). To gauge CHL proficiency, a self-reporting strategy was used. This is a commonly used approach to measuring language proficiency in largescale questionnaire studies where the direct testing of language proficiency

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is difficult (Phinney et al., 2001). There are contrasting views on the selfreporting approach to measuring subject achievement. On the one hand, the meta-analysis conducted by Kuncel et al. (2005) challenged the accuracy of self-reported academic grades, ranks and test scores. Specifically, MacIntyre et al. (1997) seemed to indicate biases in self-reported/rated second language proficiency. On the other hand, many other studies have found self-reported subject achievement to be remarkably consistent with actual achievement (Anaya, 1999; Cassady, 2001; Cole & Gonyea, 2010). In particular, selfreporting measures have been found to correlate highly with direct measures of Heritage Language ability (Kang & Kim, 2012; Oh & Fuligni, 2010). Hence, I adopted the self-reporting strategy to measure CHL proficiency. Nine items were used to gauge the self-reported CHL listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. The four skills were addressed separately because HLLs often display wide gaps in these four skills (Carreira, 2004; Dai & Zhang, 2008). Mandarin proficiency was of particular interest because of its increasing value in various linguistic fields (Mu, 2013), Australia in particular (Tasker, 2012). Operationalisation of habitus of Chineseness and four forms of capital requires an in-depth review of literature to examine how these concepts are defined and described from a theoretical point of view. This enables the identification of key dimensions within these theoretical concepts. Operationalisation of these concepts thus follows. According to Bourdieu (1990b), ‘the distribution of capital in its different kinds among the individuals’ is quantifiable (135). Following this advice, attempts have been made to quantify capital. For example, highest personal educational attainment (Bourdieu, 1973, 1984; Veenstra, 2009), attendance at high cultural events (such as concerts, galleries and museums) (Bourdieu, 1984; De Graaf & De Graaf, 2000; DiMaggio, 1982; Dumais, 2002; Marks, 2009; Sullivan, 2001; Yamamoto & Brinton, 2010) and ownership of cultural or educational objects (Roscigno & Ainsworth-Darnell, 1999; Sullivan, 2001; Yamamoto & Brinton, 2010) could be used as indicators of the presence of cultural capital. Participation in different kinds of social associations and frequency of contacts with acquaintances, friends, and family members could be used as indicators of presence of social capital (Veenstra, 2009). Accordingly, economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital was operationalised through four, six, four and five items respectively. Habitus is a nebulous concept. Accordingly, it is difficult to measure in empirical research (Sullivan, 2002). Despite this challenge, existing studies have attempted to operationalise it. Habitus can explain how individuals formulate their expectations and beliefs (Dumais, 2002; McClelland, 1990). Following this perspective, both Dumais (2002) and McClelland

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(1990) operationalised habitus with a set of measures of occupational aspirations. More relevant to the current study, Cockerham and Hinote (2009) suggested that measures of collectivities can be especially useful to quantify habitus, where collectivities refer to collections of agents linked together through particular social relationships and shared norms, values, ideals and social perspectives (Cockerham, 2005). In particular, religion and ideology are examples of collective perspectives (Cockerham, 2005). Since Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism are the three major Chinese schools of culture/religion (Wong et al., 2012), norms, values and perspectives embedded within these schools are particularly helpful in terms of the operationalisation of the habitus of Chineseness. Of all the three schools, Confucianism is probably the most influential and enduring quasi-religious and ideological system in Chinese history and culture (W.O. Lee, 1996; Tan, 2008). In this vein, I paid particular attention to Confucian literature when operationalising habitus of Chineseness. Attributes associated with habitus of Chineseness result from both intentional and unintentional learning. As Bourdieu suggested, both types of learning are made possible by habitus acquired through culture (Bourdieu, 1984) and produced through history (Bourdieu, 1990b). Because Confucianism is the bedrock, even the definitive core, of Chinese culture (Tan, 2008), it can therefore be understood to constitute a cultural history or ‘previous state’ (Bourdieu, 2000: 161) for Chineseness. Since Confucianism is deeply rooted in Chinese societies and highly valued in Chinese social fields, it has become a generative mechanism behind Chinese people’s thinking, being and doing. In this respect, ‘history turned into nature’ (Bourdieu, 1977b: 78) and habitus is an ‘embodied history, internalised as a second nature and so forgotten as history’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 56). Consequently, ‘the active presence of the whole past’ becomes ‘the active presence’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 56) because what historically needed to be durable and transposable through a process of continuous reproduction is now inscribed through social regulations, forms and norms. As ‘inscribed in bodies by identical histories’ (Bourdieu, 1990b: 59), habitus creates homogeneity in social groups. These Bourdieusian stances indicate that the habitus of Chineseness is historically informed by its cultural foundation, that is, Confucian dispositions. These Bourdieusian stances also form the basis for quantifying ‘habitus’, which enables me to rise to the challenge of measuring this involute concept. Although habitus of Chineseness is constantly shaped and improvised within the current social fields and its future cannot be wholly predetermined, the habitual dispositions of Chineseness structured in the cultural history cannot be elided or undone. If the habitus of Chineseness does represent a set of durable and transposable dispositions and does evolve

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from the same Confucian heritage, these ‘structured structures’ associated with habitus of Chineseness are quantifiable, at least to a certain extent. Ho and colleagues (2012) have made an attempt to compile a pool of items to measure Chinese values and norms by consulting Confucian classics and sayings associated with Confucianism. Inspired by these scholars, key dimensions of Confucian norms, values, ideals and social perspectives documented in Confucian classics and popular classical sayings associated with Confucianism were used as measures to quantify habitus of Chineseness. Accordingly, nine items were developed. Since Confucianism has gained increasing scholarly interest not only in China but also globally, it will be worth some elaboration on classical Confucian dispositions. This will also help to make sense of the conceptual roots of the measures used to operationalise habitus of Chineseness.

Confucian Dispositions Confucianism developed from the ethics and philosophy of the Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–478 BC), whose principal concept was to maintain harmony and order and thus keep society together without the undue exercise of force (Clayre, 1984). In theory, Confucianism is a complex system of moral, social, political, philosophical, educational, quasi-religious and ideological thought that has influenced the culture of China and some countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It plays an important role in Chinese civilisation and has a deep impact on Chinese society, Chinese education, Chinese culture and Chinese people. The dimensions of Confucianism have accumulated over the past 2500 years. Different historical eras have reflected different interpretations of these dimensions, but there is a core set of values consisting of Wuchang (五常, Five Constants) and Sizi (四字, Four Virtues). During the Western Han (206 BC–8 AD) Dynasty, Zhongshu Dong (179–104 BC)1, in his book called 《春秋繁露》 (Rich Dew of Spring and Autumn), described the classical dimensions of Wuchang (五常, Five Constants), namely Ren (仁, Benevolence), Yi (义, Righteousness), Li (礼, Ritual or Propriety), Zhi (智, Knowledge or Wisdom) and Xin (信, Integrity or Trustworthiness). During the Ming (1368–1644) Dynasty, Zhonglin Xu (1567–1620), in Chapter 20 of his book called 《封神演义》 (The Legend of Deification), described the classical dimensions of Sizi (四字, Four Virtues), namely Zhong (忠, Loyalty), Xiao (孝, Filial Piety), Jie (节, Continence) and Yi (义, Righteousness). These values were elaborated in ancient publications about Confucianism. The most authoritative ones are Sishu (《四书》, Four Books) and Wujing (《五经》, Five Classics). The Sishu (《四书》, Four Books) are Daxue (《大学》, Great

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Learning), Zhongyong (《中庸》, Doctrine of the Mean), Lunyu (《论语》, Analects) and Mengzi (《孟子》, Mencius). The Wujing (《五经》, Five Classics) are Shijing (《诗经》, Classic of Poetry), Shangshu (《尚书》, Classic of History), Liji (《礼记》, Classic of Rites), Zhouyi (《周易》, Classic of Changes) and Chunqiu (《春秋》, Spring and Autumn Annals). The texts of these ancient publications consist of fragments not written by Confucius himself but compiled by his disciples and second-generation disciples and collated over a long period of time (Lai, 2008). A core set of Confucian values consisting of Wuchang (五常, Five Constants) and Sizi (四字, Four Virtues) elaborated in these ancient publications are explained in turn.

The Wuchang (五常, Five Constants) Ren (仁, Benevolence), Yi (义, Righteousness), Li (礼, Ritual or Propriety), Zhi (智, Knowledge or Wisdom) and Xin (信, Integrity or Trustworthiness) Ren (仁, Benevolence) and Yi (义, Righteousness) are fundamental values within Confucianism. Philanthropy is the key practice of Ren (仁, Benevolence) and Yi (义, Righteousness), by which people can establish healthy and harmonious relationships. Confucianism argues that people should love each other and should ‘老吾老以及人之老, 幼吾幼以及人之 幼’ （《孟子·梁惠王上》, Mencius）. This means people should respect not only their own parents, but also others’ parents; and should look after not only their own children, but also others’ children. Confucius also said that ‘君子成人之美’ (《论语·颜渊》, Analects). This means that a good person has the virtue to oblige others; in other words, a good person will pursue every effort to help others achieve their goals or meet their demands. This can explain why Chinese people often feel uncomfortable about refusing requests from others. Otherwise, it is hard to maintain their face, or a good impression. These dispositions of Chineseness are associated with the values of Ren (仁, Benevolence) and Yi (义, Righteousness). Li (礼, Ritual or Propriety) refers to secular ceremonial behaviour including the propriety or politeness of everyday life. It was codified and treated as a comprehensive system of norms. Shaping rituals in a way that leads to the health of society and its people is one purpose behind Confucian philosophy. With Li (礼, Ritual or Propriety), propriety of behaviour is internalised and exerts its influence before people take actions. People behave properly because they want to avoid losing face. With Li (礼, Ritual or Propriety), people also understand and acknowledge each individual’s correct social position. Li (礼, Ritual or Propriety) builds hierarchical relationships through protocols, assigning everyone a place in society with a proper

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form of behaviour. It is used to distinguish between the younger and the older, or between the student and the teacher. Social disorder is considered to stem from the failure to call things or people by their proper names. The Confucian solution to such disorder is Zhengming (正名, rectification of terms) (《论语》, Analects), by which Confucius was concerned with the use of titles to establish normative relationship obligations (《论语》, Analects). This ideal form of social interaction shaped by Zhengming (正名, rectification of terms), an aspect of Li (礼, Ritual), is associated with the Chinese disposition that people often address those who are senior in age and/or position by their title plus surname rather than their first name. This form of social interaction ‘is not lubricated with the democratic oil of warmth and first names, but with the oil of respect’, which functions as an effective lubricant in a hierarchical Confucian culture (Biggs, 1998: 730). Confucianism pays great heed to Zhi (智, Knowledge or Wisdom). Confucius said that ‘朝闻道, 夕死可矣’ (《论语·里仁》, Analects), which means, ‘If I had mastered the knowledge this morning, I would not have regretted it even if I had to die this evening.’ Accordingly, most essential is the Confucian belief in human self-perfection pursued as the highest purpose of life through personal commitment to learning. Influenced by this Confucian belief, Chinese people consider learning honourable and firmly believe that education is of paramount importance in people’s life (Biggs, 1998). In order to be at the top of society, one must be a scholar. Chinese students’ motivation for socioeconomic advancement through education leads them to study harder (Salili et al., 2001). In Australia, a case study (Zhao & Singh, 2011) demonstrated that Chinese-Australian parents have higher academic expectations for their children than Anglo-Australian parents; and they also attach a higher value to the academic aspects of their children’s life. To some extent, the Chinese-Australian parents’ approach to their children’s academic education can be attributed to their Chineseness in pursuing Zhi (智, Knowledge or Wisdom). Xin (信, Integrity or Trustworthiness) can be literally understood as credibility, which is valued not only in Confucianism but also in all cultures. To be trustworthy, people should do what they say and keep their promises. Like the other dimensions of Wuchang (五常, Five Constants), Xin (信, Integrity or Trustworthiness) is an embodied disposition inculcated by Confucian heritage; unlike the other dimensions, Xin (信, Integrity or Trustworthiness) has to be granted by others. People with Xin (信, Integrity or Trustworthiness) are trusted only when others think these people are worthy of their trust. The Wuchang (五常, Five Constants), as its name suggests, is the constant belief system of Confucianism. It has constructed the foundation of Chinese

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ethics, considered the root of humanity. Due to this constant Confucian belief system, the Wuchang (五常, Five Constants) has an enduring impact on Chinese people, embedded in their dispositions. As such, the Wuchang (五常, Five Constants) can be considered as the underpinnings of the habitus of Chineseness.

The Sizi (四字, Four Virtues) Zhong (忠, Loyalty), Xiao (孝, Filial Piety), Jie (节, Continence) and Yi (义, Righteousness) Zhong (忠, Loyalty) emphasises obligations of the ruled to the ruler, the dominated to the dominant and the less powerful to the more powerful, but puts less emphasis on the obligations of the ruler to the ruled. With Zhong (忠, Loyalty), the social hierarchy is maintained. Zhong (忠, Loyalty) is also an extension of one’s duties to the country, the nation, the family and friends. Xiao (孝, Filial Piety) characterises the respect that children should show to their parents. Confucius said that ‘父母在, 不远游, 游必有方’ (《论语·里仁》, Analects), which means, ‘When your parents are alive, do not travel too much; if you have to, you must let your parents know where you are.’ Chinese people often stay close to their family members, especially close to the older generation. This can be attributed to their Chineseness to fulfil their filial piety to the older generation. Mencius (372–289 BC), one of the disciples of Confucius, said that ‘不孝有三, 无后为大’ (《孟子·离 娄上》, Mencius), which means, ‘There are three things that can challenge Filial Piety. Being without children, in particular without sons to continue the patrilineal line, challenges Filial Piety the most.’ This disposition of Chineseness is unique as it relates to gender, because traditional Chinese genealogical notions of identity exclude women. Jie (节, Continence) is an important Chinese virtue. In Shangshu (《尚书·大禹谟》, Classic of History), Confucianism argues that ‘克俭于家’, which means, ‘Frugality is important in family life.’ In Zhouyi (《周易·否》, Classic of Changes), Confucianism argues that ‘俭德避难’, which means, ‘The virtue of frugality overcomes difficulty.’ In Zuozhuan (《左传·庄公二十 四年》, Zuo’s Commentary), a book written by Qiuming Zuo (556–451 BC) to interpret Chunqiu (《春秋》, Spring and Autumn Annals), Confucianism argues that ‘俭, 德之共也’, which means, ‘Frugality is a common character of people with virtue.’ Traditionally, Chinese people live frugal lives. This disposition of Chineseness can be attributed to the value of Jie (节, Continence). Yi (义, Righteousness), as one of the dimensions in Sizi (四字, Four Virtues), is equivalent of that in Wuchang (五常, Five Constants) as explained above.

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The Sizi (四字, Four Virtues), deeply rooted in the Confucian cultural history, has served Chinese people as a guide to moral living and shaped their doings in a particularly Chinese way. Chinese people’s propensities associated with their habitus of Chineseness can be largely attributed to the core values in the Sizi (四字, Four Virtues).

The Liuyi (六艺, Six Skills) Li (礼, Rites), Yue (乐, Music), She (射, Archery), Yu (御, Equestrianism), Shu (书, Calligraphy) and Shu (数, Mathematics) Besides Wuchang (五常, Five Constants) and Sizi (四字, Four Virtues), Confucianism requires people to grasp Liuyi (六艺, Six Skills), namely Li (礼, Rites), Yue (乐, Music), She (射, Archery), Yu (御, Equestrianism), Shu (书, Calligraphy) and Shu (数, Mathematics). These six skills were first documented in Zhouli (《周礼》, The Rites of Zhou Dynasty): ‘养国子以道, 乃 教之六艺：一曰五礼、二曰六乐、三曰五射、四曰五御、五曰六书、六曰九数’, which means, ‘Men who excel in these six skills were considered to have reached the state of perfection.’ These skills were also documented in 《三字经》 (ThreeCharacter Classic)2 (Wang, 1223–1296): ‘礼乐射, 御书数, 古六艺’, which means, ‘The traditional six skills are rites, music, archery, equestrianism, calligraphy, and mathematics.’ These skills incorporated both military and civil components. This strongly supports the observation that Chinese students often excel at music, calligraphy and mathematics. This argument is consistent with the Australian data. For instance, Chinese Australian students have been shown to outperform white Australian students in mathematics (Lokan et al., 1997; Mu, 2014a; Zhao & Singh, 2011). Besides the pedagogical and psychological explanations for this better performance, the Chineseness associated with the value of Liuyi (六艺, Six Skills) may serve as a generative mechanism underpinning Chinese students’ relative strength in mathematics (Mu, 2014a). The Liuyi (六艺, Six Skills) focuses on the cultivation of a life of perfect goodness. It serves as a foundation for Chinese people’s cultural dispositions associated with their habitus of Chineseness. In this respect, the Liuyi (六艺, Six Skills) largely explains Chinese people’s perceptions and behaviours in relation to their cultural tastes.

The crisis and rejuvenation of Confucianism Confucianism has developed and evolved over the past 2500 years. This long cultural history has formulated a rich ‘previous state’ (Bourdieu, 2000: 161), or a premise that habitus of Chineseness has been built on. However,

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Confucianism does not always go without crisis and threats. Several historical events nearly devastated Confucianism. These devastating events, in Bourdieusian terms, are ‘counter-trainings’ against habitus. I will come back to this sociological phenomenon at a later stage. Now I will retrospect these historical events destructive to Confucianism. Fenshu Kengru (焚书坑儒, Burning of the books and burying of the scholars) refers to a policy and a sequence of movements in the Qin Dynasty, between the period of 213 BC and 207 BC. Shiji (《史记·卷006·秦始皇本纪》, Chapter 6: The Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin3, in Records of the Grand Historian) documents: 臣请史官非秦记皆烧之。非博士官所职, 天下敢有藏《诗》、 《书》、百家语者, 悉诣守、尉杂等烧之。有敢偶语《诗》、 《书》者弃市。以古非今者族。吏见知不 举者与其同罪。令下三十日不烧, 黥为城旦。 This historical record can be translated as follows: After Emperor Qin unified China in 221 BC, his Prime Minister Si Li proposed that all histories in the imperial archives except those written by the Qin historians be burned; that Shijing (《诗经》, Classic of Poetry) and Shangshu (《尚书》, Classic of History) be collected by the local authorities for burning; that anyone discussing these two books be executed; that anyone using history to criticise the present be put to death, along with their families; that authorities who failed to report cases that came to their attention be equally guilty; and anyone who had not burned the two books within 30 days of the decree be banished to build the Great Wall. Politically, Emperor Qin strengthened his central power and dictatorship by the movement of Fenshu Kengru (焚书坑儒, Burning of the books and burying of the scholars). However, culturally, he wreaked irreversible damage by destroying most collections of ancient Chinese books published prior to the Qin Dynasty. As Chapter 121 of Shiji (《史记·卷121·儒林列传》, Records of the Grand Historian) documents, ‘及至 秦之季世, 焚诗书, 坑术士, 六艺从此缺焉。’ This can be translated as follows: By the end of Qin dynasty, documents of Liuyi (六艺, Six Skills) have nearly disappeared due to the burying of the scholars and the burning of Shijing (《诗经》, Classic of Poetry) and Shangshu (《尚书》, Classic of History). Another blow to Confucianism was caused by the Cultural Revolution. This socio-political movement (1966–76) did significant economic, social and cultural damage to the People’s Republic of China (Xi & Gao, 2005). One of the stated goals of the Cultural Revolution was to bring an end to the Four Olds: Old Ideas, Old Cultures, Old Customs and Old Habits (Chen, 1966). Old Ideas refers to Confucian thought and the works of Confucius and his successors (Chen, 1966). Hence, the slogan accompanying this

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movement was ‘to criticise Confucius’. This movement was devastating. At the material level, it caused dramatic damage to Confucian heritage. Architecture was ransacked; literature and the classics were burned; paintings were torn apart; and antiques were shattered (Xi & Gao, 2005). At the spiritual level, it attempted to sweep away social norms and human virtues established by Confucianism over the previous 2500 years. People arbitrarily used violence to break rules and laws. Without a spiritual home, China became a chaotic society at that time. Starting in the early 1990s and continuing into the 21st century, there has been a massive rebuilding effort to restore the culture that was destroyed or damaged during the Cultural Revolution (Xi & Gao, 2005). This includes the re-instatement of the value system of Confucianism. The resurgence of Confucianism continues into the new century. Today, Confucianism enjoys a robust rejuvenation as ‘an indispensable cultural force’ indicated in the ‘culture craze’ and ‘national learning craze’ (Deng, 2011: 563). Accompanied by a strong interest in the rediscovery of Chinese tradition and history, China is returning to its own roots for inspiration (Deng, 2011). Fenshu Kengru (焚书坑儒, Burning of the books and burying of the scholars) and the Cultural Revolution attempted to remove Confucianism through contrary, detrimental actions. Nevertheless, habitus of Chineseness inherited from Confucianism refuses to disappear. This does not necessarily mean that the durability and transposability of habitus are eternal. It does indicate, however, that habitus has the potential and tendency to perpetuate itself into the future. In this vein, the change of habitus is a laborious and onerous task, hence requires an ongoing ‘comprehensive process of counter-training, involving repeated exercises’ (Bourdieu, 2000: 172). That is to say, the success of changing habitus is largely dependent on intensive and consistent strategies of counter-training. Given the depth and richness of Confucianism and its substantial cultural history, it is not difficult to understand that the habitus of Chineseness survived Fenshu Kengru (焚书坑儒, Burning of the books and burying of the scholars) and the Cultural Revolution. Today, Confucianism remains an integral part of the psychocultural construct of Chinese people today (Tan, 2008) and the texture of contemporary Chinese life (Clayre, 1984). It has had a deep and extensive impact on various dimensions of Chinese society, including history, education, arts, ethics, religion, law, politics and the military (Chang, 2012). Two and a half thousand years after his death, Confucius still represents an entire way of thinking and living: Confucianism. Therefore, Confucianism continues to provide the basis of the core value of Chinese people (Chang, 2012). People of Chinese ancestry, for example Chinese Australians, no matter how much capital they accrue in whatever fields and no matter how much

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they are shaped and reshaped by the social orders of these fields, are matterof-factly associated with the exact same cultural root. This is the foundation of their habitus of Chineseness. Here, I am not arguing that people of Chinese ancestry are cultural dopes and I would by no means agree that Chineseness has the same set of representations. Yet, variegated Chineseness comes from the same habitual root. This is what I mean by habitus of Chineseness. As a set of embodied dispositions, habitus of Chineseness is understood as both the consciousness and the unconsciousness of Chinese ways of doing and understanding things. As habitus, Chineseness rooted in the Chinese heritage is durable and transposable. It is durable because the core Confucian values have an enduring impact on Chinese people today (Lee, 1996), being the dynamic force that directs Chinese life and generates forms of Chinese life (Tan, 2008). It is also transposable because the Confucian culture can be carried out and enacted by Chinese people who reside not just in China but also throughout the world. Chinese people, wherever they are in the world, ‘represent a general Chineseness, deriving from the Confucian heritage itself’, which helps the understanding of their being and learning (Biggs & Watkins, 1996: 269) – being ethnically Chinese, as inherited from their cultural history while learning CHL in their current resident social space. Having taken up some space to illuminate Confucian dispositions in relation to habitus of Chineseness, I will shift back to the quantitative focus of this chapter.

The Pilot Phase: Face Validity and Internal Consistency Reliability To check the feasibility of my original research design and to improve the instrument for my quantitative investigation, I conducted a small-scale pilot study in the initial stage. In the first stage of the pilot study, a printed copy of the questionnaire was distributed to five participants known to the research team. Face validity and language appropriateness were checked by virtue of the feedback from the participants. This ‘pre-pilot’ process was important in that it identified some problems with the instrument. For example, in the original design, participants were asked how many times they had visited China while living in Australia. One participant had visited China while living in Singapore. She asked whether this should count or not. The purpose of this item was to find out how frequently participants had visited China. Therefore, this item was reworded as ‘How many times have you visited China?’ Participants were also asked whether they had lived in a country other than Australia and their country of birth. Some participants asked how long could be regarded as ‘have lived’. This item was then clarified

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as ‘Have you ever lived in a country other than Australia and your country of birth for more than one year?’ These examples demonstrated how the prepilot process helped identify issues and ‘fine-tune’ the instrument. At the second stage of the pilot study, the link to the online questionnaire was sent to 38 participants who met the demographic requirements of the study and who were willing and available to be studied. To reiterate, the target population in the study was young Chinese Australian adults living in urban areas. At the time of the pilot study, all 38 participants were between 18 and 35 years in age, a conventional age for ‘young adult’. They all lived in the capital cities of Australia, mostly in Brisbane. Hence, they were urban residents. In this respect, I used convenience sampling to approach the participants. This non-probability method, often used in research, enabled me to get a gross estimate of the results, without incurring the cost or effort required to select a random sample. Given that these participants were all known to the research team, the return rate was 100%. It will be recalled that there are six constructs or latent variables under investigation, namely Chineseness, economic capital, cultural capital, social capital, symbolic capital and CHL proficiency. The online questionnaire items were treated as indicator variables for these constructs. The value of Cronbach’s α corresponding to all six latent variables was above the cut-off value of .80 (Kline, 1999). The value of corrected item total correlation corresponding to all items was well above the cut-off value of .33, indicating that each item accounted for more than 10% of the variance of the corresponding theoretical construct (R. Ho, 2006). The overall internal consistency reliability of the instrument was considered to be high. Table 3.1 summarises the results of internal consistency reliability tests for the six latent variables. A close investigation of the inter-item correlation matrix identified that some indicators mapping the construct ‘CHL proficiency’ were highly correlated (>.90), which could be indicative of multicollinearity (Field, 2009). This was because the highly correlated items were not distinguishable enough to stratify participants’ CHL proficiency into different levels. For example, if participants could read Chinese newspapers and magazines easily, they were much more likely to read Chinese popular fiction stories easily. Their CHL reading proficiency could not be distinguished by these two items. Statistically, these two items were redundant and thus were Table 3.1 Summary results of internal consistency reliability test Variables Cronbach’s α

Chineseness .91

Economic capital .84

Cultural capital .91

Social capital .90

Symbolic capital .87

CHL proficiency .98

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highly correlated. Based on extensive discussions with experienced Chinese language teachers and CHL learners at various levels, the following two items were believed to be able to distinguish participants’ CHL reading proficiency: (1) ‘I can read Chinese language textbooks easily’; and (2) ‘I can read Chinese popular fiction stories easily’. Similar strategies were applied to revise the indicators measuring CHL writing, listening and speaking proficiencies. A 7-point bi-polar Likert scale was first used in the pilot study. The scale ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Compared to the bi-polar scale, the uni-polar scale was later considered less mentally taxing because participants only have to consider one attitude instead of balancing two opposing attitudes. As such, a uni-polar approach is preferred wherever possible (Groves et al., 2004). Therefore, the original bi-polar scale was changed to a 7-point uni-polar Likert-type scale in the main study. The scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely). The pilot process shaped and cleaned the items that were used to measure their corresponding constructs. Some of the original items were reworded and some were removed. The item sets used in the main study to map the corresponding constructs are detailed in Table 3.2.

Chinese Australian Participants in the Main Study: A Demographically Diverse Group of Young People Despite being the third largest group among all settlers in Australia, just behind people from the United Kingdom and New Zealand, Chinese Australians only account for 4.3% of the Australian national population (ABS 2011 Census). In this vein, Chinese Australians constitute a numerical minority group. This increases the difficulty of sampling because the smaller the population, the harder it becomes to approach the participants to represent that population. As Groves et al. (2004) argues, what makes a population rare sometimes is not its absolute size but its size relative to other coexisting populations. In this regard, any probability sampling, for example, systematic random sampling, stratified sampling or cluster sampling, would not work for the current study. Snowball sampling, instead, avoids the challenges that applying other sampling methods raises in the real world. As such, it is commonly used when the participants are rare and thus difficult to access or identify (Nardi, 2006), for example, in heritage research (Gibbs & Hines, 1992; Hall, 1992; Kiang, 2008; Mehri, 2011; Mu, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c; Mu & Dooley, 2015; Pao et al., 1997; Root, 1992). To ‘get the snowball rolling’, a request was posed

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Table 3.2 Item sets and their corresponding constructs in the main study Constructs

Indicators v1

v2

v3

v4

v5 Chineseness

v6

v7

v8 v9

v11 v12 Economic capital v13

Item description My mathematics was much better than that of my classmates. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Handwriting tells you a lot about a person’s character. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Children must be taught to paint, dance, or play musical instruments. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Academic education is the most important thing in school. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I prefer to live close to my family members. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I hope to have sons to continue my family line or my husband’s family line. To what extent do you agree with this statement? People who are senior in age and/or position should be addressed by their title plus surname rather than their first name. To what extent do you agree with this statement? To save face I always prefer to say ‘yes’. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Confucianism values the virtue of frugality. Confucius said that frugality is a common character of people with virtue. He also said that frugality is very important in family life. In general, how much degree would you agree with these values? Money is not an issue if I wish to travel to China. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can afford to study in Chinese language schools as many hours as I wish. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can afford to employ private tutors to teach me Chinese if I wish. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

(Continued)

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Table 3.2 (Continued) Constructs

Indicators v14

v15 v16

v17

Cultural capital

v18

v19 v20

v23 v24

Social capital v25 v26

Symbolic capital

v30

Item description Money is never an issue if I want to buy Chinese language learning materials, such as textbooks, dictionaries, and tapes. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Learning Chinese is very important to me. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I feel very sad if I miss celebrating Chinese festivals (Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn, etc.). To what extent do you agree with this statement? I always keep up to date with current Chinese affairs by watching TV, listening to the radio, reading newspapers, or surfing online. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I always go to venues, such as libraries, galleries, museums, theatres, or concerts, if they feature Chinese culture. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I read a lot of books about China. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I have invested a lot of time in practising Chinese cultural activities, such as learning musical instruments, calligraphy, or painting. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Most of my friends are of Chinese descent. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I am a member of social groups, such as a church or club, which mostly include members of Chinese descent. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I tend to mix exclusively with Chinese social groups. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I think it is necessary to learn Chinese language in order to socialise with my Chinese peers. To what extent do you agree with this statement? The wealth of my family is well-known in Chinese communities. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

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Table 3.2 (Continued) Constructs

Indicators v31 v32

v33 v34

v35

v36

v37

v38 CHL proficiency

v39

v40 v41

v42

Item description My Chinese language competency is well regarded. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Learning Chinese has increased my status in Chinese communities. To what extent do you agree with this statement? People value my Chinese heritage. To what extent do you agree with this statement? People consider me very popular among my Chinese peers. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can easily understand my family members and friends when they talk to me in Chinese. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can easily understand Chinese language in the media, such as TV shows, videos, and movies. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can easily handle complex situations in Chinese, such as banking, arguing, purchasing a house or a car. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can read Chinese language textbooks easily. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can have deep discussion and exchange thinking with people in Chinese. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can read Chinese popular fiction stories easily. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can always write Chinese characters and Chinese words correctly. To what extent do you agree with this statement? I can express my personal preferences and opinions in very clearly written Chinese. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

at the end of the online questionnaire, asking participants to invite other participants whom they knew and who met the participation requirements. Invitation to participation in the online questionnaire was also distributed through personal networks. This led to sampling of individuals who had not been anticipated when the project began because the snowball sampling

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proceeded after the study began. Despite of the relatively short list of participants, the list grew like a snowball as names were added through the referral of participants. Eventually, snowball sampling netted 230 respondents to the questionnaire. Because the ‘not allow to skip question’ option was applied to the online questionnaire, respondents had to answer all questions. By virtue of this strategy, all 230 cases were data-complete. Due to the clearly delineated eligibility for participation, all the respondents met the demographic requirements of the study. The respondents ranged in age between 18 and 35. The age distribution demonstrated a good spread (see Figure 3.1). Forty-seven point eight percent (47.8%) of the respondents were males and 52.2% were females. This gender distribution is largely comparable to ABS 2011 Census data, which reported 46.4% and 53.6% of Chinese Australians are males and females respectively. As shown in Figure 3.2, all the respondents were from the capital cities where the overwhelming proportion of the Chinese Australian population resided (93.6% according to ABS 2011 Census data). The only capital city not represented in the study was Hobart. This should not impact on the demographic diversity of the sample because the Chinese 25

Frequency

20

15

10

5

0 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Age

Figure 3.1 Age distribution of participants

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73

120

100

Frequency

80

60

40

20

0 Darwin

Adelaide

Perth

Canberra Melbourne Sydney Resident cities

Brisbane

Figure 3.2 Distribution of participants’ resident cities

Australian population in Tasmania was very small (according to ABS 2011 Census, 0.65% of the Tasmanian population had Chinese ancestry). An overwhelming proportion (83.1%) of the respondents lived in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. This proportion is comparable to ABS 2011 Census data, which reported 84.1%. In this vein, it can be claimed that the sample largely captured the demographic diversity of the Chinese Australian population. One hundred and nineteen respondents (51.7%) were born in Australia. Ninety-five respondents (41.4%) were born in China, including the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Sixteen respondents (6.9%) were born in other countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam (see Figure 3.3). All the 111 non-Australian-born respondents (48.3% of the total respondents) came to live in Australia before the age of 13, a conventional age cut-off for designation as HLLs (Bhatti, 2002; Mu, 2014b; J. Zhang, 2009). These non-Australian born respondents were regarded as first-generation Chinese Australians. Those born in Australia were asked to designate their generations. Seventy-three of them (31.7% of the total respondents) considered themselves to be second generation, 31 (13.5%) third generation and 15 (6.5%) fourth generation or further removed (see Figure 3.4).

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Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language 16, 6.9%

119, 51.7%

95, 41.4%

Born in Australia

Born in China

Born in other countries

Figure 3.3 Composition of participants’ birthplace 15, 6.5% 31, 13.5%

111, 48.3% 73, 31.7%

First generation

Third generation

Second generation

Fourth generation and further removed

Figure 3.4 Composition of participants’ generation

One hundred and twelve respondents (48.7%) spoke both Chinese and English at home. Sixty-four respondents (27.8%) only spoke Chinese at home and 51 respondents (22.2%) only spoke English at home. Three respondents (1.3%) spoke other languages or other languages mixed with Chinese and English at home, such as Indonesian, Indonesian mixed with English and Chinese, or Vietnamese mixed with English and Chinese (see Figure 3.5). Of those who used Chinese at home, 109 (61.9%) used Mandarin, 55 (31.3%) used Cantonese and 12 (6.8%) used a mixture of Mandarin and Cantonese, or a mixture of Mandarin and Hokkien, or other Chinese dialects, such as Fujianese, Hakka, Shanghainese, Sichuanese and Teochew (see Figure 3.6).

Sociological Mechanism for Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia

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3, 1.3%

51, 22.2%

64, 27.8%

112, 48.7%

Both English and Chinese

Chinese only

English only

Other languages or other languages mixed with English and Chinese

Figure 3.5 Composition of participants’ language usage at home 12, 6.8%

55, 31.3%

109, 61.9% Mandarin Cantonese Other dialects or a mixture of Mandarin and a dialect

Figure 3.6 Composition of Chinese dialects used at home

An overwhelming proportion (87%) of the respondents had formally studied Chinese in schools, universities, Confucius Institutes and/or community schools. However, their investment of time spent in studying Chinese varied from less than one year to over 15 years, and their CHL proficiency varied remarkably. Data analysis reported in this chapter is to explain how much variance of CHL proficiency can be attributed to the strength of habitus of Chineseness and the capture of different forms of

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capital. Before conducting the statistical modelling, I will explain how the instrument used was validated.

Instrument Validation: Reliability and Validity It will be recalled that the quantitative phase is informed by the theoretical framework to examine the interdependence among six constructs, namely CHL proficiency, habitus of Chineseness and four forms of capital – economic, cultural, social and symbolic. To enable the interdependence drawn from the statistical modelling to make sense in a reliable and valid way, Parallel Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were firstly run on each construct to shape the instrument and improve the reliability and validity of the measurement models. Through a methodologically meticulous and theory-laden process, the original instrument was shaped and reshaped by removing some questionnaire items that did not fit the statistical model. The decision whether or not to remove an item rested on the theoretical considerations (Ho, 2006) along with those suggested statistical diagnostics (Hair et al., 2006). Without strong theoretical justification, any employment of the modification to improve the model fit only capitalises on the uniqueness of the data but the results will most likely be atheoretical. It is also notable that removal of items does not change the conceptual domain of the theoretical construct, by virtue of the reflective nature of the model (Coltman et al., 2008). To clarify this, the distinction between a reflective model and a formative model is acknowledged here. According to Coltman et al. (2008), these two types of models are conceptually, substantively and psychometrically different. Firstly, in reflective models, causality runs from the construct to its corresponding indicators, or questionnaire items. Consequently, variation of the construct causes the variation of the indicators. However, it is the other way around in formative models. Secondly, indicators in reflective models share a common theme and they should have high positive intercorrelations, while this is not necessarily the case in formative models. Thirdly, in reflective models, the construct exists as a theoretical notion independent of the indicators used to measure it. That is to say, indicators are represented by the construct. Instead, the construct is formed as a combination of its indicators in formative models. In other words, indicators define the construct. Consequently, indicators in reflective models are interchangeable. Adding or dropping an indicator does not change the conceptual domain of the theoretical construct. This is not the case in formative models. Bearing these differences in mind, the design

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of the online questionnaire has taken careful consideration of the basis for the construction of reflective models. Questionnaire items did not function to form and define their corresponding theoretical constructs. Rather, they were designed to reflect the attributes associated with their corresponding theoretical constructs. Given the attributes of the reflective model, removal of items informed by theoretical considerations and statistical suggestions is not dangerous but methodologically sound. Through this process, the original instrument was revised and improved. The reliability and validity measures are reported in Table 3.3. Taking account of individual and joint measurement error, the scale score for each construct can be computed as a continuous variable by multiplying the individual’s raw score on each indicator by the proportionally weighted factor score of each indicator and summing (Rowe, 2002). This approach ensures that the estimates of the scale score adjusted for measurement error are proportionally weighted by the actual contribution made by each indicator. The proportional factor score sums to 1, if without rounding error. Hence, the scale score will range from a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 7, which ensures the construct to have the same ‘metric’ as that of the indicators for the construct. The item set of each construct and the scale score computation of each construct are illustrated in Table 3.4.

Hypothesis Testing: Structural Equation Modelling It will be recalled that the empirical question asked in this chapter is: Is CHL proficiency of young Chinese Australian adults influenced by their capture of various forms of capital, the strength of their habitus of Chineseness, or both? In response to this question, two null hypotheses are posed: H01. Young Chinese Australian adults’ habitus of Chineseness has no statistically significant impact on their CHL proficiency. H02. Young Chinese Australian adults’ capture of various forms of capital has no statistically significant impact on their CHL proficiency. To test these two hypotheses, I firstly ran correlation analysis between CHL proficiency and each of the other constructs, namely Chineseness, economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and symbolic capital. The scale scores for these variables were computed by using the equations reported in Table 3.4. The results indicated that CHL proficiency had a medium to strong significant positive correlation with all the variables under investigation here (see Table 3.5). In other words, Chineseness,

6

5

4

3

2

1

.66 .61 .63 .77

＞.50 ＞.50 ≥.50 ＞.50

4

4 4

4

5 4

SMC1 ≥.50 ≥.50

83%

70% 72%

74%

Reliability Construct Variance reliability2 extracted3 .56 65% .69 76%

.95

.87 .89

.89

Coefficient H4 .87 .91

Model fit

Model fit Model fit

Model fit

Construct validity5 Model fit Model fit

Significant regression weights

Significant regression weights Significant regression weights

Significant regression weights

Convergent validity6 Significant regression weights Significant regression weights

Validity

Squared Multiple Correlation is an indicator that represents the proportion of variance in the indicator that is explained by the construct. The SMC for an indicator greater than .30 is considered acceptable while the SMC greater than .50 is preferred for a construct to have a good mapping of that indicator (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1996). The construct reliability compares the variance of the indicators captured by the construct with that due to the measurement errors. The cut-off value for the construct reliability is .50 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), which indicates that the variance of the indicators captured by the construct exactly equals that due to the measurement errors. As such, the greater the value is larger than .50, the better the construct reliability. The variance extracted expresses the overall amount of variance in the indicators accounted for by the construct. Variance extracted exceeding 50% is commonly considered a good measure of reliability (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). A coefficient H value above .70 is desirable to achieve reasonable reliability (G.R. Hancock & Mueller, 2001). Construct validity requires the unidimensionality of the indicators. The model fit measures can be viewed as confirming construct validity. The values of all the baseline comparisons fit indices (NFI, RFI, IFI, TLI, and CFI) greater than the cut-off value of .90 (Bentler, 1990) and the value of RMSEA less that .08 (R. Ho, 2006) are indicative of the model fit. Convergent validity, operationalised through the factor loading, is a measure of the direct structural relationship between an indicator and the construct. To achieve convergent validity, the factor loadings must be significantly different from 0. The critical ratios of the unstandardised regression weights of the indicators are used to test this significance.

Chineseness Economic capital Cultural capital Social capital Symbolic capital CHL proficiency

Construct

Item number

Table 3.3 Reliability and validity measures of each construct in the instrument

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Table 3.4 Modified item sets and their corresponding constructs Construct

Indicators

Item description

v2

Chineseness (modified)

Economic capital

Handwriting tells you a lot about a person’s character. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v3 Children must be taught to paint, dance, or play musical instruments. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v4 Academic education is the most important thing in school. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v7 People who are senior in age and/or position should be addressed by their title plus surname rather than their first name. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v9 Confucianism values the virtue of frugality. Confucius said that frugality is a common character of people with virtue. He also said that frugality is very important in family life. In general, how much degree would you agree with these values? Scale score = v9 × .18 + v7 × .21 + v4 × .21 + v3 × .16 + v2 × .23 v11 Money is not an issue if I wish to travel to China. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v12 I can afford to study in Chinese language schools as many hours as I wish. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v13 I can afford to employ private tutors to teach me Chinese if I wish. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v14 Money is never an issue if I want to buy Chinese language learning materials, such as textbooks, dictionaries, and tapes. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Scale score = v14 × .21 + v13 × .31 + v12 × .36 + v11 × .12 (Continued)

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Table 3.4 (Continued) Construct

Indicators v17

Cultural capital (modified)

Social capital

Symbolic capital (modified)

Item description

I always keep up to date with current Chinese affairs by watching TV, listening to the radio, reading newspapers, or surfing online. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v18 I always go to venues, such as libraries, galleries, museums, theatres, or concerts, if they feature Chinese culture. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v19 I read a lot of books about China. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v20 I have invested a lot of time in practising Chinese cultural activities, such as learning musical instruments, calligraphy, or painting. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Scale score = v20 × .18 + v19 × .29 + v18 × .35 + v17 × .19 v23 Most of my friends are of Chinese descent. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v24 I am a member of social groups, such as a church or club, which mostly include members of Chinese descent. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v25 I tend to mix exclusively with Chinese social groups. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v26 I think it is necessary to learn Chinese language in order to socialise with my Chinese peers. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Scale score = v26 × .16 + v25 × .26 + v24 × .20 + v23 × .37 v30 The wealth of my family is well-known in Chinese communities. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v31 My Chinese language competency is well regarded. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v32 Learning Chinese has increased my status in Chinese communities. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v33 People value my Chinese heritage. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Scale score = v33 × .24 + v32 × .38 + v31 × .26 + v30 × .13

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Table 3.4 (Continued) Construct

Indicators

Item description

v35

CHL proficiency (modified)

I can easily understand my family members and friends when they talk to me in Chinese. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v37 I can easily handle complex situations in Chinese, such as banking, arguing, purchasing a house or a car. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v38 I can read Chinese language textbooks easily. To what extent do you agree with this statement? v41 I can always write Chinese characters and Chinese words correctly. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Scale score = v41 × .11 + v38 × .33 + v37 × .40 + v35 × .16

Table 3.5 Correlation between CHL proficiency and other variables

CHL proficiency

Chineseness

Economic capital

Cultural capital

Social capital

Symbolic capital

.62*

.51*

.67*

.66*

.80*

* p < .001

economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and symbolic capital were all associated with CHL proficiency when the association was examined separately. This suggests the statistical basis for hypothesis testing. Secondly, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied. This advanced statistical model is theory-driven. Bourdieu (1991) theorises that people make choices about language according to the amount of different resources (capital) as well as the dispositions (habitus) that they have within given social fields. As argued earlier, this study extended Bourdieu’s explication of language choices within a particular language to choices from different languages. SEM was applied to structure the complex entanglement amongst the habitus of Chineseness of young Chinese Australians, various forms of capital available to them, and their CHL proficiency resulting from their CHL practice. The theory-based approach to SEM is a distinct strength of this technique, as it entails a mode of thinking that specifies the theoretical framework more exactly, tests the theory more precisely and yields a more thorough understanding of the data. The last point requires some further explanation. SEM is able to assess not only how well each

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construct is operationalised and reflected through its respective indicators but also how well the constructs are related in a series of theory-laden dependent relationships. Moreover, SEM improves statistical estimation by accounting for unique disturbances in the estimation process. Many other statistical models assume that variables in the analyses are error-free. However, concepts can seldom be measured perfectly, from either theoretical or practical perspectives. This is either ascribed to external errors associated with inaccurate responses by the participants, or attributed to internal errors associated with imperfect operationalisation of the concepts. Consequently, measured variables usually contain at least moderate amounts of error (R. Ho, 2006). SEM, instead, takes account of measurement errors and thus generates accurate results. SEM was firstly used to specify the relationships among each form of capital. Theoretically, economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital compose a set of interdependent and inter-convertible resources within certain fields. Working together, these four individual forms of resources represent the construct ‘capital’. These inherent relationships are structured in the model demonstrated in Figure 3.7. Although the model had a significant chi-square value of 235.67 (p < .001), the ratio between the chi-square value and the degrees of freedom (235.67/98 = 2.41) was not very high. The ratio below 3 is not a problem by itself for the model fit (Carmines & McIver, 1981). All the baseline comparison fit indices were equal to or above the cut-off value of .90 (Bentler, 1990); and the RMSEA value of .07 was below the cut-off value of .08 (R. Ho, 2006). It can be argued that the model had a reasonably good fit given its complexity. The unstandardised regression weight of each indicator corresponded to a significant critical ratio. All the values of the standardised regression weight were above the cut-off value of .50 (Hair et al., 2006) and the preferred value of .70 (Hair et al., 2006). The model converged. Next, CHL proficiency in direct relationship with Chineseness and capital was modelled in Figure 3.8. The model had a significant chi-square value of 799.03 (p < .001). All the baseline comparison fit indices were below the cut-off value of .90 (Bentler, 1990); and the RMSEA value of .09 was greater than the cut-off value of .08 (R. Ho, 2006). All of these measures were indicative of a poor model fit. This result seemed at odds with our theoretical assumptions. The statistics provided some suggestions to modify the model. To improve the model fit, SEM suggested the removal of the direct relationship between Chineseness and CHL proficiency and to relate Chineseness to CHL proficiency through capital. An attempt was then made to revise the model according to the statistical advice. In the revised model (see Figure 3.9), capital

Sociological Mechanism for Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia

Economic capital

.71

v11

.90

v12

.88

v13

.50 .80 .77

83

e1 e2 e3

.83

v14 .72

Cultural capital

.65

.80

v17

.82

v18

.83

v19

.68 .63 .67 .69

e4 e5 e6 e7

.80

v20 .73

.85

Social capital

.90

.80

v23

.73

v24

.79 .78

v25 v26

.88

Symbolic capital

.71

v30

.81

v31

.85

v32

.63 .64 .54 .62 .60 .51 .65 .71

e8 e9 e10 e11 e12 e13 e14 e15

.82

v33

.67

e16

Figure 3.7 Four forms of capital

was directly related to CHL proficiency, while Chineseness was indirectly associated with CHL proficiency through capital. Although the model had a significant chi-square value of 600.40 (p < .001), the ratio between the chisquare value and the degrees of freedom (600.40/269 = 2.23) was not very high. The ratio below 3 is not a problem by itself for the model fit (Carmines & McIver, 1981). All the baseline comparison fit indices were above the cutoff value of .90 (Bentler, 1990); and the RMSEA value of .07 was below the cut-off value of .08 (R. Ho, 2006). It can be argued that the model had a reasonably good fit given its complexity. The unstandardised regression weight of each indicator corresponded to a significant critical ratio. All the

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e27 .52 .70 v35

e25

.84

e31

.87 .93 e23

.84

v38

v41

.90

v12

.87 .83 v14

CHL proficiency e28

.91

.81

v17

.80

.84

Cultural capital

.82

v18

.82 v19

e32 .79

.91

v20

.08 Capital .00

e29

.89

.80

.48 e21

v9

.69

v7

.77

.59 e20 .60 e19

v4

.70

.49 v3

e18

.79

.63 e17

.78

v2

.51 .81 .76 .69 .65

e1 e2 e3 e4 e5

.72 .83

.64 e22

v11

v13 .72

v37

e24

Economic capital

.71

Social capital e33

.80

v23

.72

v24

.78

1.00

.68 .62 .65

.52 .61

e6

e7

e8 e9

e10

e11

.79 v26

Chineseness .00

v25

.67

e30 1.00 Symbolic capital

.70

v30

.83

v31

.83 v32 .82 v33

Figure 3.8 Chineseness and capital in direct relation to CHL proficiency

.62 .49 .69

.70 .66

e12 e13 e14 e15 e16

Sociological Mechanism for Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia

e27 .54 .72 e25

v35 .85

e24

.88

.85

.90

v12

.87 v13

v37

v38

.92

v14

CHL proficiency e28

.73

v41

.81

v17

.81 .86

.82

v18

Cultural capital

.82 v19 .79

.92

v20 Capital .91 e21

.53

v9

e19

v7 .54

v4

.73

Social capital

e17

.74

v3 .60

.77 v2

.85

.77

.73

.53 e18

e29 .83

.59 e20

.51 .81 .76

e1 e2 e3

.68 .65

e4 e5

.74 .85

.65 e22

e31

v11

.83 .94

e23

Economic capital

.71

85

.81

v23

.72

v24

.78 v25

.99

.67

.68

.62 .65

.51

.60

e6

e7

e8 e9

e10

e11

.79 v26

Chineseness e30

.69

v30

.83

v31

.97 Symbolic capital

.83

v32

.82 v33

Figure 3.9 Chineseness in indirect relation to CHL proficiency

.62 .48 .69

.70 .67

e12 e13 e14 e15 e16

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values of the standardised regression weight were above the cut-off value of .50 (Hair et al., 2006) and the preferred value of .70 (Hair et al., 2006). The model converged. As is evident in the model, 73% of the variance of CHL proficiency was explained. This can be attributed to the direct contribution of capital and the indirect contribution of Chineseness through capital. In this vein, both null hypotheses can be rejected. When young Chinese Australian adults had a stronger sense of Chineseness and more capital in various forms at their disposal, they tended to have a higher level of CHL proficiency. Yet, the indirect contribution of Chineseness through capital demands closer theoretical scrutiny; otherwise, the conclusion purely drawn from the statistical models without a due substantial theoretical foundation would be untenable and shaky. As an embodied property and ‘incorporated and quasi-postural disposition’ (Bourdieu, 1985a: 13), habitus serves as a form of ‘capital’ (Bourdieu, 1985a; 13), specifically, a form of cultural capital in its embodied state (Bourdieu, 1973). Accordingly, the habitus of ‘Chineseness becomes a form of cultural capital’ in certain contexts (A. Louie, 2004: 21; Ong, 1999: 6). In order to be a form of capital, Chinese Australians’ habitus of Chineseness must be valued and recognised within particular fields. These fields are social spaces that favour Chinese sentiments, propensities and inclinations, for example, Chinese families that vindicate Chinese-friendly language politics, Chinese communities that accredit the legitimate Confucian cultural tastes and a wider society that respects Chinese culture and history. Only when valued and recognised through the micro-politics and macro-policies can Chineseness be understood as embodied cultural capital, integrated within the lasting dispositions of mind and body and existing as perceptions and behaviours of young Chinese Australian adults. In this way, Chineseness was embedded in the dimensions of capital. Young Chinese Australian adults may develop their Chineseness in relation to how much embodied cultural capital they have accrued in a Chinese-favourable cultural or social field. This relationship is very important because it reveals how the amount of capital that they capture can condition their dispositions of being, doing and thinking. The result emerging from SEM suggested that only when habitus of Chineseness becomes a form of capital can it project CHL learning in a durable and transposable way. This is very informative. The power of the field is noticeable but unseen, and therefore is hardly measurable in a direct sense. Findings from SEM suggests, if not testifies to, the existence of social fields that come to shape the CHL learning of young Chinese Australian adults. The nuanced power relations evolving from the social fields where Chinese Australians enact will be analysed in the following qualitative chapter.

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Table 3.6 Correlation matrix for different forms of capital (p < .001) Correlation Economic Cultural Social Symbolic

Economic 1.00 .64 .57 .65

Cultural .64 1.00 .72 .78

Social .57 .72 1.00 .74

Symbolic .65 .78 .74 1.00

What is also of interest is that the variance of capital was reflected in the variance of different forms of capital at different levels. Compared to other capital forms, symbolic capital had the most variance caused by the variance of capital – 97% compared to 54%, 85% and 83% in the variance of economic, cultural and social capital respectively (see Figure 3.9). This is because symbolic capital is perhaps the most valuable form of accumulation in a society (Bourdieu, 1977b). It should be also noted that economic, cultural and social capital all had stronger correlations with symbolic capital than their correlations with other forms of capital (as Table 3.6). This is because the capture of economic, cultural and social capital, when perceived and recognised as legitimate (Bourdieu, 1985b, 1989, 1991, 2000), can all exist and act through the form of symbolic capital. To summarise, people make choices about different aspects of a particular language according to the amount of different resources (capital) as well as the dispositions (habitus) that they have in a given field (Bourdieu, 1991). The theoretical framework developed in Chapter 2 extended this Bourdieusian stance to Chinese Australians’ choices of learning CHL according to their capture of capital in a field and their habitus of Chineseness valued by that field. The data modelled in SEM confirmed this theoretical framework and suggested that various forms of capital and habitus of Chineseness contributed to Chinese Australians’ CHL proficiency.

Chapter Summary This chapter reported the strategies of the quantitative data analysis in detail. At the first stage of the pilot study, face validity was improved by adjusting the wording of some items according to the feedback from five participants. The second stage of the pilot study worked with the data produced by 38 participants. The inter-item reliability of each theoretical construct was checked in turn. Taking account of both statistical and theoretical considerations, problematic items were excluded from the model. The overall inter-item reliability was considered to be improved.

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In the main study, data were produced by 230 complete cases. Through Parallel Analysis, EFA and CFA, the instrument was further shaped. Both statistical and theoretical considerations were taken into account when excluding problematic indicators from the model to improve the model fit. The reliability and validity of the instrument was claimed. Relationships between these theoretical constructs were specified in SEM, which served the hypothesis testing and ultimately answered the research questions. The results from SEM rejected both null hypotheses and led to the conclusion that both habitus of Chineseness and various forms of capital had statistically significant positive contributions to CHL proficiency. The analyses demonstrated that Chineseness (habitus) of young Chinese Australian adults and various resources (capital) available to them explained their CHL proficiency. This was interpreted through Bourdieu’s argument that language choice can be attributed to agents’ dispositions (habitus) and various resources (capital) available to them. The indirect contribution of Chineseness to CHL proficiency aligns with Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu, 1985a) argument that habitus can be understood as a form of cultural capital in its embodied state when valued and recognised in a given field. The connection between Chineseness and capital may explain the fact that the contribution made by Chineseness was actually embedded in the contribution made by capital. This chapter has reported on the quantitative investigation. Drawing insight from a Bourdieusian framework, the chapter helps to understand some sociological reasons behind the CHL learning of young Chinese Australian adults. Habitus of Chineseness and various forms of capital all come to shape the CHL learning of these young people. Here I am not intending to depreciate the psychological reasons (e.g. motivation and self-identification) and poststructural systems (e.g. investment and socially constructed identity) that may inform CHL learning. Instead, I am highlighting the sociological focus of this book. In addition, it is not my intention to argue that the CHL practices of young Chinese Australian adults can only be attributed to habitus and capital. After all, these two aspects can only explain 73% of the variance of CHL proficiency. This indicates that CHL learning is a complex project, with many other internested and multilayered reasons behind it waiting to be revealed. If Chineseness qua habitus and accessible resources as capital can produce CHL proficiency, it will be meaningful to go one step further and ask: Does CHL learning have any returns? What are the returns on this learning? Can the underlying structures, forces and rules of the social fields be visible? How is Chineseness negotiated through CHL learning? This will be explored through the qualitative phase reported in the next chapter.

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Notes (1)

(2)

(3)

Zhongshu Dong, or Chung-shu Tung, is a Chinese scholar in the Western Han Dynasty. He is traditionally associated with the promotion of Confucianism as the official ideology of the Chinese Imperial state. His thinking integrates cosmology into a Confucian framework. He might have cosmologically predicted the overthrow of the Western Han Dynasty. This broke his relationship with the emperor. He was once thrown into prison for his seditious writings. The work is not one of the traditional Confucian classics, but rather the embodiment of Confucianism suitable for teaching children. Until the later part of the 1800s, it served as a child’s first formal education at home. The text is written in triplets of characters for easy memorisation. With illiteracy common for most people at the time, the oral tradition of reciting the classic ensured its popularity and survival through the centuries. With the short and simple text arranged in three-character verses, children learned many common characters, grammar structures, elements of Chinese history and the basis of Confucian morality, especially filial piety and respect for elders. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Three Character Classic formed the basis of elementary education. The text fell into disuse during the Cultural Revolution given the state’s opposition to non-socialist ideologies. The classic, however, continued to circulate in other parts of the Chinese-speaking world. Though the work is no longer taught at public schools, some parents still use this classic to teach their young children to pronounce Chinese characters. Emperor Qin (260–210BC)’s personal name is Zheng. He was the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221–207BC). When he was the king of the State of Qin, he conquered all other neighbouring states and united them into one empire – the Empire of Qin. His inauguration as the First Emperor of Qin designated the commencement of the Qin Dynasty. He eliminated Confucianism and ruled the country with tyranny. To prevent the nomadic tribes from encroaching on the northern frontier, he ordered the construction of an immense defensive wall, which is known as the precursor to the current Great Wall of China.

4 A Qualitative Exploration of the Profits of Chinese Heritage Language Learning: You Reap What You Sow! In the previous chapter, I have provided the quantitative evidence on the contribution of habitus of Chineseness and various forms of capital to CHL proficiency. Young Chinese Australian adults’ CHL learning practices were generated by their sense of Chineseness and capture of capital. As a result, their CHL proficiency was produced through their CHL learning practices. This quantitative knowledge was gained through my indirect interactions with the participants. That is, I worked indirectly with the participants through their ‘numbered’ responses to the online questionnaire. By virtue of the quantitative approach, I sought general explanations and systematic relations within the phenomena under investigation. However, I was not and could not be concerned with the individual and exceptional cases, or participants’ detailed and deep perceptions and viewpoints towards their CHL learning. The current chapter will tackle these dimensions of the phenomena. In this chapter, I will report on my direct interactions with some selected participants through interview research: a linguistic, interpersonal and interpretive method to construct sites for knowledge production. This approach is particularly useful for studies like the current one, in which intimate, repeated and prolonged involvement in the life and community of the participants is not practically possible (Lodico et al., 2006). This chapter aims to gain a deep holistic perspective, explanation and understanding of selected participants’ CHL learning experiences as well as their views towards, and beliefs in, this learning process. To this end, I will work with the qualitative data to probe and analyse how these young people understand their CHL learning in relation to the (potential) profits produced by this language, a form of linguistic capital in given fields.

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Research Design: One-to-One Semi-structured Interview In the interview process, human interaction is inherent in the purposive conversations between the interviewer and the interviewee and the interchange of views on a topic of mutual interest. However, a swathe of personal, subjective engagement in the interview process does not necessarily challenge the ‘objectivity’ of research interviews. Kvale (1996) argues for three conceptions of objectivity suitable for interview research: freedom from bias, intersubjective knowledge and reflecting the nature of the object. Firstly, objectivity as freedom from bias refers to ‘good, solid, craftsmanlike research’ (Kvale, 1996: 64), producing reliable knowledge that has been systematically cross-checked, controlled and verified, undistorted by personal bias and prejudice as far as possible. Secondly, this knowledge must be intersubjectively testable and reproducible, which means that repeated research of the same problem by different researchers should yield the same data. This is what Kvale (1996: 64) refers to as ‘dialogical intersubjectivity’, which is an agreement through rational discourse, reciprocal critique and communicative validation among researchers, as well as between researchers and their participants. Thirdly, objectivity also means the reflection and expression of the nature of the participants researched by treating the participants as the speaking subjects existing in a linguistically constituted and interpersonally negotiated interview process. To produce trustworthy knowledge as much as possible, I bore Kavle’s advice in mind prior to, during and after the interviews. I conducted one-to-one interviews where I conversed with only one participant at a time. New questions may arise after the first interview and a follow-up interview is required (Bourdieu, 1999c). This was true in my case – I interviewed some participants multiple times. These multiple interviews allowed the participants to reflect on their experiences and to add to what they said in earlier interviews. A semi-structured interview approach was used. This provided me with the flexibility to combine an interview schedule of prepared questions on predetermined topics with open-ended questions to explore any unanticipated responses or unforeseen issues raised spontaneously by the participants. Within each interview, I had a sequence of prepared topics to be covered, as well as suggested questions to follow up the topics. Yet at the same time, I was open to changing sequence and adding further probes contingent on the answers given and the experiences explained by the participants. This is a way of ‘constant improvisation of pertinent questions’ (Bourdieu, 1999c: 613).

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The interview questions were essentially related to the research question, however, they were more contextual than the research question. These questions were informed by a conceptual clarification and a theoretical analysis of the themes to be investigated. As Bourdieu (1991) suggested, languages can produce profit in response to the demands of a given field. Accordingly, thematic questions under investigation included: Does young Chinese Australian adults’ CHL learning have any return at a given time and place? Does CHL proficiency produce any valuable asset for young Chinese Australian adults in any situation? Does lack of CHL proficiency impact on their life in any way? These thematic questions were translated into interview questions. In a broad sense, interview questions were asked around formal and informal CHL learning history and planning; CHL usage at home, with extended family members, within peer groups and communities, at work or any other relevant social spaces; attitudes towards past, present and future CHL learning; and any particular attributes for each participant. These questions obtained comprehensive descriptions about the CHL usage and learning experience from the participants’ perspective, and then provided the basis for a deep analysis to portray the essence of the experience, that is, the essential meanings of CHL to these participants. To make sure that the interview questions made sense to the participants and the participants felt comfortable with the interview questions, a pilot interview was conducted before the main interview. The pilot interview served to reshape the original interview questions and interview style. For example, in the original design one of the questions was ‘If you were to have children, would you encourage them to learn Chinese?’ One of the pilot interviewees suggested that to certain extent, this was a leading question because anyone with a Chinese ancestry tends to answer ‘yes’ to this question even if Chinese language is not the first choice for their children. Following this suggestion, the original question was amended to ‘If you were to have children, would you encourage them to learn another language other than English?’ If the participants said ‘Chinese’, the reasons behind this choice were probed. If the participants said any other language, they were asked why they would not encourage their children to learn Chinese. In this way, the primary and overall question was presented at the very beginning of the interview and then the interview process was managed by using interview skills to elicit information. When the information elicited appeared to be drying up, pre-prepared probe questions planned on the interview schedule were used. As Cavana et al. (2001) suggest, a semi-structured interview should commence with an open-ended question then progress to a more closed-ended form. Through this pilot phase, the interview schedule was fine-tuned, ready for use in the main interview.

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Who Were the Interview Participants? There is no definitive answer to the question of how many participants are needed in an interview study (Mertens, 2005; Mertler & Charles, 2005). Within qualitative research, although diverse samples might provide a broader range to distil the essence of the phenomenon, data from only a few participants who have experienced the phenomenon and can provide a detailed account of their experience about the phenomenon might suffice to illuminate its core elements. Unlike the sampling principles in the quantitative approach, where the samples usually are statistically representative, the sampling principle in the qualitative approach is more strategic. Therefore, purposeful sampling is more often used in qualitative research. The logic and power of purposeful sampling is the selection of cases that provide rich and deep information central to the purpose of the research (Lodico et al., 2006; Patton, 1990). It will be recalled that respondents to the online questionnaire were also invited to participate in the follow-up interview. Nineteen participants indicated at the end of the online questionnaire that they were willing to participate in an interview and left their contact details for arranging a time and place of the interview. Invitations were sent to these people, five of whom accepted the invitation and chose an appropriate location and time to be interviewed. These five young people were named Adam, Bob, Crystal, Dianna and En-ning. The pseudonyms were either self-selected by the participant (only Bob in this case) or assigned by myself. If residing in Brisbane, participants were interviewed face-to-face. Otherwise, they were interviewed by telephone or via Skype, because telephone and online interviews were more cost- and time-effective than face-to-face interviews in this situation. All the participants have achieved native, native-like or nearly native-like command of English. In contrast, their Chinese functioned as their HL, the proficiency of which was lower or much lower than that of their English. In order to allow deep communication, the interviews were conducted in English. In what follows, I provide a vignette of each interviewee, highlighting their particular attributes in relation to CHL learning practices.

Adam: ‘I just need to catch up!’ Twenty-eight-year-old Adam was born in Indonesia. He moved to live in Australia at the age of 12. He also lived in Singapore for one year at the age of 21 on an exchange program. Adam was considered an extreme case because the statistical models could not predict his CHL proficiency given his investment of various forms of capital. As such, he constituted an

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‘outlier’ in the initial quantitative phase. He seemed to be very aware of this, as he agreed, ‘I think my case is a little bit unique.’ This uniqueness may be attributed to his life trajectory. Adam was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, which he thought was ‘one of the most challenging aspects to learning Mandarin’. To understand the challenge that Adam confronted as a CHLL when growing up in Jakarta, it is useful to provide some background information. Discrimination against Chinese Indonesians is evident throughout the history of Indonesia, although more recent government policies have attempted to redress this. Resentment of Chinese economic success grew in the 1950s as native Indonesian merchants felt they could not remain competitive. In response, the government approach was to propagate a stereotype that conglomerates owned by Chinese Indonesians were corrupt. As a result, the word ‘Chinese’ became synonymous with corruption in the perception of most Indonesians. The situation deteriorated when General Suharto came into power in 1967. His approach was to forcibly assimilate Chinese Indonesians, taking advantage of Chinese economic success whilst eliminating their perceived economic dominance. In order to do this, he sought a depoliticised system where formation of a cohesive ethnic Chinese identity was no longer allowed. Expressions of Chinese culture through language, religion and traditional festivals were banned. Chinese Indonesians had to relinquish their Chinese names and ‘happily’ adopt Indonesian-sounding names. Anti-Chinese sentiment gathered intensity in the 1990s when major riots broke out in many Indonesian cities. Property and businesses owned by Chinese Indonesians were targeted by mobs. Many women were sexually assaulted and numerous people died (Purdey, 2006) . Following these events, large numbers of Chinese Indonesians fled the country. In the late 1990s, the Asian Financial Crisis had dire consequences for the Indonesian economy and shook Suharto’s regime. After nationwide demonstrations against the presidency organised by university students, Suharto’s 31 years of power came to an end. Subsequent governments launched campaigns to abolish anti-Chinese regulations and rebuild the confidence of Chinese Indonesians. Although Chinese Indonesians have gradually gained political and social freedoms as a result of policy reform efforts, anti-Chineseness is still an issue in Indonesian society. It was against this backdrop that Adam was born and brought up before moving to Australia at the age of 12. He noted, ‘Because of the challenge, I’ve got a lot of catching-up to do.’

Bob: ‘Chinese is part of me.’ Eighteen-year-old Bob was born in Hong Kong. His parents brought him to Australia when he was nine months old. The family settled down and did

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not visit Hong Kong frequently. Shortly before my interview with Bob, Bob had returned from a two-week family trip in Hong Kong. Bob explained, ‘I just went there with my dad. I haven’t been there for 15 years. So I went there and we saw our family.’ Bob was the only participant who did not use a single Chinese word during the interview. Bob’s self-reported CHL proficiency measured in the online questionnaire was the lowest of the five participants (as shown in Table 4.1). This may be the reason behind his scant usage of CHL. Even if he did not have many opportunities to use his CHL in his ‘younger years’, he intentionally chose Chinese when both Chinese and French lessons were available in his primary school. In response to the question about the reasons behind this effort, Bob confided, ‘Because of my Chinese heritage. French would be good but I think it’s just nothing part of me. But Chinese is part of me. I just think it’s a good opportunity to do that.’ Although he came to live in Australia when he was only nine months old, his embodied dispositions, or in his own words, ‘part of me’, seemed to be inherited from his cultural heritage. He felt very comfortable with it. As he said, ‘You can’t pass Bruce Lee and his movies. He made me feel happy about my heritage when I was watching these movies and stuff.’ He had developed a cultural attachment to the long history of Chinese Kung Fu that contributed to his degree of comfort with his Chinese heritage.

Crystal: Chinese entertainment stuff is ‘really funny’. Eighteen-year-old Crystal was born in Australia. She was a secondgeneration Chinese Australian. She said she enjoyed Chinese TV shows. In her own words, ‘It’s really funny (to watch Chinese TV shows)!’ When asked whether she was trying to improve her Chinese, she said, ‘Yes, that’s part of the reason why I watch Chinese TV shows.’ For Crystal, watching Chinese TV shows and learning Chinese seemed to be mutually reinforcing. As she indicated, watching Chinese TV shows was one way to improve her Chinese proficiency. In return, her Chinese, to a certain degree, helped her access a wider range of Chinese entertainment. She reported typing Chinese and searching Chinese websites for Chinese TV shows, which were not available in English websites, as she said, ‘You don’t have this kind of thing in Australia.’ When asked whether her CHL benefited her social life in Australia, she said, ‘I can find my own entertainment so I can also talk to other people about entertainment. When I go to karaoke, I can sing Chinese songs. Yes, I guess it helps me.’ Crystal can thus share her knowledge of Chinese entertainment in a Chinese-speaking community in Australia, where Chinese popular culture is of common interest. In this situation,

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CHL proficiency helped her not only access a wider range of Chinese entertainment, but also build social networks.

Dianna: ‘I felt how important (it was) to speak my own home language!’ Twenty-one-year-old Dianna was born and brought up in Taiwan. She moved to live in Australia at the age of 13. When asked to recall her school life in Taiwan, she said she ‘probably forgot everything’. Interestingly, when asked whether her CHL had ever made her feel special, she immediately recalled the following experience. Once at lunchtime in high school, her white Australian classmates were ‘curious’ and asked her and her Chinese friend whether they could speak Chinese. Dianna said she could because she used Chinese at home. She then said a few words in Chinese. Her Chinese friend felt ‘embarrassed’ because she was not able to speak Chinese at all. She could clearly remember what her white Australian friends said at that moment, ‘If you are Asian, you should be able to speak your home language. If you can’t, it’s sort of a shame.’ The cultural politics here is problematic because it imposes language as an identity marker on diasporic Chinese, conflating ‘Chinese’ with ‘Asian’, and binarising Asian and Western identities (Ang, 2001). Dianna’s experience of this politics was one of pressure to learn CHL: ‘At that time I felt how important (it was) to speak my own home language.’ Dianna considered her CHL a source of ‘pride’ to her and ‘part of’ her ‘Chinese identity’. This perception was deeply rooted in herself, which can be understood as constituting a durable and transposable disposition. As she added, ‘I still need to keep my home language going no matter where I am. So I will pass it on to my children as well.’

En-ning: ‘Learning Chinese is definitely something I am going to pursue in the rest of my life.’ Twenty-three-year-old En-ning was born in Australia. She was a second-generation Chinese Australian. At the time of the interview, she was attending Chinese programs at a prestigious university in China. She reported that she did not see any point in learning Chinese when she was a child, growing up in a ‘very white area’. This implied that she did not have many opportunities to use Chinese at that time and she was not interested in learning the language at all. However, she said she did

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not know what ‘came over’ her in Year 9 when she decided to learn Chinese in school. From then on, she started to realise that learning Chinese was ‘an incredible personal experience’ for her and she was trying to do ‘as much as’ she could in Chinese. In return, En-ning profited from her CHL learning. Her CHL proficiency helped her win a prestigious scholarship at a leading Australian university and a national scholarship awarded by the Australian Federal Government. She confessed, ‘Of course I don’t think I would have got the scholarships if I didn’t have at least some Chinese language background.’ En-ning spent a gap year in China, which ‘totally changed’ her life. She was able to ‘explore the other side’, or ‘the Chinese side’ of herself. She said, ‘I feel a lot happier, especially in my gap year when I had the opportunity to explore that side of who I am.’ Learning Chinese was so ‘amazing and incredible’ for En-ning that she said, ‘Learning Chinese is definitely something that I am going to pursue in the rest of my life.’ Adam, Bob, Crystal, Dianna and En-ning were either ‘extreme cases’ or cases that provided ‘maximum variation’ in Patton’s (1990) term. Extreme cases are unusual or special in some way. The designations imply that they are odd phenomena or cases that represent the extremes. These types of cases often provide considerably more insight than representative or average cases (Danermark et al., 2002). Outliers in the initial quantitative phase were considered as extreme cases in this qualitative interview phase. They were extreme cases because the statistical models failed to predict the variance in their CHL proficiency by the variance in their capture of capital and sense of Chineseness. New knowledge learnt from an intensive examination of the experiences of special or unusual participants through the subsequent interviews was considered to offer a good complement to the knowledge learnt from the statistical depictions of what the more regular cases were like in the initial quantitative phase. Cases that provide maximum variation refer to those that provide insight into the importance of various conditions for producing the particular phenomenon under investigation. These cases document what is unique about each situation as well as what is common across diverse settings. Table 4.1 profiles these participants. As illustrated in Table 4.1, these participants demonstrated diverse demographic features. They varied in many aspects, such as birthplace, age of immigration, resident city, years of formal CHL learning, CHL proficiency and language usage pattern at home. Given their diverse demographic features, these participants were expected to provide a wide range of responses to my interview questions.

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Table 4.1 Overview of participants Pseudonym Number of interviews Gender Age (years) Birthplace Age of immigration Generation Resident city Citizenship Formal CHL learning (years) CHL proficiency

Language usage at home

Adam

Bob

Crystal

Dianna

En-ning

3

1

1

2

2

Male 28 Indonesia 12 1st Sydney Australian

Male 18 Hong Kong 9 months 1st Brisbane Australian

Female 18 Australia N/A* 2nd Sydney Australian

Female 21 Taiwan 13 1st Brisbane Australian

Female 23 Australia N/A* 2nd Canberra Australian

None

1

5

13

10

2.76 English and Indonesian with a little Mandarin

2.21 English and Cantonese

2.57 English

6.27 Hokkien and Mandarin

2.89 English

N/A*: Born in Australia

Negotiating the Power Relations during the Interviews: Bourdieu’s Advice Interviewing is an engaging process, an interpersonal situation and an interactional conversation (Kvale, 1996). To create in a short time an interpersonal situation and to allow an interactional conversation to go beyond merely a polite communication or exchange of ideas, I exerted myself to establish an atmosphere where my participants felt safe and comfortable enough to talk freely about their lived world. At the very beginning of each interview, I briefly introduced the purpose of the interview, the use of audio recorders and the general topics in the interview. I then obtained the informed consent from the participants in compliance with ethical requirements. Before starting the interview, I also asked whether the participants had any questions. Such briefing in the first minutes of an interview was a good opportunity for me to establish a friendly atmosphere and mutual trust by attentive interactions. In this way, my participants could have a sense of who I was before talking freely about their life experiences to a stranger.

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The process of the interview is crucial. Given the use of Bourdieu’s sociology as the theoretical framework in my research, I will now elaborate on this crucial interview process through a Bourdieusian methodological lens. This ensures the commensurability between theory and method. During the interview process, I was very aware of the definite asymmetry of power between my interview participants and myself because it was I who defined the situation, introduced the topics of the conversation and steered the course of the interview through further questions. Bourdieu has explained this asymmetry: It is the investigator who starts the game and sets up its rules, and is usually the one who, unilaterally and without any preliminary negotiations, assigns the interview its objectives and uses… This asymmetry is reinforced by a social asymmetry each time the investigator occupies a higher place in the social hierarchy of different types of capital, cultural capital in particular. (1999c: 609) Due to the unequally distributed cultural capital, there was an asymmetry of power existing in each interview that I had with my participants. I, an educated native Chinese speaker, had conversations around topics associated with CHL learning experiences of the Chinese Australian participants. In this social field, the participants might assume that I had better Chinese language proficiency than that of theirs, which was matter-of-factly true. This assumption entailed hierarchical field positions occupied by me and the participants based on different levels of Chinese language competence valued as cultural capital in this field. Because of the recognised value, Chinese language proficiency might accrue symbolic capital. Lack of this symbolic capital might yield embarrassment or ‘loss of face’ and generate an uncomfortable environment for the participants during the interviews. In order to control the effects of asymmetry of power, the ‘symbolic violence’ exerted through the asymmetric relationship should be reduced as much as possible (Bourdieu, 1999c: 609). In practice of each interview, naivety characterised my special learner role. This naive learner role entailed a frame of mind to set aside any assumptions that the meaning behind the participants’ accounts has been known to me because such assumptions would preclude me from seeking explanations and shut down further probes. To be able to do this, I followed Bourdieu’s methodological advice. The learner role can be administered through verbal ‘signs of feedback’ or ‘response tokens’ (Bourdieu, 1999c: 610), such as ‘yes’, ‘right’, ‘oh’, and ‘ok’, as well as aiding explanations in a proposed rather than an imposed way, such as suggestions to offer multiple and open-ended continuations

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to the participants’ hesitations or searchings for appropriate expressions (Bourdieu, 1999c: 614–615); and non-verbal means, such as an open posture, approving nods, appropriate facial expressions and good eye contact. These verbal and bodily signs of attention, interest, approval, encouragement and recognition enabled me to construct conditions for a continuing interchange and to encourage the collaboration of the participants interviewed. These practices ensured me to adopt the role of a listener and a seeker of knowledge during the whole process of interviewing. In Bourdieu’s words, it is ‘active and methodical listening’ that leads to ‘adopting the interviewees’ language, views, feelings, and thoughts’ (Bourdieu, 1999c: 609) and signals ‘the interviewer’s intellectual and emotional participation’ (Bourdieu, 1999c: 10). Apart from ‘active and methodical listening’, ‘proximity and familiarity’ also provide conditions of ‘nonviolent communication’ during the interview (Bourdieu, 1999c: 610). Common cultural and physical dispositions shared by the research and the researched may contribute to this proximity and familiarity. For example, William Labov (1972) asked young blacks to conduct the linguistic investigation of the speech used by blacks in Harlem. In the same way, Bourdieu (1999c: 611) gave ‘training in interview techniques to individuals who could have the kind of familiar access to certain categories of respondent’. Likewise, Brodish et al. (2011) and Rosenbloom and Way (2004) trained a racially diverse group of interviewers and matched them to same race interviewees whenever possible during the interviews. Following the methodological routes of these scholars, I, a native Chinese, was culturally and physically closer to my participants than any white scholar, or in Bourdieu’s sense ‘linked to them by close familiarity’ (1999c: 611). When a young Chinese researcher interviewed these young Chinese Australians, the conversation could spring from the dispositions attuned to each other. The interviewees seemed to consider this situation as an exceptional opportunity to ‘make themselves heard’ and to ‘carry their experience over from the private to the public sphere’ (Bourdieu, 1999c: 615). Their speech seemed to convey ‘a joy of expression’ (Bourdieu, 1999c: 615). However, this relatively easy access and affinity with the interviewees do not necessarily lead to biased interpretation of the data to meet my own assumptions and expectations. As a native Chinese scholar conducting research in Australia, I was more confined to the university life and removed from the more complex lived worlds of Chinese Australians. Such social difference enabled me to step back as a listener from the participants’ experiences. In brief, ‘proximity’ and ‘social difference’ helped me to avoid the two problematic extremes: ‘total divergence’ between the interviewer and the interviewees, where understanding and trust are not possible; and ‘total overlap’, where nothing can be said and questioned because everything goes without saying (Bourdieu, 1999c: 612).

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By the end of the interview, the participants had given much information about their CHL learning experiences. They may have obtained new insights into aspects of their lived world but sometimes they may not have received anything in return. Therefore, I rounded off the conversational interactions by reflecting on some of the main points learned from my participants. The participants may have wanted to comment on this feedback. I thereafter concluded by saying, for example, ‘I have no further questions. Do you have anything more you want to bring up, or ask about, before we finish the interview?’ This gave the participants an additional opportunity to deal with issues they had been thinking or worrying about during the interview. Upon the completion of each interview, I set aside a short block of quiet time to recall and reflect on what had been learnt from the particular interview. The immediate impressions, in the form of field notes or audio records, provided a valuable resource for later analysis of the transcripts. To sum up, I was responsible for making my participants feel at ease. At the same time, I took the role of an active learner. I demonstrated a relaxed, confident and attentive approach to develop a good interview relationship. The interview is more than just a social interaction. It is a process with a distinct purpose of deriving meaning from a particular situation. It is a performance that demands skill and forethought. In Bourdieu’s sense, interviewing demands a ‘craft’, a real disposition to pursue truth, which disposes the researcher to improvise on the spot, in the urgency of the interview, strategies of self-presentation and adaptive responses, encouragement and opportune questions to help participants deliver up their truth (Bourdieu, 1999c: 621). It is ‘a sort of spiritual exercise that, through forgetfulness of self, aims at a true conversion of the way we look at other people in the ordinary circumstances of life’ (Bourdieu, 1999c: 614).

Data Analysis The use of consistent and accurate transcribing of the data renders the interview conversations in a format amenable to closer and deeper analysis, and hence enhances the reliability and validity of the results drawn from the analysis. Raw interview data in this study consisted of audio recordings and field notes, which were converted into transcripts. To improve transcription reliability, I listened to the audio recording many times. This increased the consistency of the transcripts. ‘Member checking’ was also used to achieve transcription reliability. Colleagues in the research team reviewed the transcripts and helped identify some vague language that needed to be clarified. I checked these passages by listening to the audio recording again. Where I struggled to capture what exactly was said by the interviewees,

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native English speakers were invited to help with the transcription. This ensured that the interviewees’ replies were transcribed as accurately as possible. To ascertain transcription validity, I followed Kvale’s (1996) suggestions. Firstly, verbatim descriptions respect the original meanings of the participants whose own words were transcribed as much as possible. I hereby transcribed the wording of the participants as accurately as possible by listening to the audio recording repeatedly. Secondly, nonverbal communications were recorded on the field notes where necessary and possible. These forms of communication, such as pauses, laughter, interruptions and changes in vocal tone or emotion, provided a richer access to the participants’ meanings. Thirdly, transforming the conversation into a written form facilitates communication of the participants’ meanings to readers. While transcribing, I corrected superficial conversational grammar mistakes of the participants for the sake of reading clarity. Care was taken to preserve meaning. As oral language of the participants often used different clause patterns from written language, the talk was broken up into sentences according to my own understanding and later checked by the participants. In brief, the combination of verbatim descriptions, nonverbal communications, and written styles made the transcription more meaningful and manipulable. Kvale’s advice resonates with Bourdieu’s viewpoints that transcription is subject to the reconciliation of two sets of constraints: the constraint of fidelity and ‘the constraint of readability’ (Bourdieu, 1999c: 622). Transcription means writing and rewriting. The writing process is faithful to everything that came up in the interview, while the rewriting process sometimes has to rid the transcribed text of certain confused phrases or verbal slips to improve readability (Bourdieu, 1999c). Reconciliation of the two constraints is therefore paradoxical. As Bourdieu (1999c: 622) explained, ‘the transition from the oral to the written, with the changes in medium, imposes infidelities which are without doubt the condition of a true fidelity.’ A deductive thematic analytic approach (Boyatzis, 1998; Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to organise, describe and analyse the interview data in terms of conceptual framework informed by Bourdieu’s sociological triad of habitus, capital and field. To excavate the in-depth meanings embedded in participants’ experiences, I analysed the data in an ongoing and recursive process to make sense of and mediate these meanings through my own perceptions, mindful of Bourdieu’s sociology. By ‘ongoing’ and ‘recursive’, I mean that findings were systematically generated and built as successive pieces of data were organised and analysed. The first step was to understand the scope of the data and obtain a general sense of the information by reading through the transcripts.

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The next step was meaning condensation that entailed an abridgement of the meanings expressed by the participants into shorter and more succinct formulations. The ‘natural meaning units’ (Kvale, 1996: 194), which were quite often long statements expressed by the participants, were compressed into briefer statements and the main sense of what was said was rephrased in a few words, without prejudice, bias or presumptions. Then I created codes to divide the materials into manageable chunks of meaning, to identify different segments, and to label those categories with a term used across data sources. A combination of predetermined, theoretically informed and emerging codes was generated. Data were continually read, reread and re-examined. New codes were added as the data were reviewed. The initial codes were gradually combined and reduced with the goal of eliminating overlap and producing a more coherent view of the patterns in the data. This helped to generate a small number of essential and non-redundant themes. These themes were described using a few words or phrases. They identified the major issues for interpreting and representing the data, resonating with the theoretical underpinnings and serving as major findings. When reporting the interview data, I did not simply represent the perspectives of the participants, accompanied by my viewpoints in the form of interpretations. Rather, I considered reporting a practice of social construction where my voice, writing style and literary devices constructed a specific view on the participants’ lived world. By doing this, different participants’ experiences were reconstructed into a richer, more condensed and coherent story than the scattered stories of the separate participants. It will soon become clear in the exposition how I strategically quoted my participants and presented these quotes in a readable and written textual form when verbatim transcriptions of oral speech, with repetitions, digressions and pauses, were difficult to grasp. The exception was when the linguistic form itself was important to the study. To contextualise the quotes, I described the interview context. Then I interpreted these quotes by clear statements of what viewpoint a quote illuminated, proved or disproved. Now I will report on how the interview data were thematically organised and analysed in light of Bourdieu’s sociological perspectives.

What did Chinese Heritage Language Mean to These Participants? Different reasons and various meanings behind CHL learning emerged from the above glimpse of the five participants. When legitimised in given fields, participants’ CHL competence could serve as linguistic capital.

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The exchange value of this linguistic capital can produce benefits or profits in these fields. These benefits and profits can be understood as a return on investment in CHL learning. The quantity and quality of production was dependent upon the structure of the participants’ lived social worlds at a given time. As such, CHL was reported to have rich and varied meanings for all participants. These meanings emerging from the interview data resonated with Bourdieu’s theorisation of habitus, capital and language choice within a given field.

Potential production of economic capital through Chinese Heritage Language Learning When asked whether their Chinese language could benefit them in future, all participants indicated that one of the benefits from learning Chinese was the expectation of more and better job opportunities. Dianna shared a story about one of her Chinese friends who got a job as a translator in a company because of his Chinese proficiency. Dianna seemed to cast no doubt on the value of Chinese competence in the labour market. She described always telling her friend’s story to her brother and saying, ‘You will be thankful when you get a job because of your ability to speak two languages.’ She explained, ‘When you are looking for a job, people tend to consider someone who can speak two languages or more than two. You will find yourself getting that priority.’ By saying this, she indicated her belief that her Chinese competence would be valued in such a field where people considered both Chinese and English important. When valued in a future job market, her CHL competence will serve as linguistic capital by which she can ‘get that priority’. This view was shared by all participants. Adam, who was doing research in air pollution, hoped that his Chinese competence would open up opportunities to find work to do with air pollution in China. Bob, who was studying paramedical science, reported that his Chinese competence might be helpful if he wanted to get a job in Hong Kong as a paramedic. Crystal, who wanted to possibly work in Hong Kong one day, considered that her Chinese competence might function as an instrumental advantage for her. En-ning, who changed her major from Arts and Law to Asian studies and Law, considered her Chinese competence useful if she wanted to ‘pursue Australia-China relations or work as a lawyer’ in her future career. In summary, all participants reported if valued in a future labour market, or a given field in Bourdieu’s sense, their CHL competence would become a valuable asset for them. These future labour markets where Chinese is valued will become extra fields open to these participants. This accords with the

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findings indicated by previous studies (Francis et al., 2009; Weger-Guntharp, 2006; K.F. Wong & Xiao, 2010), indicating that CHL competence is explicitly associated with extra job opportunities, and ultimately convertible into economic capital.

Production of cultural capital through Chinese Heritage Language learning When asked to explain their Chinese learning experiences and practices, Adam said that he bought some Chinese textbooks and worked through them by himself; Crystal reported that she bought some Chinese TV series and watched them as a way of learning Chinese; and Dianna indicated that she collected some Chinese books for reading and family discussion. These Chinese textbooks, Chinese TV series and Chinese literature are material cultural goods that can be understood as objectified cultural capital produced through CHL learning. When asked to talk about language and culture, Adam explained, ‘I have a bit of a philosophical aspect in learning a language or any languages because it provides a wider window to look into the culture and see how people react to things.’ This philosophy made sense when he reported that he started to understand local people’s particular ways of doing things during his Chinese language study tour in Shanghai. These understandings gained through CHL learning became an embodied asset. As Bourdieu (1991) explained, embodied cultural capital would include the know-how capacity that people bring with them when moving across different social spaces. By virtue of these embodied resources, when Adam accompanied his sister to visit Shanghai, he became the person ‘who showed her around’, told her ‘how unique people in Shanghai are’, and ‘trained her how to cross the road safely’. Apart from his capture of the local ways of doing things, Adam also reported gaining some Chinese cultural knowledge through his Chinese learning. He explained: We can use the word ‘networking’, but it’s not as great as the Mandarin word, (I am sorry for my tones), ‘关系’. In China, ‘关系’ is a lot deeper concept. It’s more about knowing the right people and somehow having a working relation. It’s like a ‘you scratch my back and I scratch your back’ thing. This excerpt demonstrated his understanding of the special meaning of the Chinese word ‘关系’, equivalent to the English word ‘networking’, within

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a Chinese cultural context. He gained this Chinese cultural knowledge through his CHL learning. Later he added: I am always fascinated with the old Chinese sayings, which still ring true to this day. It just has a deeper meaning when you say it in Mandarin or even in classical Chinese instead of reading the English translated one. He gave a few examples of the old Chinese sayings and said, ‘Remember the wise sayings from our forefathers: 一山还有一山高 (there is not a mountain which is the tallest); 天外有天 (there is always another heaven beyond this one).’ These sayings indicate that no one can be the best and people should be humble. It was apparent that Adam appreciated the meaning behind these sayings. He referenced these sayings when trying to argue that he would not feel too proud of his Chinese competence, though he was happy with his progress in Chinese. Through CHL learning, Adam reported that he had gained Chinese cultural knowledge and embedded this knowledge into his mind and body, from which his behavioural patterns, actions and perceptions emerged. Bob also reported gaining some Chinese cultural knowledge through his Chinese learning. When asked to talk about language and culture, he reported that his mum taught him something about ‘the formation of Chinese characters’ and ‘how different characters had changed over the years.’ It was his mum’s inculcation through CHL practice that generated this aspect of his Chinese cultural knowledge. Similarly, Crystal reported that she really enjoyed Chinese entertainment, especially Chinese TV series, and she attributed this taste to her upbringing, as she explained: I grew up watching that. When I was very little, my dad introduced me to these series. My parents never formally taught me Chinese really. But they showed me TV shows. We used to watch together. That’s what I did. This does make sense because Bourdieu (1973) argues that the reproduction of cultural capital emphasises the importance of the early familial environment for the learning and accumulation of cultural capital. By this he meant that reproduction of cultural capital is not established in a vacuum but is intergenerationally sponsored. This intergenerational influence urges each agent to reproduce the cultural capital of his or her group, augmenting it if possible. Through CHL learning, Bob’s mum and Crystal’s dad were able to pass on the Chinese cultural knowledge to them as the reproduction

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of embodied cultural capital. When asked whether her Chinese language benefited her, Crystal said: Yes, I guess so. It exposes me to more entertainment stuff. Before, when I was little, I used to watch series but my dad had to give me the series to watch. Now I can go online and type in Chinese to find my own series to watch. By saying ‘more’, Crystal indicated that she would not have been able to access Chinese entertainment resources without her CHL learning experience and CHL competence. When she was little, her dad had to mediate access to these resources for her because her Chinese was too limited. When she grew up, she was able to use her Chinese to search Chinese websites for ‘more entertainment stuff’. Moreover, both Crystal and En-ning reported that learning Chinese enabled them to sing Chinese songs. For Adam, Bob, Crystal and En-ning, their Chinese cultural capability generated through learning CHL can be understood as embodied cultural capital that helped them access a wider range of Chinese cultural resources. In addition to objectified and embodied cultural capital acquired through CHL learning, CHL competence was also reported to produce institutionalised cultural capital. All participants except Adam reported that they had undertaken formal Chinese learning in schools or at universities. When I was probably in Grade 3 or Grade 4, my parents sent me to a Chinese school to learn Mandarin… In Grade 7… Chinese was the thing in the curriculum (of my school). We got to learn Chinese. (Bob) I think I took my first formal Chinese lesson when I was in Year 3 at my primary school… I did two years of Chinese at high school in Year 7 and Year 8… From Year 9 to Year 11, I went to my community Chinese school, run by Chinese people… I am going to do my first Chinese course this coming semester (at my university). (Crystal) I went to one (Chinese community school) in Sunnybank for a few months. (Dianna) I went to Cleveland Street Saturday Chinese School until… possibly Year 6. And then... my school started offering Chinese. And then I did it in Year 9… I did Chinese 5, Chinese 6, and Chinese 7 in my first semester and the second semester and the second year first semester (at my university)… And then I went for an exchange in Santa Barbara in California at this time last year for a semester. I took like three Chinese language classes as part of my exchange requirements. (En-ning)

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Because the Chinese courses were part of participants’ (except Adam) curriculum, these participants received credits towards the programs that they were enrolled in. These credits can be understood as institutionalised cultural capital.

Production of social capital through Chinese Heritage Language learning When asked about their language choices at home, at work, with friends and in their social lives, all participants indicated that Chinese was useful and beneficial in at least one of these settings. First of all, they all indicated that their Chinese competence helped strengthen their family ties. By their accounts, this was particularly important when some family members did not have, or did not have enough, English competence. Dianna reported that Chinese usage at home was the only way to communicate with her parents because they did not have any English. Crystal and En-ning reported that Chinese usage helped them communicate ‘more’, particularly with their grandparents: I would like to communicate with my family a bit more. I really like my more distant family (grandparents), so I would like to be able to talk to them more when I visit them and tell them about my life. (Crystal) It was very hard to communicate with them (grandparents) before I properly learnt Chinese. I guess it’s another part of why learning Chinese is a personal thing because I want to better speak to my grandparents. (En-ning) In the excerpts above, Crystal and En-ning used the words ‘more’ and ‘better’. By this they meant something that they did not have or did not have enough of before. The connotation embedded in the words ‘more’ and ‘better’ resonates with the capital metaphor because capital can accumulate and generate ‘added value’. For these participants, the added value generated through CHL learning was better intergenerational communication, by which their family ties could be strengthened. Secondly, CHL competence could reportedly build friendship networks. All participants talked of speaking Chinese with their friends, either in Australia or in China, or even in other parts of the world. When asked about their language choices with friends, Crystal said, ‘I also have some mainland China friends whom I like to talk to in Chinese sometimes.’ In this respect, CHL is important for Crystal to maintain and strengthen the ties with her friends in the Chinese mainland. When asked the same question, Dianna explained:

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I do have friends from Hong Kong, or China. We do speak Chinese to each other, but not in class to be polite. If you meet someone with an Asian background who can speak Chinese, you always feel comfortable to speak Chinese to them. Later she added, ‘I tend to be with Asians (Chinese) more, so we can speak our home language, Mandarin Chinese. Sometimes we can speak about things that we can’t describe in English. We are comfortable that way.’ Her friendship could be strengthened through this more comfortable way of communication in Chinese, especially when there was something that they could not ‘describe’ in English. In such a situation, CHL had a unique and instrumental function to facilitate communication between Dianna and her Chinese friends, which they could not achieve through any other language. En-ning also reported how her Chinese competence benefited her friendships: I think of how many diverse and amazing experiences I have been able to have as a result of coming to China and learning Chinese. For example, I have memories of overseas Chinese from all over the world hanging out in a dorm room and sharing stories about our experiences as overseas Chinese… Chatting to a bunch of Chinese girls on a train, you know anything that is relevant to their lives. I think if I can’t speak some Chinese, I would not have access to it. Moreover, CHL competence by the participants’ accounts benefited their daily lives. All participants described experiences when their Chinese competence helped them socialise with other people. Adam used to mix with other Chinese-speaking people in a Chinese mall when he was in Singapore. When asked in the second interview why he wanted to ‘catch up’ with his Chinese, Adam added: I want to catch up with my Chinese language so that I can converse with anybody easier. I think I am sort of on my way there. For example, I just helped a couple of my friends with their graduation and most of them are Malaysian. Even a year ago, in the previous graduation season, I wouldn’t even think of being able to talk with any of their parents in Chinese. This year at least I could say a few things. As a return on his efforts in CHL learning, Adam was able to socialise in a more active way. Bob and Crystal reported the experience at work of using Chinese to help people who could not speak English. Crystal was also very

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happy that she was able to use Chinese in China when shopping. Dianna taught small children simple Chinese keywords or sang Chinese songs with them over the Chinese New Year. En-ning was studying in China when the interviews with her were conducted. She indicated that her Chinese language competence was indispensable because she had to use Chinese in her daily life to socialise with other Chinese people. In contrast, a lack of CHL proficiency was reported to hinder the establishment and development of social networks. When asked whether it was a struggle to speak Chinese, Bob said: Definitely I was keen to socialise with people but it’s hard because I don’t know what to say. If I knew what to say, I would definitely say (something). Yes in a way, it was a struggle. But I was willing to try and make that effort to say something. On the one hand, a lack of CHL proficiency precluded Bob from socialising with Chinese-speaking people. Without certain level of CHL proficiency, it was difficult for Bob to establish social networks with Chinese-speaking people. On the other hand, Bob described trying his best to practice his CHL in order to better enable socialising. In brief, CHL competence has maintained, extended or improved the social networks for all participants in their Chinese-speaking social world, in terms of strengthening family cohesion, developing new friendships or improving their existing ones, and socialising with other people. This is consistent with the existing literature. As indicated in previous studies (Francis et al., 2009; K.F. Wong & Xiao, 2010; J. Zhang, 2009), CHL as a means of communication has a functional significance in terms of establishing valuable networks within fields where Chinese is the medium of social relations.

Production of symbolic capital through Chinese Heritage Language learning CHL competence reportedly became symbolic capital when recognised or valued by others. Adam recalled his feeling that local people understood him when he was in Shanghai: I felt really great! It was just like a little kid managing to do something different for the first time. I had thought I would have never done it because of all the difficulties that I had. For them to be able to reply to me: ‘I understand what you said’, it looked like I managed to climb up a pretty high mountain and I would be able to do it.

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This ‘great’ feeling might be attributed to his experience that his Chinese language was understood, accepted and legitimised by the local Shanghai people. Other participants reported similar experiences of recognition and affirmation when their Chinese language was recognised or valued by others. When asked what other people thought of his Chinese ability, Bob recalled, ‘My aunty was pretty nice. She said that I am good for someone who has been brought up in Australia.’ When asked about her reasons for learning Chinese, Crystal said that her friends’ parents made a fuss of her when she talked to them in Chinese. She recalled, ‘They kind of like me more.’ Dianna had the experience that she was praised by her parents’ friends for her CHL competence. She recalled what her parents’ friends said to her, ‘Oh, it’s really good you can still speak Chinese here.’ She also recalled the experience of being asked by her white Australian classmates in high school to speak Chinese. When her classmate said, ‘I only speak English. You can speak two languages’, Dianna reported that, ‘I was really, really proud of myself. I have two languages. I don’t feel any shame at all.’ Because her Chinese proficiency was recognised by others, she did not ‘feel any shame at all’ for being able to speak Chinese. Instead, it was a source of pride for her. En-ning recalled, ‘In terms of my grandparents, they are very proud and happy that I am pursuing this language.’ When asked whether learning Chinese has ever helped her win any qualifications or awards, En-ning was ‘pretty sure’ that ‘almost everything’ she was able to win was ‘partially because of’ her Chinese learning efforts. These included a prestigious scholarship at a leading Australian university and a national scholarship awarded by the Australian Federal Government. As she explained, ‘Of course I don’t think I would have got the scholarships if I didn’t have at least some Chinese language background.’ Because of the symbolic value attached to her Chinese language, En-ning said, ‘I am very aware how lucky I am to be an Australian with a Chinese heritage.’ For these participants, CHL competence became linguistic capital with legitimised and symbolic value, which was then convertible into symbolic capital. As indicated in previous studies (Francis et al., 2009; J. Zhang, 2009), CHL competence helped CHLLs gain praise, respect, pride, status and honour.

Making sense of the habitus of Chineseness through Chinese Heritage Language learning As argued in Chapter 2, habitus is rooted in cultural history. For some participants, the origins of their Chineseness reportedly carried deep meaning and relevance through their Chinese learning. En-ning took the

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opportunity when she was learning Chinese in China to explore her family origin. She said, ‘This 春节 (Chinese New Year) I found my grandparents’ 老家 (hometown) in the south. I spent two weeks there.’ It should be noted that the Chinese word ‘老家’ has a different meaning from the English word ‘hometown’. ‘老家’ is the ‘root’ of a clan, a native place where one’s ancestors originated and were buried. It signifies not only the physical place itself but also the genealogical connections and the deep attachments to the land, customs and compatriots, forged through generations of shared ancestry, history, culture and language. En-ning seemed to attribute this trip to explore her cultural roots to her growing Chinese competence. As she explained, ‘I wouldn’t have managed if I didn’t have at least some Mandarin. Even my parents have never been (there). It was incredible.’ En-ning’s account is in line with the literature that the heritage background nurtures the HL learning efforts and reinforces HLLs’ identity (Carreira, 2004). Adam thought that the Chinese language resonated with Chineseness, as he explained, ‘For some people, they speak Chinese so that they can claim their Chineseness’. When asked about the driving force behind all his efforts in learning Chinese, Adam replied: The driving force is that I couldn’t do it because of the political reasons. I could keep saying I was the victim of the political situation back then, but now I have the chance and I will not let the opportunity pass. I am sort of trying to discover my heritage again. It was denied but now I have the chance and I am going to grab it. He concluded his first interview with the following comments: I am not a typical Chinese because most of the time, let’s say Westerners, maybe use that word, they probably learn Chinese because they have the opportunity and they have always been able to do it. Well, in my case, I was just a little bit behind because of the policy I had back then. But of course I can’t say, ‘Hey, it got banned. I got left behind. There is no point of learning.’ No, that’s not the case. I just need to catch up. That’s all. Adam was trying to explain his uniqueness here. In his perception, ‘Westerners’ can ‘have the opportunity’ to learn Chinese and ‘they have always been able to do it’. In contrast, he did not have the opportunity and he was not able to do it while growing up in Jakarta. Here he might use the terms ‘Westerners’ and ‘typical Chinese’ to refer to white Australians and Chinese Australians respectively, who were brought up with the opportunity of learning Chinese. In fact, he did indicate earlier in the interview that

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the multicultural society offered Australians the opportunity to learn Asian languages because these languages were ‘just around them’. Compared with these ‘Westerners’ and ‘typical Chinese’, he felt left behind in terms of Chinese learning. This can explain his lower Chinese proficiency reported in the quantitative phase. This was also the reason that he wanted to ‘catch up’. When asked what exactly he wanted to catch up, Adam replied, ‘I want to catch up with my Chinese language.’ By this ‘catch-up’, he explained that he wanted to ‘discover’ his ‘heritage again’. By saying ‘again’, he indicated that he sought to recapture his claim to Chineseness that ‘was denied’ in the past due to the difficult political situation. He added this comment at the end of the third interview: For me, Mandarin is a tool to enforce the Chinese identity… It’s to satisfy my curiosity about my heritage and how history, culture, etc. have shaped who I am today as a part of my own ‘who do you think you are’ project. It is worth nothing that Adam was referring to the TV genealogy programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ It is an Australian television documentary series, following the BBC series of the same name. Each episode profiles a celebrity tracing his/her family roots. Adam referred to this program due to its promotion of genealogy, which resonated with his ‘curiosity’ about his Chineseness. Other participants also claimed that Chinese language carried deeply rooted meanings for them. When asked why he chose to learn Chinese in school, Bob said, ‘Chinese is part of me.’ When asked what Chinese language meant to her, Dianna replied, ‘It’s also part of my identity, my Chinese identity. I was born into this culture, this colour, and this language, so it’s part of my identity, my Chinese identity.’ When asked, ‘Have you ever thought about why they (your parents) pushed you to learn Chinese’, En-ning replied: Yes, I have thought about it. I guess they want me to have a connection with that side of who I am…They also gave us (me and my brother) opportunity to explore the other side, the Chinese side of us when we were very young. En-ning’s parents hoped to reproduce a sense of Chineseness in their children through learning CHL. En-ning seemed very engaged in this reproduction of Chineseness. She spent her gap year in China learning Chinese, which ‘totally changed’ her life. She said, ‘I feel a lot happier, especially in my gap year when I had the opportunity to explore that side of who I am.’ When

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asked at the end of the interview to add some more comments to her Chinese language learning and Chinese background, she said: I am so glad that I discovered this so early in my life. I do meet a lot of overseas Chinese who came to China much older, looking for something. But I am glad I came early… I think if we have the opportunity to explore this other side of who we are or might be, that can be very empowering, which in turn can very much affect our life experiences. In short, participants’ CHL learning and practices resonated with a constitutive dimension and sense of themselves. As such, CHL learning and practices helped recapture or reinforce a habitus of Chineseness for the participants, which was embraced as ‘part of’ themselves or ‘the other side of’ themselves. This is in line with the existing studies where CHLLs reported that Chinese was a central part of themselves (Comanaru & Noels, 2009). All participants indicated that they intended to reproduce Chineseness in the future through intergenerational Chinese learning and practice. When asked, ‘If you were to have children, would you like to encourage them to learn another language other than English?’ all participants agreed that they would like their children to learn Chinese. See their comments below. I would love to see them learn Mandarin. Yes, I would love to see them learn Mandarin… It’s definitely biased of course. (Adam) I wouldn’t force them. They can decide what they want to know, like where their grandparents’ heritage was from. But I won’t force them. If they choose (Chinese) and they are interested, by all means I will support them and try to coach them… They can learn where their dad is from. (Bob) I would like my kids to learn Chinese… so that we don’t lose it as time goes on. We are Chinese family and we should speak Chinese. (Crystal) I need to keep my home language going no matter where I am. So I will pass on to my children as well. (Dianna) I would encourage them to learn Chinese… I personally would like them to learn Chinese because of the personal connections they would have. (En-ning) Dianna expressed the strongest sense of the maintenance of her CHL and definitely intended to pass it on to her children. This disposition may be

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attributed to her upbringing in Taiwan, where in general Chinese language and culture are more valued than in the places where the other interview participants were brought up. This conforms to Bourdieu’s contention that ‘field’ generates ‘habitus’. Adam’s ‘biased’ disposition demonstrated his eagerness to claim his Chineseness and transfer it to his children through CHL learning because their current lived world, Australia, does not ban their CHL and Chineseness. Bob, Crystal and En-ning also demonstrated a certain degree of desire to maintain the Chineseness in their next generation through CHL learning because they have all enjoyed the benefits of CHL to some extent. In brief, the habitus of Chineseness was explicitly linked to past roots, present moments and future anticipations. This habitus of Chineseness, as a system of internalised cognitive and motivating structures (Bourdieu, 1977b, 1990b), is produced by structures of past and present cultural and social environment and will be reproduced in future CHL learning through its generativity. When CHL is legitimised and imbued with symbolic value, the loyalty to CHL may persist over many generations of Chinese Australians who relearn CHL that symbolises their ethnic identity, and in Bourdieu’s sense, their habitus. This CHL learning is a strategy to reproduce the habitus of Chineseness in the next generation and even generations further removed. A habitus of Chineseness, to borrow a Bourdieusian metaphor, contains the genetic information which both allows and disposes successive generations to reproduce the world that they inherit from their previous generation (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). In this respect, this durable and transposable Chineseness is transmitted across generations and over historical time through CHL learning. However, the dispositions brought to a given field do not preclude deliberate remaking of the habitus. Therefore, the habitus of Chineseness is not fixed and eternal. Instead, it may vary in anticipation of, and in response to, the positioning that occurs through structural distinctions and categories of discourse that constitute rules of exchange within fields (Bourdieu, 1998). Therefore, when examining the interactions between Chinese Australians’ Chineseness and their CHL practice, their Chineseness should be interpreted as habitus animated within a particular field and interacting with the power of the field.

Capital in different fields As argued in Chapter 2, capital only accrues value in a particular field. The interview data illustrated this well. Adam has lived in three different countries, where Chinese language did not carry the same value. He was

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born in Jakarta, Indonesia. When he grew up there, learning Chinese was almost impossible. He recalled and revealed this experience as follows: During the Suharto era they had a bit of a policy where nobody could learn any other language other than English or Indonesian. You can say that the Mandarin language was banned… Anything with Chinese writing wasn’t allowed. Interestingly, if you go to Indonesia around that period of time, filling the customs card, like what we fill when entering into Australia, there was actually a part where it says whether you have anything that has Chinese writing or something like that. During the Suharto era in Indonesia, English and Indonesian were positioned at the top of the language hierarchy and therefore were considered legitimate and valuable linguistic capital within this particular field. Commitment to learning these two languages was an astute investment, given the return on which language learners could have access to resources, such as better education, more job opportunities and a better life. In contrast, Chinese language was illegal and would have even accrued a penalty. Investment in Chinese would not have any positive public returns. This was ‘one of the most challenging aspects to learn Mandarin’ for Adam. The situation was very different when Adam lived in another field, Singapore, where Chinese was widely used. When asked about his Chinese practices in Singapore, Adam recalled: What happens is that they have more textbooks that teach little kids Mandarin. I just bought them and I actually went through them myself from the first grade to the second grade… I learned quite a lot of Mandarin in Singapore because more people can speak Mandarin. I was just looking at the little kids around to see what words they used. If the little kids use the words, I can bet ten bucks that it’s going to be one of those few words that I need to know. In the second interview, Adam added, ‘It looks like they (Singaporeans) put a lot of importance on our ability to speak Chinese.’ In his perception, Chinese language seemed to carry much value in Singapore. This can explain why he said that the reason to do the exchange in Singapore was to ‘try to learn a bit more Mandarin along the way’. This one year in Singapore helped his Chinese, as he added, ‘When I was in Singapore, I definitely learned more Mandarin. I stayed there for one year and I took my time learning it… At least the writing and the listening definitely improved when I was in Singapore.’ However, Adam had not pursued any formal Chinese learning

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in Australia. This may be because the Australian social fields in which he lived did not accord similar value to Chinese. When asked whether many students chose to learn Chinese and whether Chinese was popular among them, he recalled: I would say nearly none. Nobody talked about Chinese at all. Maybe because the school did not offer it, nobody thought about it at all. Even if I asked other people if they were interested in Chinese, they would say ‘no, what for?’ When asked about his language choices in Australia, Adam explained his language choices at home, at work, with his friends and in his social life. At home, he spoke mainly Indonesian with his parents who ‘put more effort into (his) English because it is pretty much the working language of the world’. He spoke half English and half Indonesian with his sister. At his work, he believed that his Chinese competence may bring him opportunities in his future career, but he added, ‘I wouldn’t say it will be a direct benefit. For example, because I am a researcher, probably… especially in science, everybody just uses English.’ He spoke mostly English with his Chinese friends, who tended to say, ‘Yeah, Mandarin is important but not that essential.’ In his social life, he did not have many chances to use Chinese because ‘everybody here can speak English anyway’. For Adam, Chinese was not a valuable resource in Australia. According to Adam’s experiences, Chinese accrued different values in Indonesia, Singapore and Australia. Likewise, Chinese was valued differently in Hong Kong and Australia. Because of the colonial history, English was once the only official language in Hong Kong. Since the ‘handover’, English has kept its value due to this history and its global utility while Chinese has gained more legitimised value due to the current political situation. Both English and Chinese serve as official languages and linguistic capital in Hong Kong. They have both been positioned at the top of the language hierarchy. Bob recalled his experience during his recent Hong Kong trip: My dad’s sister said, ‘It’s very important you should learn and you should try to improve your speaking, so you can communicate well’… They are quite supportive. When they knew that I was trying to say something, they would try to help me out to get the point cross. The words of Bob’s aunt implied that Chinese accrues value in Hong Kong because ‘it’s very important’. Unlike Hong Kong, Bob perceives that Australia is not a place where Chinese is valued:

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Well, when I was there (Hong Kong), I thought it (Chinese) was a quite important thing. But since, you know, I have been here (Australia) for so long, I felt in my younger years it wasn’t quite a benefit for me because I don’t use that language. This experience was shared by En-ning. She reported that she ‘grew up in a very white area’ and indicated she did not have many chances to use Chinese when she was small. When asked about his language choices in Australia, Bob explained that English was his dominant language at home, at work and in his social life. However, for Bob, Chinese did have its value in other fields. For example, when asked why he chose Chinese in primary school, apart from the reason that Chinese was ‘part of’ him, Bob replied, ‘I think a few of my friends also did that’, suggesting that learning Chinese was a popular choice among his friends. In order to better maintain his membership in this friend network, or this particular field in Bourdieu’s sense, where Chinese had a degree of legitimate value, Bob pushed himself to invest in his CHL learning. Similarly, although English was the dominant language for Crystal, her Chinese competence was sometimes valued in certain fields. She said, ‘I have some Chinese friends. Sometimes I think it is good when I go to their house and I talk to their parents in Chinese, they kind of like me more.’ For Dianna, her Chinese accrued value when she translated for her parents in given situations. When asked why she considered her Chinese competence a source of ‘pride’, she responded, ‘I guess every time I bring my parents to places like immigration, post office, and Brisbane City Council, where they need translation, I am the translator. I feel proud of being able to translate for my parents.’ In these situations, Chinese language became important capital for Dianna. In contrast to the linguistic fields in Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, the linguistic field in the Chinese mainland positions Chinese at the top of the language hierarchy of all the 129 languages in China (Sun et al., 2007). Within the Chinese language, Mandarin, the largest group of Chinese dialects in terms of population and geographical distribution, is considered the most valuable linguistic capital, the possession of which can determine people’s position in a given field. Different geographical regions have their own legitimised Mandarin accents. Adam reported an example for this. When he was in Shanghai, speaking to local people with the wrong tones, the locals said, ‘Hang on, how come you can’t speak Mandarin! Where are you from?’ Likewise, En-ning recalled a similar story during her study in Beijing. ‘I am definitely conscious sometimes like I’ve been to a 食堂 (dining hall) with my friends and people will be looking at me because they are all talking Chinese but they can tell I have a very funny accent.’ In such a

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social field, the quantity and quality of the pertinent linguistic capital, that is, a particular accent of Mandarin, can distinguish the ‘in-group’ from the ‘out-group’. It was the absence of this linguistic capital that caused Adam and En-ning to feel excluded from a legitimate Chinese cultural citizenship. This cultural citizenship can be understood as a set of ‘cultural practices and beliefs’ and ‘hegemonic forms that establish the criteria of belonging within a national population and territory’ (Ong et al., 1996: 738). In this case, the different accent of Adam and En-ning did not fit the ‘hegemonic forms’ within the Chinese cultural and linguistic fields and therefore failed to satisfy the criteria of being a legitimate Chinese cultural citizen. Drawing insights from these data, different political states and social places, such as family, friendship network, workplace and school, function as fields in which CHL competence is deemed necessary or unnecessary, and simultaneously, as fields in which the value of CHL competence is determined. The more legitimate CHL competence is in a given field, the more necessary and profitable it is to be competent in it, and the more damaging and costly it is to be incompetent. For Bourdieu (1984), the social ‘sites’ are ‘markets which, by their positive or negative sanctions, evaluate performance, reinforcing what is acceptable, discouraging what is not, condemning valueless dispositions to extinction’ (1984: 85). In other words, CHL competence never accrues absolute, universal or guaranteed value. Instead, its value conforms to and depends on certain logic, interest and rules of exchange in a market system. The competence of CHL as linguistic capital realises its exchange value through its usage in a particular way and in a given field.

Catering to the field of forces In Confucian social worlds, standards of excellence and successful learning may be determined both by the individual learners and by ‘significant others, the family, the group, or the society as a whole’ (K.S. Yang, 1986: 114). This view was shared by the current study. What emerged from the data was that participants’ CHL practices were shaped by the forces within particular fields. These forces established rules of the fields that structured participants’ agency and shaped their practices in line with these rules. For example, within the field of family, participants reported the ‘rule’ of parents’ forcing their children to learn Chinese. Bob recalled: When I was probably in Grade 3 or Grade 4, my parents sent me to a Chinese school to learn Mandarin. I wasn’t very interested in that. I said, ‘I am not interested in this. There is no point sending me to do this.’

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En-ning recalled similar experiences: Basically until I was in Year Nine, I hated learning Chinese with a passion. I think it’s probably the thing I hated the most in my life. It was definitely my parents forcing me and my brother to go. It was not my own choice. From my memory, I used to ask to quit all the time. Likewise, Dianna shared a friend’s story: One of my friends actually told me that… he was born here (in Australia) and his mum forced him to learn Chinese when he was small. He hated it. He didn’t want to go and he thought it was the hardest language ever. By these accounts, Bob, En-ning and Dianna’s friend were not willing to learn Chinese when they were small. Instead, they were commanded and pressured by their parents to do so. This resonates with previous studies (Lao, 2004; Weger-Guntharp, 2006; J. Zhang, 2009): CHLLs, when small, had to obey the parental power, which functioned as the rule in the field of family. Apart from parents’ forcing children to learn Chinese, En-ning reported a rule within the field of the Chinese language classroom. She recalled: I think there are often different expectations and standards to which Chinese Australians are held. I’ve felt this throughout my experience of learning Chinese and just this week, I had one of my Chinese teachers tell me that she holds me to a higher standard, expects more of me, etc… I personally think that these different standards are what drive me to keep learning. That my teachers often expect more of me gives me a lot of motivation. Teacher’s expectations and standards were reportedly imposed on En-ning, because of the Confucian rule that teacher-student relations are strongly hierarchical (Biggs & Watkins, 1996). Playing by these rules within the field of classroom, willingly or unwillingly, En-ning tended to put more effort into learning Chinese. In addition, the stereotypical perception that looking Chinese meant being able to speak Chinese was reportedly another driving force behind participants’ commitment to learning Chinese. By their interview accounts, Adam, En-ning, and Dianna’s friend were all confronted with the question: ‘Why can’t you speak Chinese while you look Chinese?’ This rule produced embarrassment, discomfort and contradictions within themselves. As such,

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they were in a disadvantaged place within social fields where this stereotype functioned as a positioning rule. These social fields then became a site of struggle for them and CHL competence became more valuable capital for them in order to play within the rules of these fields.

Are the Findings Consistent Across the Quantitative and the Qualitative Investigation? The previous section reported the main themes that emerged from the interview data. CHL reportedly had rich and varied meanings for all participants: CHL had the potential to produce economic capital; participants gained a wider range of cultural, social and symbolic capital, and reinforced or recaptured their habitus of Chineseness through CHL learning; at the same time, these different forms of capital accrued differential value in different fields; and participants’ CHL learning was shaped by the structures of these fields. In addition, the interview data supported the findings from the initial quantitative phase, which concluded that participants’ capture of habitus of Chineseness and their investment of various forms of capital in CHL practices contribute to their CHL proficiency. In Bourdieu’s sense, the production of language competence demanded capital and habitus. In the qualitative phase, learning CHL was reportedly both conscious and unconscious practice for the interview participants. The production of CHL competence through participants’ intentional and unintentional learning will be discussed in this section.

Capital and Chinese Heritage Language proficiency It will be recalled that the initial quantitative phase justified the positive contribution of various forms of capital to CHL proficiency. In the subsequent qualitative phase, the interview data indicated that CHL competence was reportedly the return on participants’ investment of economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. Firstly, the investment of economic capital helped improve participants’ CHL proficiency. Adam bought some Chinese textbooks in Singapore and went through them by himself. The money spent on textbooks seemed worthwhile. This helped him learn some simplified Chinese characters because the characters that he had learnt were the traditional ones. He recalled his first response to reading these textbooks: ‘At first it’s a bit odd. I thought hang on, what is it? Oh, hang on, it’s the simplified character.’ Besides the money spent on Chinese textbooks, he paid for the air tickets

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for the Shanghai study tour. He said, ‘The only thing (I had to pay) was the air ticket’, because the local expenses of the study tour were covered by the programme. The money spent on this trip seemed worthwhile too. As he recalled, ‘The one that really, really made me learn Mandarin was that 2010 cultural tour… It was such a great experience… 2010, as you can see, was a big eye open-up.’ Like Adam, Crystal also spent some money learning Chinese. She bought Chinese TV shows and watched them to improve her Chinese. When the interview was conducted, En-ning was doing a fee-paying program at a leading Chinese university in Beijing. When asked, ‘Do you think it’s worth it’, she replied, ‘Yes, it’s worth it.’ Given the intensive training, En-ning expected to improve her Chinese proficiency. As she confessed, ‘I am very comfortable saying that 95% of the Chinese I have learnt has been in China.’ For Adam, Crystal and En-ning, the money spent on Chinese learning can be understood as an investment of economic capital eventually convertible into their CHL proficiency. Secondly, the investment of cultural capital reportedly contributed to participants’ CHL learning. When asked, ‘Are you still trying to improve your Chinese language’, Crystal replied, ‘Yes, that’s part of the reason why I watch Chinese TV shows.’ As stated earlier, Crystal either bought or downloaded Chinese TV shows. These Chinese TV shows, or cultural goods, demanded time and Chinese cultural knowledge to consume. By watching these TV shows or consuming these cultural goods, she improved her CHL proficiency. Similarly, Dianna and her family sometimes read Chinese books together at home. When asked about her informal Chinese learning, she replied, ‘Sometimes at home, we have kind of family discussion. We read a book together in Chinese and we discuss in Chinese.’ She considered this family reading and discussion as informal Chinese learning that may improve her Chinese language. For Crystal and Dianna, the consumption of these Chinese cultural goods can be understood as the investment of cultural capital, eventually convertible into CHL proficiency. In addition, all the participants interviewed indicated that their parents and family members were very supportive of their CHL learning and encouraged them to learn Chinese when they were small. These family commitments were valuable resources in these participants’ CHL practice and could be understood as social capital that contributed to their CHL proficiency. Resonating with the findings from the quantitative phase, symbolic capital was also beneficial for these participants in their Chinese practice. When asked about the driving force behind his efforts in learning Chinese, Adam said:

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The driving force, in a way, may be ‘jealousy’. I don’t know whether that’s the right word to say. For example, my friends who are Malaysians or Singaporeans can speak in Mandarin or in any other dialects, like Cantonese. I thought, ‘Hang on, if they can do it, surely I can do it, right?’ This exemplifies a ‘face’ issue, as explained by Confucian dispositions earlier. Adam attached symbolic value to his ‘face’. This might be the reason why he felt jealous of his friends who could speak Chinese. In this situation, it was a matter of ‘face’ that drove him to learn CHL. In other occasions, when Adam’s Chinese language made sense to local Chinese people in Shanghai, he felt ‘great’ because of this recognition. In his own words, ‘Yes, it really made me think, “I can do this. Let’s learn more.” The feeling was like excitement and wanting to do more along the way.’ In Bourdieu’s sense, the desire for symbolic capital and the capture of symbolic capital encouraged Adam to ‘learn more’ and ‘do more’ Chinese, and would ultimately contribute to his CHL competence. The initial quantitative phase and the subsequent qualitative phase revealed a two-way relationship between capital and CHL proficiency. This conforms to the empirical findings in the existing literature. As explained in Chapter 2, empirical studies have not explicitly used the concept of capital to investigate CHL learning, but Bourdieu’s capital metaphor would shed additional light on these empirical findings. The opportunities for CHLLs to be exposed to CHL are determined by the quantity and quality of various resources available to CHLLs (Lao, 2004; Luo & Wiseman, 2000; J. Zhang, 2009). The more opportunities to use CHL in a variety of economic, cultural and social contexts, the more vital CHL is. These opportunities will shape present and future actions with regard to CHL learning. As a return on this CHL learning, CHLLs may acquire wider access to more resources, for example, more employment opportunities and better career development (Francis et al., 2009; A. Hancock, 2006; Lao, 2004; Weger-Guntharp, 2006; K.F. Wong & Xiao, 2010); more exam credentials or knowledge of China and Chinese culture (Francis et al., 2009; J. Zhang, 2009); better communication with Chinese family members (Francis et al., 2009; Lao, 2004) and Chinese friends (J. Zhang, 2009); deeper involvement in Chinese communities (Lao, 2004); as well as the enhancement of reputation and the accumulation of awards (J. Zhang, 2009). In short, CHLLs will capitalise on their CHL by investing various forms of capital. As a return on their investment, their CHL, when valued and recognised as linguistic capital, can be converted back into various forms of capital. It is through the two-way interaction between CHL learning and capital (re)production that CHL proficiency realises its exchange value.

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Chineseness and Chinese Heritage Language proficiency Another resonance with the findings from the quantitative phase was the role played by Chineseness qua habitus in CHL practice. As embodied dispositions, habitus is rooted in the agents’ past. It underpins agents’ present perceptions and actions, and produces agents’ practices. Language choice as a form of practice can be quite unconscious sometimes. When asked about the reasons for learning Chinese, Adam said, ‘I tried to learn Mandarin because I just wanted to learn it’. He added, ‘I don’t know how it happened but it just happened. It’s a good weird thing that had happened.’ When asked the same question, Crystal said, ‘I like it because I want to.’ She paused then added, ‘I feel I just want to know it.’ En-ning said, ‘I don’t know what came over me but I decided I wanted to learn it in school.’ For Adam, Crystal and En-ning, they did not have to know what drove them to learn CHL consciously, but subconsciously, as Bourdieu (1990b: 90) indicated, ‘we know much more than we know we know’. Bob, for example, when asked why he chose to learn Chinese in school, he said it was ‘because of my Chinese heritage’. By this account, it was his Chinese heritage rooted in his body that generated his intention for learning Chinese. As Bourdieu (1977b) argues, agents’ actions are the product of habitus of which the agents may have no conscious mastery because habitus always exceeds conscious intentions. As such, the habitus of Chineseness produced these participants’ CHL practices, without either explicit reason or signifying intent, to be none the less sensible and reasonable, and to be immediately intelligible and foreseeable, and hence taken for granted. This Chineseness was the immanent law laid down in these participants by their earliest upbringing and ‘previous state’ (Bourdieu, 2000: 161), which were the preconditions for their CHL practices. Being a constitutive dimension of Chineseness, looking Chinese is one of the bodily attributes that belong to all participants interviewed. Chinese appearance of yellow skin and black eyes and hair can be understood as contributing to the durable and transposable habitus of Chineseness that the participants have to carry with them all through their lives, willingly or unwillingly. This visibility of looking Chinese is a biological fact for these participants, an element of habitus that cannot be erased or made over (Luke, 2009). This biological essence of Chineseness, to which the participants were involuntarily and inextricably attached, connected them through their blood and flesh to their Chinese ethnicity, and linked them to their CHL learning. As Dianna said, ‘I was born into this culture, this colour, and this language.’ Similarly, Crystal said, ‘We are Chinese family and we should speak Chinese.’ Dianna had an experience deeply inscribed in her memory

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that her friends in high school told her: ‘If you are Asian, you should be able to speak your home language. If you can’t, it’s sort of a shame.’ This point was shared by En-ning. She said, ‘How difficult it is for a lot of overseas Chinese and how shameful it is! They look Chinese but they don’t speak Chinese.’ Adam explained his similar experience: As far as I know, all my grandparents are Chinese. Of course, I will look like Chinese anyway. If I try to speak Mandarin, they don’t say, ‘Wow, you can speak Mandarin.’ They tend to go, ‘How come you can’t speak Mandarin?’ …So I guess people around me tend to say, ‘Oh, if you look like a Chinese, you can speak Mandarin.’ He also recalled his experience when he lived in Singapore: Even in Singapore, the taxi drivers sometimes looked at me and said … what are the words… I tried to copy what they said in Mandarin… ‘你是华人么 (Are you Chinese)?’ If I said yes, they said ‘你说你是华人, 为什么你不可以讲华语 (You said you are Chinese, why you can’t speak Chinese)?’ For Adam, these experiences constructed the assumption that looking Chinese meant being able to speak Chinese. It was this stereotypical perception deeply rooted in his mind that largely drove his conscious commitment to Chinese learning. He tried to learn Mandarin in Year 12 but the school did not offer it. He was very keen to learn Chinese so he decided to learn Japanese Kanji in school, which was ‘the closest thing’ to Chinese. As he explained, ‘They have the Kanji which is supposed to be similar to 汉字 (Chinese character). So I thought that’s ok. I will just do it.’ He reported that Japanese Kanji became the first Chinese characters that he was exposed to. In daily life, he tended to ‘train’ and ‘force’ himself to read Chinese news and watch Chinese TV, and tried to ‘expose’ himself ‘as much as possible’ to Chinese. For Adam, it might not have been the return on the investment of various forms of capital but instead his embodied dispositions of Chineseness that drove him to pursue CHL. This was reflected in the statistical models in the initial quantitative phase whereby his CHL proficiency was predicted by his habitus of Chineseness instead of various forms of capital that he invested in CHL practice. En-ning also considered this habitus of Chineseness an internal driving force behind learning CHL. She reported, ‘The difference is between a white person learning Chinese and the overseas Chinese learning Chinese.’ When asked to explain this, En-ning added, ‘For Chinese Australians learning Chinese, learning the language immediately

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raises issues of identity, belonging, culture, and history. I think this means they are often highly motivated because of the numerous factors driving them to learn.’ For En-ning, Chineseness seemed to be associated with Chinese ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to Chinese cultural history and heritage. She considered these dimensions within Chineseness to be the factors driving Chinese Australians to learn CHL. In brief, these participants’ Chineseness as their habitus operated at a level that was simultaneously conscious and unconscious. They did make language choices in strategic ways, and try to use the rules of different fields to their advantage, but at the same time they were influenced, or almost driven, by values and expectations that they derived from their habitus. Though they might be conscious of learning Chinese as their HL strategically, they might not be aware that their motives, goals and aspirations were often generated through their habitus of Chineseness.

Chapter Summary This chapter rendered a comprehensive analysis and interpretation of the data emerging from the interviews. Findings relating to the meanings that participants attached to CHL were interpreted through the theoretical framework developed from Bourdieu’s sociology. By participants’ accounts, CHL competence can produce new capital for all participants as a return on their investment. Firstly, all participants indicated that CHL competence could create more and better job opportunities in future labour markets. As such, their CHL competence has the potential to produce economic capital. Secondly, participants’ CHL competence contributed to their capture of different forms of cultural capital. Objectified cultural capital was produced through their CHL learning, existing in the forms of purchased cultural goods, such as Chinese textbooks and books, as well as Chinese TV shows. Embodied cultural capital, such as gaining Chinese cultural knowledge, being able to sing Chinese songs and being adapted to Chinese ways of doing and thinking, was captured through participants’ CHL learning. Institutionalised cultural capital, for example, educational credits, was also produced through participants’ CHL learning. Thirdly, CHL competence helped the participants build social capital in Chinese-speaking worlds, including better communication with family members, more contacts within friendship networks and more engagement in social lives. Fourthly, CHL competence benefited the participants in terms of access to recognised awards, honour and pride, all of which can be understood as forms of symbolic capital. In addition to the production of new capital, CHL

Field

Habitus

Symbolic capital

Social capital

Cultural capital

Economic capital

Concepts

Communication with family members Communication with friends Socialisation with people Recognition by people Awards Family roots Embodied dispositions Unconscious dispositions Conscious actions Different values in different situations Catering to the field of forces A social place containing agents struggling for positions by the control of resources The forces of fields that structure agency and shape agents’ practices in line with the rules of fields

Immanent propensities linked to cultural history that drive the actions both intentionally and unintentionally

Reputations for competence and images of respectability and honourability

Institutionalised cultural capital: Cultural competence with a conventional, constant, legally guaranteed value in connection to certain institutions Contacts and group memberships that provide actual or potential support and access to valued resources

Objectified cultural capital: Material forms of cultural goods Embodied cultural capital: Lasting dispositions of mind and body, existing in the form of schemata of perceptions and actions

Chinese cultural goods

Understanding of Chinese culture Chinese way of doing things Formal education credits

Convertible into money

Coding criteria

Job opportunities

Benefits/Meanings of CHL

Table 4.2 Interview data summary

√ √ √

√

√ √

√ √

√

√

√

Bob

√ √ √ √

√ √

√

√

√

√

Adam

√ √ √ √

√ √

√

√ √

√

√

√

√

√ √

√

√ √

√

√

√

√

Crystal Dianna

√

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

√

√

√

En-ning

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Table 4.3 Contributing factors to CHL proficiency Concepts

Economic capital

Cultural capital

Social capital

Contributing factors Money spent on CHL learning, e.g. textbooks, tuition, visit to China, and Chinese TV shows Consumption of Chinese cultural goods through CHL learning, e.g. watching Chinese TV shows and reading Chinese books Family and friends’ supports in CHL learning

Adam

Bob

√

√

Symbolic capital

Recognition by people

√ √

Habitus

Embodied dispositions Unconscious dispositions Conscious actions

Dianna

√

En-ning

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√

√ √

Crystal

√ √

√

√ √

√

competence enabled the participants to claim their Chineseness. As such, CHL competence was associated with participants’ habitus. In conclusion, CHL practice offered meaningful benefits for these participants in the production or reproduction of various forms of capital and the reinforcement or recapturing of their habitus of Chineseness. Table 4.2 summarises the main findings from the interview data. Furthermore, the findings from the interview data conformed to the findings from the initial quantitative phase. The initial quantitative investigation has revealed that both participants’ habitus of Chineseness and their invested capital can contribute to their CHL proficiency. Similar findings emerged from the subsequent interview data. As summarised in Table 4.3, money spent on CHL learning, parents’ and friends’ support in CHL learning, consumption of Chinese cultural goods in the process of CHL learning, face issues in CHL learning, and conscious and unconscious dispositions of Chineseness all contributed to CHL proficiency. In Bourdieu’s sense, habitus and various forms of capital made sense of the choice of CHL in given fields.

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In summary, participants’ CHL competence, produced through various social practices associated with CHL learning at given times across certain places, was recognised as linguistic capital with different value in different fields. Production or reproduction of various forms of capital and reinforcement or recapturing of the habitus of Chineseness happened in a process of exchange, an exchange of value and forms of resources. Participants’ various forms of capital and their habitus of Chineseness were convertible into their CHL competence and reconvertible into themselves in identical or expanded forms within the field of exchange. It was through this process that participants’ CHL competence, as linguistic capital, realised its exchange value.

5 Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language: A Perplexed Project In the previous two chapters, the quantitative and the qualitative evidence vindicated the inherent interdependence among Chinese Australians’ CHL learning, their habitus of Chineseness, and various forms of capital captured, produced and reproduced. The quantitative and the qualitative investigation was underpinned by Bourdieu’s sociological triad of capital, habitus and field that comes to shape, and is concomitantly shaped and reshaped through, social practice. Findings from the quantitative and the qualitative analyses helped to claim the usefulness of Bourdieu’s sociology in CHL contexts of Australia and beyond. For over two decades, colleagues of CHL research have engaged with many micro- and macro-textures to contemplate both the means and the ends of CHL learning. CHLLs’ age, generation, self-identification, language usage pattern at home and years of CHL learning have been widely considered to be related to CHL learning. In this respect, learning Chinese as a HL is a perplexed project full of pathos, detours and distractions constantly emerging from the nexus of psychological, sociological, educational and biological combinatory effects. The current chapter will make an attempt to integrate the quantitative and the qualitative evidence to portray an enriched image and nuanced trajectory of Chinese Australians with respect to their CHL learning in the social fields of Australia and beyond.

Chinese Australians, a Heterogeneous Group of Chinese Heritage Language Learners Previously in this book, Chinese Australians, though with the same ancestry, have been described as a demographically diverse group, constitutive of people reporting different birthplaces, age of immigration (if born outside of Australia), generations, language usage patterns at home, years of formal CHL learning, self-labelling and number of visits to China. In what follows, I will revisit these diverse and dynamic features and link these features to CHL proficiency. 130

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In the previous chapter and elsewhere (Mu, 2013), I have debated that Chinese language accrues different values in different fields. Hence, birthplace was coded according to the hierarchical value of Mandarin in different social spaces. Mandarin proficiency was of particular interest because of its increasing value in various linguistic fields (Mu, 2013), Australia in particular (Tasker, 2012). Informed by Mu (2013), the scale of the variable ‘birthplace’ ranged from ‘1’ (Indonesia), where Mandarin has been historically discriminated and continuously disregarded (Purdey, 2006); through ‘2’ (Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam), ‘3’ (Hong Kong), ‘4’ (Macao, Singapore and Malaysia) and ‘5’ (Taiwan), where Mandarin presents an increasing value across these linguistic fields (Mu, 2013); to ‘6’ (Chinese mainland), where Mandarin is the only official language. Similarly, language usage pattern at home was coded according to the intensity of the use of Mandarin with dependent/direct family members. The scale ranged from ‘1’, English only; through ‘2’, English and Indonesian mixed with a little Mandarin, ‘3’, English and Cantonese and ‘4’, a Chinese dialect and Mandarin; to ‘5’, Mandarin only. The scale of age of immigration ranged from ‘0’ if born in Australia, to 13 years of age. The scale of generation ranged from ‘1’, first generation, to ‘4’, fourth generation or generation further removed. The scale of years of formal CHL learning ranged from ‘0’ to ‘15’. The scale of self-labelling ranged from ‘1’, Australian; through ‘2’, Chinese Australian but more Australian, ‘3’, Chinese Australian half and half, and ‘4’, Chinese Australian but more Chinese; to ‘5’, Chinese. The scale of number of visits to China ranged from 0 to 20. The scale score of CHL proficiency was computed by multiplying the individual’s raw score on each CHL skill, namely CHL listening, speaking, reading and writing, by the proportionally weighted factor score of each CHL skill respectively and summed (see Chapter 3). Because these variables used different units of measurement, they were transformed into standardised values to enable the comparison among them (Field, 2009). As shown in Table 5.1, CHL proficiency has statistically significant medium strong to strong correlations with the variables mentioned. Better CHL proficiency seems to be associated with Chinese Australians born in a place where Mandarin has accrued more legitimate value, or/and from an earlier generation, who have moved to live in Australia at an older age, used more Mandarin at home, studied Mandarin longer, considered themselves more Chinese, or/and visited China more frequently. These findings are in accordance with those from extant research. For example, Oh and Fuligni (2010) found that the HL proficiency of the surveyed Asian Americans, many of who were of Chinese ancestry, was positively associated with their age of immigration.

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Table 5.1 Correlation between CHL proficiency and demographic variables CHL proficiency

Significance level

Birthplace Generation Age of immigration

.50 –.56 .53